Hash Browns and Making a Scene

…are two of my favorite things.  I have always loved breakfast food, but Rockhurst breakfast food is in a league of its own.  There are very few things I will get out of bed for on a Saturday morning (which sometimes turns into afternoon with my sleeping habits, thank God the cafeteria serves breakfast until 2:00 pm), but a plate of  hash browns—specifically the square ones, aka “square potatoes”—is one of them.  Luckily for me, Rockhurst has a wonderful tradition around finals time that fits much better with my night owl ways—Midnight Breakfast.  Midnight Breakfast always kicks off our finals week with as much breakfast food as you can eat between 10 pm and midnight for the price of one canned good or $1, courtesy of Student Senate.  Everyone is there, and I do mean everyone.  Just about all of Rockhurst turns out to enjoy music, breakfast, and lots of loud conversation before buckling down for finals.  It’s everything I love about going to a small school—being able to look around the cafeteria and seeing all your friends, your friends’ friends, the guy in your Shakespeare class, the girl who was your orientation leader freshmen year but you swear doesn’t remember you (she probably does).  I just want to run around the cafeteria and say hi to everyone, and the minute I try to walk somewhere I find myself conducting multiple conversations at once, yelling at someone walking by to hold on one second because boy do I have a story for them, and I haven’t seen so-and-so all week, I wonder how their nursing test went….you get the picture.  It’s happy chaos.

            What could possibly improve situation with so much good food and good company?  A flash mob, of course.  A group of girls in my sorority (Alpha Sigma Alpha) decided to do one as a fun way to kick off finals…and somehow I got roped into joining.  Don’t get me wrong, I do secretly love these things, so it didn’t take much convincing.  While I am too much of a chicken and too busy to get involved in real theatre at Rockhurst, I have enjoyed doing smaller stuff, like our student written and produced plays, Theaterworks, or random impromptu performances friends have cooked up (we did a freeze frame kind of thing of the Last Supper painting in the cafeteria once).  But I can’t dance to save my life, so this was a bit more of a challenge.  But another awkward dancing friend and I decided we would just be the last to join the mob, because we didn’t want to miss out.  And it was a blast…we did a mash up of songs and I think once everyone got over the shock of seeing us suddenly start dancing in the cafeteria, people enjoyed it.  And during the next Christmas song that came on after we were done, a ton of people suddenly stood up at their tables and started clapping and dancing.  Pretty soon half the cafeteria was rocking out to “All I Want for Christmas is You,” yelling, clapping, twirling each other around.  And we all just looked at each other and said “only at Rockhurst.”  It is perfect that during the most hellish week of school, I always get the best reminder of why I love this place. 

link to the video (hope this works: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2355202278054

           

 Now That We've Had A Week to Digest the Canned Cranberries

           “Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus...” 

Of the many suggestions I received about how to begin my Thanksgiving blog (runners up included prairie dogs and gin rummy), this one was the winner, suggested by my dad but quoted by my sister, Andrea.  Twice.  At each Thanksgiving dinner we sat down to, Andrea made a valiant attempt to deliver these lines from Talladega Nights with a straight face, and (sadly) we all cracked up both times.

It has been exactly a week since Thanksgiving, and now that I’ve finished this week’s slew of papers, it seems like it is time to return to that day of chocolate pie and crescent rolls (I am one of those rare souls that doesn’t really like turkey), and dedicate this post to my most loyal readers—my family.  I sent the link to my dad, who sent the link to my mom, who naturally sent the link to the entire family, and now I have an appreciative audience with all sorts of suggestions regarding what I should write about.

But while I’ll spare you the details of prairie dog hunting and gin rummy rules, I will say how nice it was to see my family.  The best part about all their suggestions is that everyone seemed to be giving them at once—compliments and comments interspersed with questions about school and lots of hugs.  While Aunt Katie asked about my bet, my 10-year-old cousin Hallie was asking me a thousand questions about my roommates and my house (she loves asking about college life)—I’m thinking I should just make her roommate stat cards, like baseball cards, so she can have them for quick reference. 

Thanksgiving was a day for some serious gratitude and for some fun times.  On the serious side, my grandma on my dad’s side (“Gamma”) made a speech before dinner about her gratitude for our family that had at least me, my mom, and my sister tearing up.  On my mom’s side of the family, we said the Thanksgiving grace we say every year (no, not the one from Talladega Nights), which my grandma (“Nana”) just read to me over the phone so I could include it here:

“Thank you, Lord, for this Thanksgiving gathering.  We are grateful to be connected to each other and to those who are absent but remain dear to us.  We remember with gratitude those who have lived before us and passed on a legacy that enriches us.  We anticipate with joy those will live after us.  Oh God, we give our deepest thanks that we are one with each other, with what has been, and with what will be.  Amen.”

            Fun times included my cousin Brian and I (as newbie 21-year-olds) discovering that the Thanksgiving wine isn’t as good as the sparkling cider, and trying to sneakily dump our glasses in various other adult’s glasses while no one was looking.  At my Nana and Pop’s house we discovered that it was almost impossible to play Scattegories and taboo together because we all think too much alike—who automatically thinks Betty Boop for a famous female?  Apparently both Aunt Katie and I do.  And Sam and Andrea—my siblings—both yelling “Beer Pong!” for a hobby that begins with ‘b’ definitely turned some heads (especially because I know neither have them have even seen a beer pong game).  I dread the onset of finals, but I enjoy thinking back to that day—a time to be Thankful for all the blessings and happiness I have found both with my family and here at school. 

           

My favorite people (The Body family)

           

Lost Causes

            St. Jude is probably the saint I pray to the most, because he is the patron saint of lost causes.  Every time I lose something, I say a prayer to St. Anthony to find it, and St. Jude for my hopeless memory.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to pray to St. Jude about my bet. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I had a bet going with my roommate that involved no fast food and no eating past 10:00.  But who thinks about fast food at 9:00 am?  Not me, which is why I didn’t realize the McDonalds hash brown I ate with a visiting friend before I left town counted as fast food until after I ate it.  Figures.  If I had known I was going to lose, I would have at least gone for something better than a hash brown.  My consequence involved not eating after 8:00 pm for a whole weekend and—the reason I’m telling this story—admitting to my adoring public that I lost the bet.  That was a point my roommate particularly insisted on, so there it is, I’m a slight lost cause when it comes to remembering the bet. 

However, as the picture shows, clearly I have had some recent (and unusual) experience with fast food.  Sam and I decided that it would be a good idea to take a holiday break to get some Taco Bell and Burger King on Halloween…which actually didn’t happen until the next night, so it was more like an All Saints Day fast food celebration.  Right around midnight.  This pretty much meant that our homework was a lost cause (St. Jude, a little help with that Art and Literature presentation would be nice…).  Since this was the case, we figured we would go all out with our night of taking a break, which meant watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, our favorite show of the moment.  Unfortunately, all our roommates were asleep or about to go to sleep in various locations around the house, so we needed a place to go that had access to an outlet and was far enough away from them not to wake them up.  One of our favorite scenes in Grey’s Anatomy involves Meredith and Christina (the two main characters) sitting fully clothed in the bathtub and on the bathroom floor talking about life.  Sam and I have always joked about doing this, which is how we ended up in a bathtub in the middle of the night eating fast food.  Sometimes you just have to give up of being a mature, productive college student as a lost cause for a night (but not every night!), and embrace the wonderful, stress-relieving feeling of doing something totally ridiculous.  St. Jude, we might be lost causes every now and then, but we celebrated your day in style. 

           

Would You Like to Know Your Fortune, Little Girl?

I have been saving this post for a time when I could get ahold of the pictures that go with it, so enjoy this Halloween throwback: 

           I am petrified of Haunted Houses.  I am a Social Mentor, and one of our events is taking the freshmen to a Haunted House.  Every year I stand at the very back of the line for the bus in the hopes that there won’t be enough room for me to go (I love Social Mentors, but I cannot handle Haunted Houses), and it finally worked this year!  In past years I have had to go through the entire event with my face buried in someone’s back, which is just asking for your legs to be fake chain sawed.  But since I did not have to go to the event, I thought that I had dodged my haunted house bullet for this year.  Not the case.    

Our community center always hosts a Safe Trick-or-Treat event for families in the neighborhood, and the event includes booths with games and prizes as well as a haunted house populated with student volunteers.  Without asking me first and only three days before the event, my roommate Samantha signed up our RAKERS club to host a room in the Haunted House this year, foiling me in my attempt to avoid haunted houses.  But I figured I’d give it a try.  After debating possible themes for our room, we decided on a mishmash of literary characters, house of wax statues, and a creepy fortune teller/voodoo woman who would do most of the talking.  I, who hate haunted houses, was to be the fortune teller.  Let’s remember that I am also short and not at all scary-looking, so I had no idea how I was going to frighten anybody. 

            But frighten people I did.  After a few rounds of being unable to contain my giggles at the thought of me being scary and the sight of my friend Isy (dressed as Poe) carrying a raven and asking people in a creepy voice if they wanted to pet his bird, I finally hit my stride.  I was waving my arms around in the strobe lights and telling dark fortunes right and left.  By the end of the night I was even able to join Samantha in shrieking “STAY, STAY WITH US!!” at frightened kids (terrible, I know) without worrying that my voice was too Minnie Mouseish to be scary.  Who knew I had it in me?  But we made one heck of a room, and even though I hate haunted houses I love Halloween, so getting into the spirit by embracing my inner fortune teller/voodoo woman made this my favorite Halloween experience at Rockhurst. 

Operation Saturday           

            I apologize for not posting in a while, but life at the Rock has been getting busier as the semester progresses.  Case in point: Saturday.  My Saturday began with me to pulling on an old pair of jeans and a bandana for phase one of my completely booked Saturday: the honeysuckle battle.  This took place in some woods off the side of the road (my roommate Samantha is continually shocked by my total lack of directional sense, and that vague description is an excellent example) through the KC Wildlands program.  Several of my Alpha Sigma Alpha sisters and myself had signed up to spend our morning clipping/ripping/hacking honeysuckle to clear the way for an environmental group to do some burning in the woods, which would clear the way for natural prairie grasses to grow there.  If I wasn’t awake when I got there, I certainly was after a few hours of climbing hills and trails with my clippers on a chilly Fall morning.  But it was beautiful there.  And the best part of the experience was getting to visit areas that had already been cleared to see what the end result of our labors would eventually look like.  Samantha and I decided then and there that we wanted to live in the woods.  Or at the very least go back soon to do some hiking.  But my tightly scheduled day was not over, and I had to reluctantly leave the woods for phase two: the tea party.

            The event was called “Afternoon Tea with the English Club,” and somehow I ended up in charge of planning it.  The tea was hosted by Dr. Miller, an English professor, and the guests included English students and professors.  The tea was very “civilized” as Dr. Miller likes to say, and we had a good time sipping tea and sampling all the interesting dishes (cucumber sandwiches, Russian tea cakes, my semi-burnt gooey butter cake).  High points included hearing submissions from our impromptu writing contest (the winner’s featured a fake Works Cited page full of fabricated sources about ghosts), seeing Mitchell King’s spot-on impression of Dr. Arthur (don’t worry, Dr. Arthur was there to witness it and laugh too), and observing the many wonder’s of Dr. Miller’s house (i.e. a mummified ibis).  After clearing dishes and forcing people to take home leftovers, it was on to phase three: Black Tie. 

            Black Tie is one of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity’s dances, and I was especially excited because several of my sorority sisters and two of my roommates had also been asked.  So I rushed home to put on my dancing shoes (metaphorically, that is, I can’t dance in heels to save my life) and head out to that.  It was a great night, and a perfect way to end a busy Saturday.  I was absolutely exhausted on Sunday, but there is something satisfying about navigating a day so full of diverse activities.  I got to enjoy service, dirt, and fresh air in the morning; civilized, literary company in the afternoon; and some dancing and socializing at night.  One of Rockhurst’s core values is Cura Personalis, which means “care of the whole person,” and even though Saturday was crazy, that’s what it felt like.  A little bit of everything you need in life. 

Cardinal Crazy

            I guess if there’s one lesson about diversity I’ve learned at Rockhurst, it’s that not everyone is a Cardinals fan.  Shocking, I know.  How could you not be with an all-star like Pujols, the loveable Yadi, and the adorable and game winning David Freese?  But whether you’re a diehard Cardinals fan or not, it seems like every St. Louisan on campus is rallying around the Redbirds this week. 

            Not so with the non-St. Louis Rockhurst population.  And seeing as only half of my house is from St. Louis, and the other half hails from Oklahoma, Kansas City, and Piedmont, Missouri, I am experiencing a bit of culture shock at living with people who do not structure their nights around the World Series games—though I’m sure they’d say we’re the real culture shock.  I had accepted this sad reality though, and was used to Emma, Elizabeth, and me being the only inhabitants of THV 304 who gathered around the TV during game time or needed text updates when we had to be somewhere else. 

            Which is why I did a double-take when Sam, the Oklahoman, said “Ahh, I wanted to make it back in time for the Cardinals game!” when we were running late getting dinner last night.  For a brief moment I was thrilled at the thought that we had actually converted her to the ranks of Cardinal Nation, but it turns out that wasn’t the case.  Sam could care less about the Cardinals beating the Rangers.  She just wanted to watch us—particularly Elizabeth and Emma, because I am pretty tame—watch the game.  Apparently there is something entertaining about seeing generally dignified Rockhurst women go bananas over a baseball game.  Apparently there is something funny about hearing Emma yelling “COME ON, FAT ELVIS.  COME ON, BIG PUMA,” Elizabeth curled in a ball on the couch upon realizing that we have nobody left in the bullpen, and all of us jumping off the couch punching the air and doing victory dances at each win.  Apparently we are like animals in a zoo to her when our Redbirds are playing.  So much for her taking an interest in Cardinal baseball. 

            But we’ll convert her yet.  There’s currently enough frozen pizza and Rotel dip in our kitchen to convince anybody to stick around the house tonight, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a few wild cheers out of her before the night is over…

LET’S GO CARDINALS!!

 The St. Louis contingent of 304.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

I have a confession to make: this is not my first attempt at blogging.  Yes, I admit, I am a one-time failed blogger.  Why?  Not because of crippling writers block or a lack of interesting incidents to write about.  It was the website background that did me in.  My friend and I decided last spring that we wanted to try our hand at blogging, so we created an account on tumbler.  But we could not figure out how to pick a background for our site that didn’t make the text hard to read.  After several attempts at solving this problem, we were unable to even find the URL to our blog to begin with, so we were forced to give up.  Foiled—not by our ineptitude at writing—but by our lack of technological skills.

Although Dr. Kovich, Rockhurst’s resident Shakespeare expert, will animatedly swear up and down that Shakespeare would never have joined twitter (“Real men do not TWEET!” he declares), the English department as a whole seems to be moving into the age of technology.  For instance, I have been forced to remedy my blogging incompetence both by creating this blog and by using a blog for a class I am taking called Honors Art and Literature.  We are using a site called edublogs to share images and information about the books we are reading and the papers we are writing— by tonight I have to come up with a 150 word reflection and some images regarding research I have done on Native American vision quest shields for a presentation.  But the biggest foray into technology of the English department was just revealed to us English majors in an email I received today: tweeting about literature and writing. 

Again, I have an admission: I don’t have a twitter account.  Since I am twitter-illiterate (though perhaps not for long), I will just pass along the information we received in the email.  The first step is to follow @RULitGeeks on twitter, and then follow these steps listed in the email if you tweet about English related things:

·         If you talk with someone or have an interesting thought about any work of literature, from a class or not, put the hash tag #RUreading anywhere in your tweet.  Also try to evoke a sense of the conversation in your tweet—noting a title, author, theme, genre, character, rhyme scheme, interpretive disagreement, whatever.

·         If you have a conversation or an interesting thought about your own writing or the act of writing, put the hash tag #RUwriting anywhere in your tweet.

·       Finally, if you want to announce, attend, or comment on a literary event, such as the poetry reading by Robert Bly, then put the hash tag #RUlitevent into your tweet.

Although I’m sure Shakespeare was a “real man” and the word “tweeting” is a bit cringe-worthy sometimes, a humorously true saying about Shakespeare is “Shakespeare got to get paid, son,” meaning Shakespeare knew what to do to be a successful writer and he did it.  It seems like in this day and age utilizing technology for literary purposes might be what it takes to be successful.  So, to tweet or not to tweet, to become technologically savvy or not become technologically savvy?  I think Shakespeare would do it. 

For all you tweeters out there, feel free to follow @RULitGeeks to see how our little experiment is going! 

Education Epiphanies

It is strange to go around for two years telling people your major and taking classes in it, but then one day having the realization that you actually might know something about your field that the average person might not know.  It seems like an obvious fact, but you just get used to going to classes—just like you did in high school—and working with professors that know infinitely more than you think you’ll ever know.  Not to mention that paradox in which the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.  But then one day you surprise yourself and think, “Wow, maybe I do know a thing or two about modernist poetry.”  Or something like that. 

This epiphany was actually sparked by my roommate Elizabeth, who is majoring in Biology and minoring in Chemistry and Spanish.  We are both officers of the Random Acts of Kindness Sharers club, which mostly entails the distribution of free food, and to that end we were baking about 100 cookies in our kitchen one night when she had the chance exercise her chemistry skills.  In all the bedlam and disarray of our kitchen that night, we accidentally left a Tupperware lid on the stove, which was not on, but the oven was on and was hot enough to melt that bright orange plastic right to the burner.  As soon as we noticed we pulled the burner off the stove and started frantically attempting to rinse and scrape the plastic off the burner, which wasn’t really working. 

Suddenly, Elizabeth starts muttering to herself like a mad scientist about the chemical properties of acetone.  At least that’s what it sounded like to me, being that my only possible contribution as an English major was “out damn’d spot!” (that’s a Macbeth quote for all you Shakespeare lovers out there).  She then looked up at me and said (in plain English now), “I think that we can get this off using nail polish remover.”  And to our surprise, it worked.  All because Elizabeth knew the chemical properties of acetone.  After years of slaving away through organic and analytical chemistry classes, she found that she actually knew enough to apply her knowledge to a real world situation. 

The same thing has been happening to me this year as well, though in smaller doses.  A friend from another school texted me asking if I could name instances of masculinity or compassion in Steinbeck novels, and it turned out that I could.  My sister wanted to know if I could tell her about a précis and I could do that too.  I saw a preview for the movie Anonymous (about Shakespeare) and I could explain to my friends why it wasn’t accurate (Shakespeare was very open about the sources from which he borrowed; it was a common practice in those days).  And suddenly I feel like I am starting to get a better picture of this beast called literature, just like Elizabeth is with chemistry.  And next time I tell someone my major, I think I’ll believe it a little bit more myself. 

Elizabeth and I pondering the chemical and symbolic nature of snow.  Or just taking a break from homework.

Finding God in the Bahamian Jungle

Since service trip applications are due this Tuesday, and I am thinking about applying to go on one, this week seemed like a good time to reflect back on my first service trip at Rockhurst.  Freshman year over winter break I got the opportunity to go on a service trip to the Bahamas with a group of students and faculty.  I knew that I wanted to go at the end of winter break, because the idea of not seeing my family at all from January until Easter still rattled my homebody-ness.  I also knew that I wanted to go to an international location, because this would probably be the only time I would get to do it so inexpensively, since the university subsidises a large portion of the cost.  Bahamas was the only international trip available over winter break, so to the Bahamas it was.

I know what you’re thinking.  Bahamas. Beaches. Vacation.  What kind of service would one do in the Bahamas?  I didn’t know either, but I figured it would be like the other trips: building houses, playing with children, things like that.  While there were houses and children involved, I was dead wrong about the purpose of our trip. 

            The first thing I noticed at the  meeting was the powerpoint slide with a picture of a jungle on it.  Sean Grube, the intimidating but loveable discipline man in residence life, announced that the bulk of our service would involve cutting paths through that jungle.  With machetes.  I had signed up to machete through the Bahamian jungle.  The purpose of these paths would be to allow the people on the island to get to the blue holes in the middle of the jungle.  Blue holes look like lakes, but they are really places where the ocean comes up under the island.  They are beautiful and deep, and National Geographic did a special on one that we actually got to swim in.

Turns out the trip had a bit of an environmental justice component to it.  In addition to cutting paths, we also picked up trash one day, as well as painted a community center on the small island of Andros (the most beautiful place in the world, in my opinion).  What was amazing about Andros was that companies were not allowed to build resorts there, so the Island had only small cottages, a lot of jungle, and beautiful, untouched beaches stretching unbroken in both directions.  Standing on the edge of that beach with ocean in front of you, jungle behind you, and stars above you, you got the sense that this was what the world was supposed to look like.  That places like that Atlantis are fun and beautiful in their own way, but the world radiates a natural beauty that you miss when you mess with it too much. 

Could We Get a Phone Book Over Here? 

I have always been short.  My whole family is short, but at five feet tall I definitely take the cake.  Friends still ask me occasionally if I need a phone book when I sit down at a restaurant.  Which for some reason was the first thing I thought of when I sat down to dinner at the Grand Street Café with Caitlin Maloney, a handful of professors, and our visiting scholar, Reza Aslan.  A brief moment of panic followed when I realized that my feet couldn’t touch the ground when I was sitting in my chair—maybe I hadn’t come so far from those booster seat days after all.  And what does one talk about with a visiting scholar?  For that matter, what does one talk to with a table full of PhD holding professors?  I had done my homework: researched the scholar, wore an outfit that could be interpreted as casual or dressy, picked out exactly what I was going to order based on the online menu, and strategized with Caitlin about where we would sit (while we waited for everyone outside the restaurant, having arrived twenty minutes early).  But even though I have always wanted the opportunity to get to know the Rockhurst faculty a outside of the classroom, and I was thrilled to find that Dr. Aslan did work both in English and Theology (my majors), I still felt like a little girl again in the presence of all those academians. 

Thankfully, that was when Dr. Glen Young, a theology professor at Rockhurst, put my anxieties to rest.

“I’m going to sit by the students!” he said.  He sat by Caitlin and me and informed us that he too was a little intimidated by the scholar, so sitting towards the end of the table was a good strategy, because then we could just introduce ourselves and then be free to make small talk with the people around us.  We laughed and started to relax a bit.  Reza Aslan came in and we introduced ourselves and he asked about our majors, putting us at even more at ease with his laid-back, friendly demeanor.  The conversation then drifted to topics in the field of religious studies, and Caitlin and I—much more relaxed now—were free to listen without the pressure of having to chime in…and as we were listening, we realized we recognized a few of the things our dinner companions were talking about!  We whispered excitedly about how we knew who Bruce Lincoln was, and we had read one of Mircea Eliade’s books.  Granted, we knew nothing about first century Palestine or the ups and downs of attending academic conferences, but we were happy for small victories. 

By the end of the meal, we were on cloud nine from on our experience of keeping company with academics (this is revealing my inner nerd who can’t resist a scholarly event) and the delicious chocolate cake that the professors INSISTED we order since it was on Rockhurst (this is revealing my inner college student who can’t resist a free meal).  The lecture that followed on anti-Muslin sentiment in America was interesting and informative, and I have resolved to read one of Dr. Aslan’s books, How to Win a Cosmic War, as soon as possible. The meal was delicious, the speaker was amazing, and I am even more sure that someday I want to be able to keep up with all that intellectual conversation. 

So no, thank you, I would not like a phone book.

The Bet

What is harder exercising on a Friday afternoon when you could be napping?  Exercising on a Friday afternoon when your roommate is literally waving a slice of pizza under your nose.  They warn you about the Freshmen Fifteen, but what about the Townhouse Ten?  When you can suddenly bake pistachio and chocolate chip cookies to your heart’s content and frozen pizza is accessible at any hour of the night?  After a freshman year of up and down health habits (up—Billy Blanks Taebo videos with my roommate, down—Taco Bell at 2:00 am), I took up running and P90X sophomore year and started visiting the salad bar a little more.  There is a perfect park for running about a mile away from Rockhurst’s campus, Loose Park, and I love going there when the weather is nice, or just running on the Rockhurst field, which is handily lit up all night for night owls like myself.  But this year life in a townhouse full of baked goods and snacks has made staying healthy a bit more of a challenge.

            Enter the bet.  The other girl in the picture is my roommate Samantha—looks nice as can be but her hobbies include eating chips while laughing at my yoga skills and beating me in bets.  After she got a few days worth of enjoyment out of torturing me while I exercised, she and I decided that we really did need to change our bad eating habits and perhaps a friendly bet was just the thing to motivate us.  This particular bet involves no fast food and no eating after 10:00 pm (we are notorious for breaking out the pita chips and cream cheese while watching Grey’s Anatomy at 11:00 pm).  I have to give credit where credit is due—we borrowed this idea from three sophomore friends of ours who made a bet that the first person to eat sweets would have to dye their hair black for a week.  Samantha and I are trying to come up with some sort of similar consequence for the loser of our bet.  Suggestions so far include hair dying, chores, or having to get another piercing (and if you look at my first post, you can see that I’m not too keen on needles).  None of these have really jumped out at us yet, though, so we are open to suggestions (feel free to post some!).  I think this bet will be good for us in the long run, and I am excited to eat healthier to go with my running habit.  That being said, it’s 12:30 am on day one, and I’m starving. 

P.S. Stay tuned for another post later this week…I am going to dinner tomorrow with our visiting scholar Reza Aslan and I’ll update you all on that!

             

The Art of Asking

It really is a miracle that the Fine Arts department has not asked for a restraining order for me yet.  With the amount if times that Dr. Martin and Dr. Bicak have had to deal with me stopping by and asking questions, I wouldn’t blame them.  However, luckily for me these professors are more than willing to help someone like myself with a bit of an unorthodox undertaking.  I mentioned in my first post that I am minoring in Art History—“hopefully.”  I say hopefully because Rockhurst technically does not offer an Art History minor, only an Art minor.  But the school does offer enough Art History classes for an art lover like myself to get hooked on the subject and want to pursue it further.  It seemed like something that would fit nicely with my other majors, especially the idea of potentially tying writing and art together as an art critic.  So, after taking just about every Art History course Rockhurst offers (Integrated Humanities, Art History I, Art in the Galleries, and Non-Western Art), I started asking around to see if there was any way I could create my own minor.  I was sent to speak with Dr. Bicak, who was the head of the Fine Arts department at the time, and he was very enthusiastic and optimistic about this project.  We came up with a plan that involves me taking some classes at UMKC or the Art Institute through the KCASE program, taking some Art History when I study abroad next year (hopefully in Prague), and potentially doing an independent study (see the links below for more information on some of these programs Rockhurst offers).  Although I am still waiting to see if everything is going to work out with all of these options, I am excited about the possibilities and grateful that Dr. Bicak and my advisor Dr. Martin were willing to spend so much time scouring the course catalog with me and talking to other faculty members and administrators on my behalf.  Professors that have the availability and inclination to help students like me seem to be one of the benefits of a small school like Rockhurst.  And I am learning that sometimes if you ask (and ask, and ask, and ask) you can create a pretty good shot at receiving.    

KCASE Program - http://www.rockhurst.edu/registrar/guide/documents/ExchangePrograms_000.pdf

Study Abroad - http://www.rockhurst.edu/academic/international/studyabroad.asp

The Fabulous Life of Allison Marie Catherine Body

After getting up from my kitchen table three times for some chocolate icing, rearranging my pantry shelf, and checking my facebook, I think I have had enough time to ponder this first post: introducing myself.

 

The Basics:  My name is Allison Marie Catherine Body, I am a junior at Rockhurst, and I am a whopping 5 feet tall.  I’m from St. Louis (and for all you St. Louisans with that infamous question on the tip of your tongues, I graduated from Cor Jesu Academy).  I am double majoring in English and Theology with a minor in Art History (hopefully)—this is the part where everyone raises their eyebrows and says “Ohh, interesting, what do you plan on doing with that?”  Editing.  I would love to either edit books for a publishing company or work for some sort of literary journal or magazine.  And if that fails, I’ll just end up being a crazy cat lady living in my pre-med roommate’s basement with nothing but my typewriter and bathrobe.  But I’m holding out for the editing. 

The Many Pies I Have a Finger in at Rockhurst: I’m involved in CLC (Christian Life Communities, a branch of Campus Ministry), Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority, the honors program, English Club, Random Acts of Kindness Spreaders (RAKERS), Visiting Scholars Committee, Learning Center tutoring, Rockhurst Review editing, and a few other random things.  I take after my mother in my need to fill every minute of my schedule, and that compounded with my inability to say “no” to any commitment keeps me pretty busy.  But although I gripe and moan occasionally to my roommates about my lack of sleep, I really do love everything I’m involved in at Rockhurst, as well as the students, staff and faculty I have gotten to know, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Fun Facts About Me: I am irrationally terrified of needles (if you don’t believe me, observe the picture of me getting my ears double-pierced.  The woman at Claire’s said she’d never seen anyone make that face before).  My hobbies include pranking, making collages, making faces, reading (my favorite book is An American Childhood by Annie Dillard), running, and hanging out with my roommates.  The last embarrassing thing I did was set off the fire alarm making bacon about an hour ago.  I am an insanely picky eater, but I like weird foods like artichoke hearts, pancake batter, and anything drenched in hot sauce.  I have a pet hedgehog named Duchess Lola, who is hopefully surviving the care of my family (who are actually my favorite people) in St. Louis.  My favorite painting is called The Singing Butler by Jack Vettriano, and I could get lost in an Art Museum for hours. 

So there you have it—everything you need to know about Allison Marie Catherine Body.  Bottom line: I’m livin’ it up at Rockhurst, as they say.  If you’ll allow an English major her literary quotes, Thoreau says “suck out all the marrow of life,” and that’s what I’m about doing during my time at Rockhurst.  And I’m looking forward to blogging all about it.