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.