The Cupboard at the Top of the Stairs   

I have an office.  Technically it is on loan to me for a while, and technically I share it, but for now I have my very own key and full use of said office.  I secretly love telling people about it, because it makes me feel all grown up, like even if I never figure out what the heck I am doing after graduation, at least I can say I had an office at one point in my life. 

            The office that I like to claim as my own is the Rockhurst Review office, and if we are really being honest and technical, it is more of a closet.  The office is on the second floor of Sedgwick, the humanities building (where I pretty much live).  I never knew it was there until recently; its door is right at the top of the stairs, and I always just assumed it was a storage closet (and like I said, for all intents and purposes it might as well be, since it is stacked floor to ceiling with books and journals).  But when I took over as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Rockhurst Review last year, I got my very own key and that little closet became half mine. 

            There are three things at Rockhurst besides schoolwork that I have pretty much sold my soul to (or at least all of my sleep and free time): CLC (Christian Living Communities), Alpha Sigma Alpha, and the Rockhurst Review.  The Rockhurst Review is Rockhurst’s nationally recognized literary magazine.  We have one magazine, Infectus, which showcases student work, but the Review accepts submissions from all over the country and is a real—albeit small—literary journal, graciously funded and run by Dr. P.C. Miller, an English professor (and one of my favorite people to chat with).  Freshman year I started helping with the magazine as a junior editor by reading submissions and giving my opinion as to whether or not they should make it into the publication.  I loved it.  I never really knew what I was going to read—a beautiful short story about a prison guard or an “incredibly true” Bigfoot story—but I knew that if I could someday find a job someday doing work like this (actually getting paid to read!) I couldn’t ask for anything more in a career.  So I’ve stuck with it, and I got an office out of the deal this year. 

Friday afternoons are my favorite time to sit in the office.  I usually go there after work and meetings and catch up on reading and organizing submissions.  There is a narrow window that looks over a little courtyard (affectionately dubbed “The Secret Garden” by some friends of mine), and the whole places smells perfectly like books.  There are shelves with old editions of the journal dating back to the 80s completely covering one wall, and the English Honors society occasionally uses the office for storage before their book sale, so it is a little cramped, but I have just enough room to squeeze behind a battered old desk with piles of submissions stacked around me and get some work done.  Listening to music (and dancing a little because that’s the beauty of having an office to which only two people have a key), shuffling through folders, and cracking a window to breathe in a little fresh air mixed with old paper smell, I thank my lucky stars that I found my own little corner of Rockhurst (literally) and that it’s given me a little better picture of what I want to do someday. 


Link to Rockhurst Review information: http://www.rockhurst.edu/center-arts-letters/rockhurst-review/