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.