How Do You Like Them Apples?

            Yesterday morning my roommates and I discovered the apples.  I can’t say they were best looking apples I’ve ever seen painted, but there they were—captured in watercolor, framed in a nice silver frame, and firmly taped to the glass door of our townhouse.  How this painting got there is a complete mystery to the inhabitants of THV 304, but after asking all of the usual suspects if they had anything to do with it, the townhouse almost unanimously agreed they were somehow connected to me.  I say “almost” because I am the only one who indignantly disagreed, wondering how in the world I could somehow be responsible for this strange still life that somehow materialized between the hours of 1:00 am and 8:00 am.  Their reasoning?  Well you’re the artsy one, Allison. 

            Which sparked my real idea for this week’s blog topic: my UMKC class.  In a previous post I mentioned that I am working on putting together an Art History minor (http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2011/09/art-of-asking-it-really-is-miracle-that.html), but it requires that I take classes outside of Rockhurst, because we do not technically offer enough upper level Art History classes to constitute a minor.  One way that I am going about getting the rest of those hours this semester is by taking a class at UMKC called History of Modern Art through the KCASE exchange program.  Through KCASE, Rockhurst students can take one class per semester at a variety of other institutions, including UMKC and the Art Institute.  The paperwork seemed a little daunting at first, with getting approval from varies parties at both schools, establishing myself as a visiting scholar, and making sure that my credits would transfer, but luckily the path ended up being fairly straightforward and all of my applications and forms went through smoothly. 

So now twice a week I hoof it over to UMKC to learn more about some of my favorite artists: Christo, Rauschenberg, and Degas, and to learn about some things I’ve never even heard of, such as Japonisme, which refers to the influence of Japanese art on the West in the 19^th century, and Musée de l’Orangerie (a name that is just plain delicious to say), which refers to a building in Paris that once housed oranges but now hosts roomfuls of giant Monet paintings.  And I love it.  It’s an opportunity I never thought I would end up taking advantage of but I’m so glad I did.  Rockhurst may be a small school, but it certainly knows how to maximize its resources and connections—something I’m also discovering as I embark on The Great Internship Hunt (but that is another story for another day).  A few chats with advisors, some paperwork at the registrar’s office, and now it looks like I’m actually going to get to be an Art History minor.  How do you like them apples?   

Christo's "Umbrellas" installation in California

Some goodies:

http://www.rockhurst.edu/academic-advising/faqs/#23 - info about KCASE and other registration FAQ's

http://www.buzzfeed.com/burnred/artists-sandwiches-281t - a gem from my UMKC professor for those of you who like both art and sandwiches



Taxidermy and Greek Life

Ahh the week before school starts.  When you’re spending that week back at the Rock, it’s an excellent time to try out fancy cupcake recipes, catch up on YouTube videos, eat the food in your kitchen that you are reasonable sure is still good from before break, and resign yourself to the fact that your living conditions will never be as good (or clean) as they are under your parents’ roof.  I came back to school way early this semester—last Monday and classes just started Wednesday—because I am taking a class at UMKC this semester, which is an adventure for another post.

            But there is only so much sitting around the house one can do, and after catching myself half-watching the same episode of American Stuffers (you guessed it, taxidermy) for the second time that week, I was ready for things to pick up.  Luckily, that’s exactly what they did, because we were on the verge of Sorority Recruitment week.

            Sororities at Rockhurst are a lot different than at bigger schools...recruitment doesn’t take place until second semester, the sororities are fewer and smaller, and inter-Greek and Greek-unaffiliated relations seem to be stronger than they are at bigger schools, going by descriptions of friends at those schools.  Greek life at Rockhurst is a little more relaxed, and that’s what I love about it.

            Nevertheless, recruitment is a serious business, and my sorority (Alpha Sigma Alpha) assembles several days before it starts for Work Week, which involves a frenzy of crafts.  Yes, crafts, a hallmark of sorority recruitment regardless of the size of your school.  I hot-glued safety pins to name tags.  Painted six foot tall letters until 1:00 am.  And somehow achieved the impossible feat of getting Oreos to stand upright on a cupcake (Minnie Mouse ears, they were very cute).  I left the house at 9:00 am and didn’t get back until midnight some days, and I loved every minute of it.  We got plenty of work done, but we also got to be goofy and remind ourselves why we joined ASA in the first place.  Because we can all laugh about our “last night” of Taco Bell and swear up and down that the diet starts tomorrow (a pintrest challenge this time), because we can have a Parent Trap movie night and dress up as different characters, and because burning my arm on a pan while cooking a giant breakfast dinner was totally worth it when there were twelve of us crowded in my dining room laughing and talking.  And now, a week later, we have a whole new class added to our sorority—the Pearls, which is our name for our pledges. 

            I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the semester.  A little down time to adjust from Christmas break, a lot of bonding with sisters, and a whole new set of girls to get to know.  Hello, 2012!



Junior ASA class...aka "The J Squad"

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.