Impending Storms

            Today is a snow day, something I will never stop being excited about despite the fact that I am 22 years old.  There is almost a foot of snow, no one has touched our streets, and the weather channel is telling us that the worst storm won’t even come until 5:00 tonight (so hopefully snow day tomorrow to make it a 4 day weekend?).  Right now I am settling in to a day of warm foods, snow ice cream (an old family recipe), and alternating between writing my thesis and watching Netflix.  Life is going to be pretty great today. 

            But at the moment, it’s yesterday I’m thinking of.  The day before a potential snow day is hyperactive compared to the snow day itself.  People running to the stores (I witnessed empty bread and egg shelves at price chopper), everyone giving contradictory weather reports, and just the general buzz of speculation, excitement, doubt, and dread in a few cases (to those people, I say “Grinch.”). 

            Yesterday was also the day of the graduation fair.  My classmates and I filled out forms for our cap and gown sizes, contemplated how much we actually wanted to spend on announcements, and chatted with career services about our plans for next year…or lack thereof. 

            As we wait to hear back about Alumni Service Corps (me, I’ll talk more about that later), Physicians Assistant school or volunteering in Costa Rica (my roommate Elizabeth), or a job at Visitation elementary school (my roommate Anne), the emotions are similar to that of waiting for a snowstorm (though unfortunately I don’t think life after college is like a snow day).  Some people—like those who hear about classes cancelled early—are celebrating their acceptance into Boston College’s social work graduate program (my roommate Emma…and with a full tuition scholarship!).  Others are dreading the difficulties that storms and graduation brings, and others are as ready for the next adventure as a kid for a snowball fight…and most of the time we are a mix of all of these things.    

            Life next year is a storm brewing, and we wait, we dread, we wonder, we pray for what the next stage will be.  I remember so clearly my graduation from high school and I am thinking all the cliché things one thinks when looking back—it seems so close, but I have grown so much, will I look any better in these graduation pictures than some of those atrocious old ones?

            But we are ready.  Elizabeth absentmindedly tells me about medical terms that I find on paintings I’m looking through for an art show without even having to look up from her homework.  Anne grills me about grammar while she is making a test for her student teaching class and I pass with flying colors.  Emma patiently explains to us the difference between cognitive and behavioral psychology when we have no idea what she is talking about for her capstone.  Most days we are excited for what we will do…we are the storms brewing!  Gathering strength for four years and ready to break on the world!  At least, that’s what I tell myself on good days.

            But today, no graduation fair, no applications, no brewing my own storm…the only thing that is brewing is a big breakfast with with my roommates and a day of enjoying the snow and the happiness of being a college student whose classes are cancelled…

 

Snowpocalypse

 

Future social worker and future physicians assistant on a snow day...auspicious beginnings

 

 

A little throwback to the high school graduation.  Here's to hopefully getting better educated and more photogenic after four years...

 

 

 

 

Sandwich-Eating Philanthropist

            Freshman year, you are working with monopoly money.  You’ve got your swipe card and it’ll get you three square meals a day, plus all of the midnight Planet Sub runs for ice cream and chips that your little heart could possibly desire.  In the case of most freshman girls (the guys tend to eat a little more), you always end up with leftover meal points at the end of the semester, so you never worry about budgeting your meals or anything like that.

            Senior year is a little different.  Granted, since I live on campus I am lucky enough to have a half meal plan, which comes in handy when it’s noon on a Saturday and I’m too lazy to make your own breakfast, but just motivated enough to haul myself and whatever roommate happens to be awake to the cafeteria in sweatpants for some biscuits and gravy.  But I pay for the rest of my groceries, and it turns out that pop tarts, hot pockets, and other luxuries from home are not exactly in a college student’s budget.

            Bottom line: Freshman year you joke about wanting free food…senior year, you decide you need free food.  Enter Saturday night auctions.  I found out about these auctions through my sorority’s philanthropy chair, who passes along volunteering opportunities to the chapter every week.  It turns out that if you volunteer at an auction, there is a high likelihood of free food being involved—in most cases, sandwiches, cookies, and all sorts of easy to serve goodies, plus sometimes fancy treats leftover from the actual auction food.  So the running joke in my house is that I have been spending my Saturday nights volunteering at auctions so I can enjoy free and delicious dinners every weekend. 

            I’d be lying if I said the free sandwiches weren’t a nice bonus, but I really like working the auctions.  In addition to all of the typical good volunteering feelings, it is an interesting people watching experience.  The last two auctions I’ve helped with have been at the Starlight Theater and the Marriott downtown, which are both beautiful places as is, but it is even cooler to see them transformed into a “Bayou Bash” for a school for children with disabilities, or an “Art for the Children” benefit for medical missions in Africa.  People come in their beautiful dresses and dapper tuxes, and the tables are set with elaborate lamps and centerpieces, with crème brulee waiting in the wings. 

            Even if I’m not actually a medical mission doctor or someone at the auction, it still feels like stepping into a different world than a college cafeteria for a few hours.  It makes me wonder if someday I will be in a position to be this generous, and it makes me grateful for the people in Kansas City who can afford to give financially to the causes that I can usually only give time to.

            So am I trolling for sandwiches?  Yes.  But I am doing some sort of festive wonderland.  And I like to think that even if I’m eating cheap cookies instead of crème brulee, I’m still a bit of a philanthropist for a night. 

 

Table Decoartions for the Bayou Bash for Horizon Academy

 

 

 

 

Group of Alpha Sigma Alphas helping out at the Art for the Children Auction at the Marriott

Art Nights

 

Two nights a week (and whenever else she says so) my life belongs to Anne Pearce. 

Anne is the main art teacher at Rockhurst, and a woman I owe HUGE thanks to for making my art history minor possible.  As I mentioned in my previous post (http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2013/01/polka-dots-and-my-career-so-as-it-turns.html), I am doing an art internship/independent study this semester that will count as the final hours of upper level credit for the art history minor I have been putting together for the past few years (Rockhurst does not at this moment offer an art history minor).  My semester with Anne will consist of me curating a “virtual show,” the Rockhurst Festival of Student Achievement, and a show of Rockhurst students’ art downtown.

I don’t know anything about curating, and Anne is teaching me how to curate much like my dad taught me how to swim: by throwing me off the diving board.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays I attend Anne’s independent study night class, which consists of a handful of actual student artists and me.  Since a major part of my job will involve picking students’ art for these shows, Anne briefly introduced me to the class, then gave me the warm and gentle directive “Go talk to them.” 

Maybe I am easily intimidated, but being told to go around the room and talk to some of the most artistic people at Rockhurst about I-don’t-know-what while they are intensely working is not something I do on an average day, in particular because I would not think that most artists at work would want to be interrupted by some curator wannabe toting around her laptop and trying not to ask stupid questions. 

But I should have known better, because that was probably the most interesting class period I’ve ever experienced.  Just like I would love to talk about any writing projects I am working on, these students were more than happy to talk to me about their art, giving me more than just the basic information and telling me about their motivations and inspirations. 

Their art was all over the board: one girl was very good at drawing individual hairs on animals so she was doing a series of cat drawings; one guy was painting cliffs in Ireland and he and I had a lively conversation about how much we loved the place; another girl was thinking about being a biological illustrator and doing a flip book of anatomical drawings of birds.  I think my favorite of the night was a guy who animatedly told me about his plan to make a connection between the Chinese signs of the Zodiac and embarrassing human behavior—I was hooked and can’t wait to see the result. 

I like seeing people in their element and watching them light up about something that means a lot to them.  I think I’m going to enjoy this curating thing…

 

 

My friend Matt is not an art student either, but so desperately wanted to hang around all the cool people in the room that he offered to be a model.  Be careful what you wish for...

Polka Dots and My Career

So as it turns out, there are two kinds of job searches: the kind where you get to wear polka dots and the kind where you don’t.  This semester, I am attempting both.

The non-polka dot job search began with an interview on my first day back in Kansas City with a publishing company.  I learned about this company through the Rockhurst English department and career services, and decided to pursue an editing internship with them.  I sent them my resume, and they asked me to come in for an interview…which meant digging up interview-worthy clothes. 

Now, maybe I’ve been living in quirky English major world for a little too long, but I had no idea there were so many rules regarding interview attire—I get that it should all be appropriate and fit well, but no patterns?  No bright colors?  NO RED?  This initiated a St. Louis-wide search for appropriately grey/tan/black clothing.  The winning combination of the colors and my chipper attitude probably made people think I was shopping for a funeral. 

But the interview date came and I showed up in my grey dress and black tights…only to be told they were not really looking for interns because their fall ones decided to stay on for the spring semester (despite this setback, I still think studying abroad last semester was worth it!).  Oh the trials and tribulations of the internship hunt.

My polka dot job search is going a little….more interesting.  I am doing a curatorial internship/independent study with the head of the art department, Anne Pearce, which will involve curating three shows this semester: a “virtual show” in which I select any space and works from any artist and discuss how I would hypothetically put the show together; the art portion of the Student Achievement Festival at the end of the year; and a show of Rockhurst Students’ work at a gallery downtown in the Crossroads Art District (a new undertaking this year).  I am going to be really busy with all of this, but it is also very exciting to be doing something so hands on. 

A big part of this internship is also networking with curators and artists in Kansas City, which is why last Friday I found myself talking to a curator at a gallery opening who insisted that I MUST go to the back of the gallery and watch the live feed of cats playing in a cat-palace before I left (Do I love contemporary art?  Yes.  Will I ever really understand it?  I’m not holding out hope.).  Turns out that when you are networking in the art world, things like red lipstick and the pairing of flannel plaid and sequins are encouraged.  I think my polka dots would be welcome at those kinds of functions.

But regardless of whether or not I am allowed to indulge in my particular fashion tastes, this semester is about garnering all of the experience I can before my launch into the real world in May.  The publishing thing was a dead end, but I have an unconventional art internship, a solid selection of both dull and patterned clothes, and as of this afternoon a brand new career services account.  Look out job world, here I come…

 

 

Sam and I gong for artsy black instead of funereal/interview black for a night of hobnobbing in the art world.

 

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist sneaking a picture of the cat-palace.

 

 

Excuse My Soapbox

 

I wrote a post on the transatlantic flight to Prague, so now it only seems fitting that I write one on the flight back, just to bookend the whole experience. The last plane post was tough, but contrary to what I would have thought at the time, I think this post is even harder to write.

 

In case you haven’t caught on, I am totally sold on the whole study abroad thing.  And I intend to convince many students to at least look into study abroad.  Here are some reasons why I think any Rockhurst student (or any student in general) should think about going abroad:

 

1.      Rockhurst will always be Rockhurst.  This is what one of my friends from Rockhurst told me about going abroad—that Rockhurst will always be there when you get back, and the friends you have there will remain your friends.  Sometimes it almost scares me that I would have missed out on essentially a whole bonus college experience if I had never gone outside of my comfort zone.  And let’s face it, college is great, so why not get two college experiences out of your college career?

2.      A new set of friends.  One thing that really scared me was the fact that I didn’t know ANYONE in my program.  No one was even from my state, much less my school.  But while you are abroad with a limited group of people, they become your family.  My roommate Monica said that her mom told her she would make life-long while abroad, and I heard that from my aunt, too—and Monica and I have decided that we are going to be like that.  In fact, I have already mentally composed a Facebook message with life updates to send her as soon as I get home, and it has barely been 24 hours since I’ve seen her. 

3.      Some things are worth going broke for.  I’m out of money.  I will be selling my soul to the West County Y this break and to the Learning Center when I get back to Rockhurst in order to scrape up enough minimum wage to salvage my bank account.  And I don’t regret one plane ticket, one crepe, one museum pass, or one souvenir of it. 

4.      “Once you get the wanderlust, there’ll be no working for ya.”  An old Irish gentleman told me this on my plane back from Dublin as I was telling him about my travels.  And he’s right.  I’ve got the wanderlust.  I intend to see more of the world and more of my own country.  I am currently trying to figure out how to rebuild my bank account enough to visit all of my new friends in Denver, California, Vegas, and all sorts of cool places.

5.      The hardest part is the end.  My friend Dylan said that this was the piece of advice one of his friends gave him about study abroad, and I have found it to be most true.  Leaving home was hard, and friends and family can testify to the amount of tears I shed.  But leaving Prague has been infinitely harder. 

 

Basically, there is nothing more fun, more enlightening, and more of a growing experience than seeing the world while you are a student. 

 

Feel free to contact me if you want to learn more about study abroad at Rockhurst from a student’s perspective, check out study abroad options on the Rockhurst website: http://www.rockhurst.edu/academics/international/study-abroad/overview/.  Then just take a deep breath and just DO IT!

 

 

 

Nine Facts I Have Discovered in the Czech Republic

1.      My 3^rd grade maps skills teacher was wrong about me.  I was terrible at map skills.  Like highly noticeable difference in test scores.  And normally I am the last person in the world that you want navigating, but for one weekend in Paris I was the Map Queen, and I managed the streets and metros of Paris with (relative) ease. 

2.      I love riding trams.  I have gotten better at being alone while I am abroad, and I have found that there is nothing more peaceful than riding public transportation around Prague with nothing but your ipod and a view of the city whizzing by. 

3.      I’m into Art Nouveau.  I thought I had seen at least a little bit of every kind of art, but I had never run into the Art Nouveau of Prague.  Think bright, pastel colors—I just looked out my window and I see buildings that are yellow, blue, green, and pink.  And I refuse to leave without getting a poster by my favorite Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha.

4.      I can make new plans.  I had plenty of plans for after I graduated, but I re-thought every one of them this semester.  Staying in Kansas City would be great, but what about a year of Jesuit Volunteer Corps or Alumni Service Corps?  Or teach abroad?  Or apply to be a travel director?  Why not?

5.      I can eat Indian food.  An odd discovery in the Czech Republic, I know.  I have always been a notoriously picky eater, but I have tried a lot since I got here—Indian food being the most unusual for me.  But now I know that I can walk into a restaurant without panicking that I won’t find something on the menu.  And that chicken vindaloo is delicious. 

6.      I am an airport pro.  A year ago if you dropped me by myself in an airport without instructions I wouldn’t have been able to find the exit, much less my plane.  After several trips and a miserable 24 hours in the Rome airport, I could practically be a flight attendant.   

7.      I have many “persons.”  I have so many people in my life now both here and at home that I can share all of the good and the bad with.  My friends at home (and Sam studying in Florence) have kept up to date on all my adventures and have patiently helped me through both my homesickness and now my reluctance to leave.  But I have people here now too—Monica, Brinda, Dylan, Neave, Andy, Stef…the list goes on.  And I hope they will still be a part of my life after this semester.    

8.      I have the best family in the world.  And I can never, ever, even begin to thank them for talking me into doing this, providing me with the means to do this, and following every minute of this semester with so much joy for me. 

9.      I can start over.  Landing in a Czech-speaking country with no sleep, no friends, and no clue what my life was going to look like was terrifying.  But in only a few months I have found a home here—with people I care about, places that have grown familiar, experiences that have changed me.  And it breaks my heart to leave this new life, but I look back on my start here and I have hope that even though this will never happen again, new adventures will. 

 

Around the World in 94 Days

Today is a bittersweet day, because I have just arrived home (to Prague) from my last trip around Europe.  My dad asked me via skype earlier what my favorite city had been so far, and I didn’t have a definite answer.  So I have decided to give each place I have visited its own award based on what I loved most about it:

Budapest: Best City Along a River

I love cities with rivers going through them, but I have to say Budapest does the river thing the best.  With a castle, Parliament, and the Chain Bridge all along the Danube, it was beautiful to walk along there during the day and even more beautiful to do a river cruise at night when everything was lit up.

Munich (Oktoberfest): Most Comeback Potential

Oktoberfest is a cool German experience, but it is one of those things that you should know what you are doing going into it—versus just booking a bus ticket and a tent a week before you go.  With the right group and the right travel arrangements, as well as time for sightseeing in Munich, I could definitely redo Oktoberfest the right way.

 

Rome: Historical Heaven Years of theology, Latin, and art history finally became useful when I was in Rome.  Between wandering through the ruins of the Forum and getting to explore the Vatican at night, I don’t think I will ever have another experience so rich in the history I have spent years studying.

Berlin: The Cool Kid Place to Live

With tons of contemporary art, futuristic buildings, and a students and artists’ part of town featuring murals on the Berlin wall, this has to be some sort of hipster Mecca.  I had no expectations for Berlin, but I ended up wishing I could have spent more time there.

 

Ireland: Most Perfectly Met Expectations

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Ireland was everything that Hollywood and my Irish heritage promised me.  I would love to spend a few weeks there seeing the whole countryside and few more cities.

 

Florence: The Total Package

It was hard to decide what stuck out most about Florence, because there were so many good things.  I got to see Michelangelo’s David, hang out with my friend Sam, and eat the best pizza I have ever had (Gusta Pizza).  Basically an all-around great trip.
 

Venice: The Pretty City

Venice was small, but stunning.  The canals and the colors make it unlike any place I’ve seen before.  Sam and I spent most of our day lost in random allies with flower boxes and laundry over our heads, but we were perfectly okay with that.
 

Paris: Too Good to Be True

Paris was perfect.  For almost four days I forgot the rest of the world existed and lived in a city of gothic churches, cool bookstores, crepes, art museums, easy public transportation, and just all around beautiful streets…I could go on forever about Paris.  In a perfect alternate universe, I live in Paris in an apartment with wrought iron, a flower box, and shutters, and I ride my bicycle around all day to get my baguettes.  And I’m perfectly fashionable.  Again, I could go on all day about Paris. 

 

Vienna: Best Decked

Vienna was a lot like Prague, only with a lot more Christmas decorations.  Think giant sparkling lights hanging over the streets of the city center.  Not to mention some out of this world Christmas markets.  Definitely the perfect time of year to go. 

I can’t believe I am done travelling, but hopefully by this time next year I will have found a way to add a few more cities to this list.