No one claimed we were subtle

I’ve never been one of those people who loves Christmas. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy Christmas and all that the holiday season brings, but I’m just not one of those people that LOVES Christmas. You know who you are. You are the ones that want to get a head start on their shopping in May, and seriously consider playing hooky when the first snow falls. You are also the same people that crank up the holiday jams the second you finish munching on your Halloween candy.

See unlike you festive breed of humans, I’m happy if I get my shopping done more than a week before the big day and my holiday decorations are confined to a little 4 foot, pre-lit tree that takes no more than a half-hour to put up, if I’m dawdling.

As with all of us, there are many moments in life where I just know with every fiber of my being that God must be somewhere in heaven chuckling at me, and I am pretty certain that Christmas time in this job is one of those moments.

As an RD at the college I work for it should be a bullet point in the job description that one must possess an emphatic obsession with Christmas. Just as any good Catholic college, we love Christmas and all that comes with preparing for Jesus’ birthday. We love the parties, food, caroling, church services, ugly sweaters, and decorating…boy do we love the decorating.

In my residence hall alone, our quaint and cozy lounge finds itself home to six trees, garland galore, endless strings of lights, absurd amounts of tinsel, paper snowflakes, boxes upon boxes of ornaments, fake window snow, and don’t forget two nativity sets (both with broken Jesus’). My dorm’s holiday adornments alone fill an entire storage room…wall to wall. We pack it in. To give you a little bit better idea this storage is easily the size of a nice walk in closet, and I’ve downsized on it since starting in this position.

I suppose subtlety never really fit in with the whole deck the halls theme this season seems to foster. Either way I have a dorm full of young women who love Christmas and love decorating for it as well. So if my crazy little lounge filled with fake evergreens and holiday cheer brings them a little piece of home and deeper sense of community then I am happy to do it for them. For a dorm full of happy, peaceful girls means a happy and peaceful RD. I am so blessed.

-Nicole

Grand Champions Forever

From that first weekend of fall until the trick or treaters start knocking on neighborhood doors, my life is somewhat of a blur. The festivities of Oktoberfest, Homecoming, fall break and mid-terms week consume my days.

Of all these traditional campus events, homecoming is the monstrosity that each year encourages me to re-evaluate my life and this current career choice. This year was no exception. See I live and work in a freshmen women’s dorm as a Resident Director (RD)…that’s right it’s me and 150 other eighteen year old hormonal young ladies. I know I should get an award for that alone, right?

Anyway I digress, back to homecoming. Where I come from this is the biggest deal of the academic year. The college I work for is steeped in traditions and fun surrounding this annual affair. It begins with the preparations weeks before this blessed event. My staff and I meet. We toss around various creative and sometimes outlandish ideas for dorm decorating and float decorating competitions. Once we have hammered out a game plan, we gather the troops.

Knocking on doors, pleading with the girls to come and help us with everything from making banners and cardboard cutouts of all our favorite college icons to working on papier-mâché, creating various structures for our float. And then there is the glitter…Lord we can’t forget the glitter. While all of this is happening, I am there to provide for there every need whether it be multiple trips to Walmart in a day to stock up on more glitter or just providing them with sugary treats to keep their blood sugar high and their energy going.

Now I know all of this seems a bit silly and over the top to you, but in this little world of mine Homecoming is a BIG deal. Everything is a competition between dorms and our pride is on the line. We are in it to win it, not just the individual competitions, but the whole thing…the Grand Poobah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand%20Poobah) of it all, the Homecoming Grand Champion Trophy.

Yes, that gleaming metallic gold cup made up of mixed scrap metals and screwed onto that statuesque wooden base is what keeps me and my staff sleep deprived and ignoring all other real work for weeks on end. For to win that trophy would give us serious bragging rights among all other dorms and the rest of the residence life staff for the entire year and years to come, especially since this year was the first year that the Homecoming Grand Champion cup was instituted.

And wouldn’t you know it, after several ideation meetings, countless trips to Walmart, endless days of working 14+ hours, and watching my entire social life go into hibernation I am thrilled to say that we won. Yes, my very own little freshmen dorm pulled it together and won the Grand Champion Homecoming Trophy.

It was the sweetest of moments when my staff and I were informed of this honorary title. Joyous laughter and tears filled the dorm….okay so maybe the scene wasn’t that dramatic. Still, it was one of those rare moments that reminds me why love this job.

As my staff and I eagerly went to receive our prize, we were stunned when we found the plaque on our glimmering trophy read “Homecoming Grand Cahmpion.” After ceaseless days of pouring out our blood, sweat and tears they couldn’t even spell it right. Classic. Oh…life at a small liberal arts college. Part of me isn’t surprised in the least and honestly it makes me love winning this trophy even more.

It’s safe to say that no one gets into this job for the month of October. Multiple trips to Wal-Mart, late nights and weekend after weekend on-call doesn’t really scream dream job. Still, amidst all the chaos I am blessed with an appreciation and love for the work I do. Being responsible for freshmen I feel it is my obligation to ensure they have a great first year of college experience, and more important than that I want to make sure they have a memorable first semester. Homecoming is a crucial part of that and I think it’s safe to say that my dorm really came together that week, even it was working toward a silly trophy that wasn’t even proof read before engraving. I am so blessed.

-Nicole

Lessons Learned: Paper+Water+Flour+Balloon

As a pretentious 24-year-old, I knew I had a lot to offer when I took this job. What I failed to realize was that this job had so much to offer me. I forget that sometimes.

In the two and half years I've been in this job, I've learned so much more than I could ever imagine. Some things I never actually expected to learn...like how to papier-mâché. Never in my 18 years of living at home, my 4 years in college, and 2 years in California did I ever have the need to papier-mâché. But apparently, as a Residence Director for a freshmen girls' dorm in the middle of nowhere, it's a necessary skill.

I first learned this skill during Homecoming my first year here. By my third year, I told the girls absolutely no papier-mâché for homecoming. It's a mess. I hate it.

I couldn't totally get rid of it, but at least this project was for something worthwhile.

We celebrated the dorm's 60 years of existence, but that's a mouthful so we called it our 60th birthday. We had a whole week of celebrations that was probably a little bit of an over kill. Friday was the birthday bash. We had karaoke, dance party, food, and...piatas. One of the girls came up with the brilliant idea of having pinatas. Who doesn't like hitting the crap out of something and getting something good in return? The same girl volunteered to make the pinatas, and what does it require? Papier-mâché, of course.

She did the first layer and I came over a few days later to help her with the second and third layer.

Papier-mâché isn't that bad. It's just a mess and requires long periods of drying time so they have to sit there. I don't really know why I have such an aversion to it. Bad first experience, I guess.

These turned out well. The girls had a blast smashing it to pieces and when they're happy, so am I.

Crazy or Stupid?

There are times in an RDs life when one has to choose between crazy and safe. Bed races are one of those times. When I started this job three years ago, I thought people were nuts! What the heck are bed races? I had no clue what they were talking about until I saw this:

This beast is the bane of my existence. Mine is a monster. Someone made it before I even started here and went a little weld happy. It's made of all bed materials (except the wheels, obviously), while other beds, like Nicole's, are part bed, part bike. So much lighter and so much more efficient. As efficient as you can get with a bed with wheels.

The morning started out with me praying for a miracle that the bed will stay in one piece and that no one gets hurt. Then, one of my girls and I put the wheels on the bed. Wheels with flat tires. No prob! We have a bike pump. After three years of doing this, I came prepared. We had just enough time to pump up the tires, get the racers ready, and do one test run. The spirit and energy that my girls had reminds me of why I love my job!

After bed blessings (yup, we bless everything at Catholic schools), my girls lifted the bed to put it on the trailer and one of the wheels fell off. My heart sank. They got it back on there and moved on. While it was on the trailer, one of the rods that was holding the far right wheel fell off. I panicked at this point. It turned out okay because our Monster has more wheels than is necessary. The wheel was also attached to the other rod. It looked safe enough to keep going.

Of course I had to give them the safety talk. "If the tires start falling off, just stop! Just stop! I'll come get you." I think they got it.

Half an hour after this incident, the boys and co-ed team turned the corner to get into campus and cross the finish line. A minute or two later, the girls came. A couple minutes after the girls, I feared the worst. My girls were nowhere close. I started walking towards the street to see where they were. On my way there, I see my girls turning the corner singing and pushing our still-intact-bed. I breathed a sigh of relief and started screaming to get them pumped. We were last...as always. It's "tradition." Happy to continue it.



Why a blog?

We have a life that produces the best, most unbelievable stories. I'm often amazed by what is considered "normal" in my life. It's normal to get a call at 2 am because a girl is locked out of her room, right?
For us, normal is being awake until 2:30 am dyeing girls' hair. Normal is breaking up 18-year-old girls fighting...yes, physically hurting each other. Normal is bribing girls to go to a basketball game with ice cream. Normal is spending weeks planning and doing things for homecoming just for some trophy that says "Homecoming Cahmpion." And that's not even the good stuff.

This is our normal. This is our reality. And we love it!

We are two semi-normal gals living a life we never expected. So let's begin with how we got here.

Nicole:

Before becoming an RD, Nicole had aspirations of saving the world as a missionary for NET Ireland. Prior to that, she was a youth minister in Kansas City. After NET, Nicole's road led her back to her beloved Alma Mater. While excited to return to America, she never would have expected that Atchison would be her next stop. Or rather, pit stop. She never thought she would be back in small town Atch, and even cried as she was driving on to campus as she moved in. She's excited about the job, she just didn't think that this would be the place for her as a single, young woman.
Now, Nicole is as happy as a clam to be here and couldn't imagine doing anything else at this moment in life.
She's a great story teller and will often start her sentences off with "OMG, you'll never believe this..."

Clare:

My road to Atch is a lot more different from Nicole's. I graduated from a small university in South Florida and moved to a small town in Northern California after graduation. I worked for a private school for two years and decided that I would much rather work for a college, not high school. A job opened in Kansas and since I've never lived in the Mid-West I decided to apply. Got the job, moved my life, and am now on my third year doing something I love and living somewhere I don't. Atch is a challenge I'm willing to overlook because I love my job so much. At least for now...

I'm a more reluctant story teller, but I love blogging, so we'll see how this goes.