Leadership Interns
A Day in the life of... a Leadership Intern
by Katie Gehrz
This past fall of my senior year, Wednesdays rival as my favorite day of the week. I didn’t have a late afternoon class, so I would spend extra time working on some sweet balancing poses I had learned in yoga. It also meant Tuesday, the longest day of every week, was over. Still, Mondays come in a close second. Beginnings always make me anxious with excitement because I haven’t made any mistakes yet. I wake up around 7, inevitably having hit the snooze for nearly an hour. Beginnings, incidentally, also come on nice and slowly for me. My first class was world politics which always got my blood rushing and mind racing, especially after reading too much of the morning paper and drinking my usual cup of light roast coffee. Did you know that light roast coffee has more caffeine in it than dark roast coffee? This is officially my favorite fun fact from having worked at Caribou Coffee.
December 3rd was an especially exciting Monday. After world politics I had to go to the travel clinic for some shots. In one month I was to embark on my second African adventure, this time to Ghana. Hepatitis A #3 and meningococcal were calling my name and once that was finished all I needed were malaria pills and my passport. Over the years God had given me a strangely obsessive passion for Africa and the plight of the women and children there. 
He had also given me a friend to share it with. Ginny and I started Students United for Africa our senior year of high school, and we have been sending money to Mayoro, northern Ghana ever since in order to build a school. Four years later we would stand in front of that school together, funnily enough on a Tuesday. Tuesday, January 8th.
I had chicken wild rice soup every day for lunch, typically with my friend Jake from French class. French followed, and I would do my best to fit in a run down Mississippi River Boulevard that afternoon. Sweetest autumnal drive in the Twin Cities, I dare say. Afro-Cuban drumming was at 4:30 on south campus. I would let my mind rest and shake out my arms, ready to make a rhythm I had never heard before. The rest of Monday evenings were usually a blur of dinner, the Dowling desk, and the next impeccable novel reading for Christian Literature with Dr. Reichardt. Bed-time was 10pm because Tuesdays started off with a bang: 6am holy hour!
All in all, the greatest thing about Mondays was seeing bits and pieces of God’s truth in the unexpected places. In my political classmates, stressed residents, preoccupied co-workers, and overworked professors. One thing the Catholic Church has really taught me is that this is how God works: completely unexpectedly! He is scattered in every nook and cranny, imprinted on every soul. He was even there the day I left for Ghana, on January 3rd, when I shouted for joy at the sight of the express-mail postman as he delivered my passport to my front door. That night I did not get to bed. Days tend to blend together when you’re travelling. Yesterday feels like last year and a one hour nap feels like a two-second blink of the eye. Planes are kind of like Mondays. They’re beginnings that make me anxious with excitement, no mistakes in them yet. And they most definitely go nice and slowly.
