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Danny and I are thinking about subletting our place and moving into a shotgun on Annunciation and having a couple of good friends as shotgun-mates. We could have sweet parties. It's my last real semester of college and I really like my courses so far: Arabic I Natural Landscape/Built Form Infrastructure of Sustainable Urban Environments Computer Applications in Music The Urban Experience It's kind of a shame that classes have been cancelled for at least the next week because of this little asshole named Tropical Storm Gustav who has decided to show up as an uninvited guest for the 3rd anniversary of The Big K. Everyone is freaking out, all institutions are shutting down, all around me I hear "OMG where are you evacuating to!?" As for me, well, I have a raft. I'll be quite okay. If I really must evacuate, I am avoiding all the traffic and evacuating via bicycle on the river levee path.
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Today also happens to be the day I return once again to my beloved, ravaged southern home. What a year it has been. I've attended three different universities, fallen in love, met hundreds and hundreds of new people, lived in South America, taken crazy drugs, started thinking about so many things in so many new ways. It would take far too long to finish this list. With my crazy busy summer coming to a close, I have no idea of what to expect from this next semester, especially with all these people transferring and relationships changing. I'm always stuck in some transitional state. I'm not sure my mind could handle this - but maybe it would be nice to have some constants and something stable for once.
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So I just rode my bicycle all the way down to a deli at the bottom collegetown to buy a lottery ticket and a lighter, 'cause it's my 18th birthday, y'know? Right, well, so I get down there, and the arab guy says, "You have I.D.?" and I'm all, "Hell yeah I have I.D!", only to realize that I left my driver's license here, at my desk, in my dorm room, far far away from collegetown. I could have just used my fake, but that would have defeated the purpose. Other than that, my birthday hasn't been too bad so far - I went to a New Orleans jazz parade and ate the shittiest Cajun food ever at Risley Hall, but more on that and other things later.  HOLY SHIT YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME RITA GTFO.
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Weeks ago... ( I said goodbye to some friends... )  I went to the city for the last time. ( Lights fading... )  End of the summer party at work...it was really awkward and Edie and I felt out of place, as usual.  I packed up some things. ( ++ ) It rained all day the last day of work. ( ++ ) ( My last night @ home. ) The next morning I woke up at 3:30 and headed for Newark, flew with my parents to Atlanta. They got on a plane for Houston, I got on a plane to New Orleans. Like the dork I am, I was wearing my green Tulane shirt, and while boarding the plane a boy my age turns around and says "Are you going to Tulane?" I say yes and it turned out that he, too was a Tulane freshman doing NOLA, and was even in the Different Rythyms track with me! So that's how I met David, my first friend at Tulane. For future reference: David = Brody Charles = Miles Matt = Joel "the boys" = Brody, Miles & Joel (One night at Camp Istrouma we made up new names for ourselves - I am Princess Adelaide Nutria Kensington XVII.)  Ponchartrain. ( omfg college! new orleans! ) This post is best accompanied by this and this. I'm leaving so very much out of this entry but I'm too tired of doing this to write any more, and I want to make it public so it's best I keep some thoughts to myself. My parents are guilt-tripping me about not wanting to go to Cornell. I always like the most difficult of options :/ No one ask me where I'm going because I DON'T KNOW. My life is completely lacking in stability right now. When I know, I'll let you know. I just snapped my fingers for the first time in my life - five times in a row.
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the more I realize this hurricane is nothing but good for me. It has left me completely liberated. Everything I had, material and ideal, is gone and it is amazing.  My adventurous spirit is a phoenix, and I don't let anything or anyone hold me back. I love to live too much. I feel like I've just learned so much more about life, and I'm ready to take on whatever else it has to throw at me. I've always believed that things work themselves out.
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Syracuse McGill Columbia Fordham TCNJ Drew Rutgers Boston College This is all so frustrating because Tulane is the only place I want to be. We keep hoping that this is some horrible dream. Maybe when I wake up in my bed back in New Jersey tomorrow, none of this will have happened. I'm pushing for Syracuse because a) free tuition and b) a bunch of my Tulane friends are planning to go there, and we really need each other right now. I'm going to miss having someone to talk to who is going through the same things. It's going to be fucking cold up there, though, and my mother is really against it, insisting that I'm going to hate it so much, but what the fuck else am I supposed to do? I don't have many options and I don't have any time. My freshman year of college is totally shot. And for any of those schools that aren't within commuting distance I'm going to have to get an apartment, as all on-campus housing is full. And I need to buy a whole new fucking wardrobe too because I only have 3 days worth of clothing with me that won't be suitable for cold-weather climates anyway. Money, money, money. I'm probably going to end up a lonely commuter student. I want my freshman year back. I want my New Orleans back. God, the situation down there is insane. I never thought it could come to this. Sniper shootings in children's hospitals? My god. The violence has spread to here in Baton Rouge too, Bob and I can't go out and do anything because we'll probably get mugged or worse. LSU isn't even letting their students leave campus. What a photograph. Soon I'm going to make a big entry with pictures and details from the past few weeks, so get your computers ready. I <3 Kathleen Blanco and Mary Landrieu. I am so antsy. I can't stop pacing. There is no way that I am sleeping tonight. Tomorrow I go back to Eastern Standard Time. I'm not going to miss the sirens here, but I will miss the understanding.
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My entire body aches and I feel like I'm going to vomit and my face is breaking out like crazy and I'm shaking and ughhhhh. With every passing moment I am realizing more and more awful things about this situation. When we were evacuted, they said we'd be able to start classes today. Did you know that the phrase "getting shafted" comes from the New Orleans graveyards? This was not what I worked for. The place I'll be able to go some months from now won't be the same place I applied to. Katrina has killed all of Tulane's prestige (who's going to want to come to college in a wasteland?), but it has spiked my school pride. Whenever we do finally get to go back to what is left of New Orleans, we are going to be a bunch of tough and appreciative motherfuckers. I've been searching for a positive note on all of this so that I can find a way to sleep - I've found it - this bitch Katrina has left me wanting to kick a whole lot of ass. FUCK YEAH UNIVERSITY OF ATLANTIS CLASS OF '09
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Then, in line at Target, the man in front of us told us that he was on the rescue team in New Orleans. He said there were bodies floating everywhere. He said Tulane is under 13-14 feet of water. All of those lovely historic homes on St. Charles - gone. He said it will be six months before they let people back in just to go pick up their stuff. He looked so disraught as he went on about the devastation. I can't take this. I've always prided myself on being so strong. An entire city - just wiped off the face of the Earth. New Orleans wasn't even in the eye. We're lucky. Never before have I felt so uncertain about my life and the future. We humans think we are so in control. The sirens never stop here. The population of Baton Rouge has doubled in the past couple of days. I hate talking about New Orleans in the past tense. I'm dreading going back north where they don't fully understand the situation here. I hate having to explaining everything over and over again. Don't give me fucking shit about this. I'm so glad I'm here with Bob while we are experiencing the very same issues and emotions. I need a vacation, or at least need to get really trashed, but all I can think about is the floating bodies and lives and dreams destroyed. More than anything I want to stay here and volunteer. This is bigger than 9/11. Much bigger. I hear even the police are looting now. What do I do? I feel like something is calling on me to do something major, like there is something I am supposed to do now. I'll figure this out. New Orleans may be lost, but we still have the world, and it's a world I believe in. edit: Oh and by the way - remember that cool aquarium in New Orleans? Yeah well there have been shark reportings in the flood waters.
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the superdome is being evacuated rapidly deteriorating they say there are 30,000 people in there holy shit 9-12 feet of water on st. charles (where tulane is) and the water is still rising the looting is out of control new orleans is in mass chaos. the city's under martial law. first martial law since WWII. bob and i are so on edge we burst out laughing at things that aren't even funny. one more negative thing and i'm going to have a serious breakdown. oh and i guess i'm not going to austin city limits anymore either. there's more money down the drain. i should have known everything last week was too good to be true. a hurricane has never ever hit a major city like this before. the task of rebuilding an entire city is so overwhelming. i hate sitting here in complete safety while the city is being destroyed. new orleans doesn't deserve this. sorry about all of this i'm going to go try to distract myself. EDIT: they just reported a bunch coffins floating around.
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