You don't see that everyday...

So. This is Mardi Gras, freshman year. This is how I remember New Orleans. The general consensus among Louisiana-natives seems to be that some day, New Orleans will show the same old colors and come back full force. Now that the levies have broken for a second time, when that will occur is a matter of debate.

The past month just goes to show that the phrase "Everyone said..." is a dangerous phrase. Everyone said that New Orleans would never flood. Everyone said that a Hurricane would never get as far inland as Sheveport. Everyone said...

Here's a basic rundown of the past three days:

Wednesday- I spend 12 hours laying out the paper by myself (though with the moral support of Curt and Erin), renounce the unjust gods of journalism who are ruining my social and academic life. I was unaware that you could love something with the core of your being (I love you, Conglomerate!) and hate it in the depths of your soul (but quit leeching the life-blood out of everything I do!).

Thursday- Dad arrives for Parents and family weekend. We bond by cleaning Tim's carpet and going to an intramural football game between TKE A and TKE B. TKE A wins, but only after Tim breaks one of the fingers in his right hand. BREAKS HIS FINGER. Goodwin may be small, but apparently he's a TANK if you're tackling him. We spent the next four hours in the Emergency room. Dislocation. No fracture. Potential sprain. Neither of us watched the doctor pop his joint back into place... but we both heard it. TKE A wins. Tim wins, if you know what I mean.

Today- Ribbon cutting ceremony in the SUB. The new bookstore actually looks like a respectable establishment at a 20K per year private college instead of a Circle K that sells notebooks. I wish I had time to work. I'd be proud to work there. Not that there will be much chance:

Centenary College closes no later than 4:30 pm today, because Hurricane Rita is expected to drop 6 to 25 inches of rain on Shreveport. 6 to 25? If that seems like a vague interval and you're having trouble grasping the difference between half a foot of rain and more than two feet of water... well then you have a pretty good idea of how those of us who have no idea what's coming at us feel.

Classes are canceled Monday and Tuesday. Whether or not the school reopens Wednesday depends on Nature, with a capital "N."

Pioneer Days

I feel like the pioneer who declares to her secret love upon departure: "I'll write everyday." Who then, in the immediacy of disease, food scavaging and inclement weather leaves her Beau to wonder what has become of her. A live journal is a sort of promise that one will unfold the daily churnings of one's life in plain language for all to see. I am, however, preoccupied with wagon ruts and the like.

I've recently sold the second-to-lost drop of my soul to the information age. Cell-phone lover I am not. However, when Tim's car ran out of gas in the middle of Kings Highway, I was inwardly pleased to find myself connected with a help network. I can always reach my dad if I have an urgent question about physics; Mom is at my fingertips if I can't remember which side of our family used to be moonshiners.

The cell phone isn't all. I bought a chair. Not a 10-dollar Goodwill, TKE-House sort of chair (though not an Oval Office sort of chair either). A chair nonetheless. Tim and I bought the same chair. I consider this the end of my adolescence. I've had jobs. I've had a credit card. I've traveled in Europe. I have never, until know, purchased a chair. This signifies that I have a place to sit, to be sedentary, and that for the rest of my chair-owning life, I must provide myself with a place to house that chair (and Tim's twin chair too).

Business is a disease among myself and my friends. Little Mable was taken by savages. Our supply of dry beans is running low. I'll write again when Sassy's leg is healed.

Surely the final frontier has nothing to do with a driver's license.

Praying Mantis

This is me rolling over. I'm done.

1. TKE Bid-Weekend was officially the best weekend of my life. 72- hours of undiluted TKE goodness. Knowing full-well that these pref-parties on the lake were my last, I sucked up every last drop of sunshine, boat rides, shiny water and hamburgers through my pores.

Bid day was a TKE fantasy come-true. 16 pledges, none of them with personality defects or attitude problems. Just awesome guys in matching shirts. (Who let me kidnap their President and duct-tape him to the porch, and were totally fine with reading clues written on the huges panties I've ever seen.)

2. The first issue of the Newspaper has been executed. By executed, I mean completed- and is being printed as we speak. Layout was a 12-hour engagement, highly feuled by a box of popcicles, a 12-pack of Pepsi (Western Delight, you Coke Heathens), king-size bags of Skittles, Starbursts and Hershey's Minis and a whole lot of tired. My staff is awesomely dilirious. We sent the paper to the publisher at 6:30 am. It got lost in cyber-space for four hours, resulting in a tiny freakout. All is now well. if you want a copy (so you can read Scott's dating advice) drop me a line.

If you'd like an indicator as to how much I don't want to do my homework: yesterday I found a praying mantis in the Student Union Building, which is being renovated (and is therefor dirty and unpopulated). I spent thirty minutes devising a plan to lure her into a plastic bag, then set her free in the Arboretum without getting eaten myself. She tried to attack me kung-fu style. I refused to be intimidated. She now roams free to live in the bushes and eat spiders again.

Flow

Yes, I'm alive. I've gotten a lot of calls and emails asking whether or not I'm okay. I'm not sure how it is elsewhere but here, in Louisiana, the only thing on the news is what's going on in New Orleans. You'd never guess from the way the storm projects looked on the news but Shreveport didn't even get a breeze. Sure, some of our electricity and phones are messed up, but New Orleans is in DIRE condition.

If you're concerned about my well-being, rest assured that I am fine, but the friends and family members of a lot of people I know need help. If you're able, please donate to the American Red Cross at http://www.redcross.org/ or write a letter to your local government, requesting their help and emphasizing the need for American Troops to help with the situation on our American soil.

Thousands of people are still trapped, looters are making it difficult for police, firefighters, doctors and volunteers to do their jobs. The Red Cross is a trustworthy organization which will send aid to the places which need it most.