no me gustav.

Well, 17 days post-hurricane, I'm finally telling my story. Basically, I hate hurricanes. I never really realized that before I experienced the head-on glory of the "worst hurricane Baton Rouge has ever seen" 2.5 weeks after I got here. Perfect. Anyway, so after the actual storm, which I waited out in my friend Rosie's apartment, things didn't seem all that bad from where we were. I mean don't get me wrong, the winds were pretty crazy (91 mph sustained winds... nuts!) but from where we were, it just didn't look like that much damage (just a tree down and a sign blown away). Well apparently it actually did very much damage indeed. When I finally left the apartment 2 days post-storm, I realized that huge 100-year-old trees were uprooted all over campus and around the city, roofs were destroyed, and things were just all around in disarray. My friends came to get me a couple times to go in search of air conditioning and food (luckily), so that was a fantastic break from the monotony of reading by candlelight in my sweaty apartment. I didn't really think about the full repercussions of a hurricane really hit me until I lived it: no A/C in Southern Louisiana (95 degrees, 95% humidity), no lights, no food other than crackers, nothing but warm water to drink, no food to buy, no idea what's going on due to lack of communication with the outside world, no gas to buy, no functional traffic lights, the sound of sirens every 30 minutes, 8:00 p.m. - 6:00 a.m. police-enforced curfew... it was just crazy. It was like living in the 17th century. However, what was worse than living in the 17th century was when everyone around us (all 4 sides!) including our own parking garage which is ATTACHED to our building got power, and all the sudden we lived in the 17th century SURROUNDED by the 21st century. Anyway, after 9 days, we finally got power, and life was fantastic again! I am still so thankful everytime I come home and I have lights, air conditioning, and life past 8:00! Life is beautiful when you have electricity. It was a crazy time (these things actually happened to me during the duration of post-Gustav period without power: I slept on the floor with the window open and woke up with a dead wasp by my head, I had to throw a couple frogs out of my apartment, I lost a peanut butter sandwich one night until the next morning when the sun came up and I could see again, I sat at a cross street while a 17-bus prison caravan rode by, I went to the mall in my pajamas, I got asked out in Arby's by the manager of Arby's, I did homework sitting in McDonald's only to get bombarded by an old man who wanted to tell me his life story, I took cold showers in the complete dark, and I partook in other various adventures), but I feel like a real Louisiana resident now, like it was a rite of passage. All-in-all, I'm glad to be on the other side of this craziness, and even though there are still huge piles of dead trees and big blue tarps on people's roofs and will surely be for a while, I'm glad that both the city and myself are getting back to a normal life!