"Killer Mold"

If you read my post below, you are aware that the MOLD situation is probably THE major reason I refuse to live in New Orleans. A new CNN.com article confirms my beliefs: Post-Hurricane Mold Threatens Health

After finding out Tulane's academic plan for the spring, I was kind of considering that I would resign myself to going back to Tulane for a semester if University of Richmond refused to allow me to stay. But right now, I'm back to my old line of, "I'd rather drop out of school than live in that place."

Read it! It's soooo gross!

Thanks FEMA! (No thanks to Tulane)

So...Tulane has finally given us some indication of what we will be coming back to academically in the spring.

Still no word on where we can live, sources of potable water, or even whether there is yet electricity in Weinmann Hall. But at least I know that if I go back, I'll be taking Constitutional Law and Legal Research over a 15-week semester, Contracts and Criminal Law over a concurrent 10-week semester, and one other class which I guess I would pick from upperclass offerings.

I suppose the schedule is not as bad as I anticipated. I feel bad for the students who didn't visit, who will be subjected to the rigors of fitting an entire academic year in two 10-week semesters with one week break in between. I mean, my potential scedule is less than ideal, but maybe not that bad-- I kind of like the idea of getting two finals over with and then having over a month to focus on my other two classes.

But I still really despise the idea of going back there. Not knowing the condition of my apartment and stuff, it's hard to know if my fears are irrational or not. But I suspect that my reasons for not wanting to go back are legitimate.

1. Allergy to mold: According to everyone who's gone back, there is mold growing EVERYWHERE, on EVERYTHING. I am horribly allergic to mold. I could barely stay healthy and breathe in New Orleans before the cataclysm. How awful will it be now?
   
   
2. Disgust with the way Tulane has handled itself thus far: This is the first SUBSTANTIVE communication Tulane has had with us that offers any sort of insight to the future. It's a full month after the storm! Basically they just told us to wait, disregarding that idly waiting for Tulane to get a plan together wasn't an option for many people for different reasons. I have lost a lot of respect for the leadership of the school.
   
   
3. I wanted to transfer out of Tulane anyway. This has been my plan ever since I took my leave of absence last November. One of the reasons I chose Tulane was because I thought I might end up staying in New Orleans and living, working, raising my kids there. There's no way in hell I would ever consider that now...and that idea had been on the outs for a few months beforehand anyway. All this confusion and upheaval will probably make it harder for me to transfer, especially because of the importance of grades in transferring...I need to stay at one school for the year.
   
   
4. Mental health: Forget about the physical dangers of returning to a ruined city. Those are numerous and substantial. I'm also worried about my emotional well-being. Everything I've been through in the past year has been pretty tough, and I was looking forward to getting out of New Orleans. When I got to Richmond I was very hopeful that I would be able to move forward with my life, leaving behind all the bad memories of losing a close friend and evacuating a deadly storm. There's been so much traveling, planning, uncertainty in the past month-- I really just want some stability so that I can not go crazy.
   
   
5. Presence of toxins and their possible effect on my unborn children.
   

I'm sure there are more, but I need to wrap this up so I can study.



Not everything in my life is bad news, though. There have been some exciting developments lately. Since I listed the above numerically, I will do so with the happy things as well.

1. FEMA money! YEAh baby! Direct deposit is a wonderful thing. I was worried that I had fatally screwed up my application and cheated myself out of $2K, but it turns out that it's not the case. *New development* Dan in the study room next door says that he got the standard $2k two weeks ago, and then yesterday he got ANOTHER check for slightly MORE! Hopefully this is standard practice.
   
   
2. Tulane/Loyola students to go to Supreme Court: We got an email yesterday saying that we would be going on a "field trip" to the US Supreme Court sometime this semester and that there would be a "reception." I don't know who will be there, I don't know when it is, but it sounds exciting and like a good opportunity.
   
   
3. Successful shopping lately: I try not to overdo it, but I have made some very good purchases in the past two weeks. I've moved on from clothes (I basically have everything I need) to accessories. Two new purses, some shoes...Very nice. There's something to be said for "retail therapy."
   
   
4. I found the gym on campus: I've been exercising a lot lately because i've been so stressed about The Situation. Rather than getting depressed about something I had no control over, I decided to get active. It's way harder to get out of bed in the morning because I'm sore and tired, but overall I am quite pleased to be making time for physical activity.
   
   
5. Fall has arrived: Last friday it was almost 100 degrees here. Today the high is about 80...and it's definitely nippy in late night/early morning. AWESOME! In NOLA we didn't get fall until about December.
   

So that is really almost everything that's happening.

Finally, the weekend!

Well it is the weekend at last. It's so great to have a break from class and just be able to get work done at your leisure. Although I am inclined to be more leisurely than is appropriate at this time; I'm really tired today from dancing at the Umphrey's McGee show last night.

The show was pretty fun. Definitely not one of the best UM shows I've seen (I think this was #12 or 13) but very enjoyable. There were only 200 people there, a far cry from the packed shows I've seen in the past year and a half. The venue was really lame, though. No smoking, no drinking, no nothing. Which is totally wack because it was just a huge metal warehouse with adequate air circulation. It was way too big for the 200 people who showed up-- I'll bet this place could hold 1500 people or more-- but this was nice because there was room to groove. Pinksy, Evan, Chris Martin and I were in the front row the whole time. Bassist Ryan "Pony" Stasik sang for only the fourth time in UM history, on Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." We chilled with the band after the show and I tried to get Bayliss to sign a copy of Local Band Does OK, but the only pen I could find didn't work very well. Bummer.

So now this weekend is to be dedicated to: 1)TORTS (midterm is in a week and a half), 2)PROPERTY (I really need to "get" estates in land and future interests) and 3) everything else that might need to be read, etc. Blah. It's hard to focus on school because Tulane is seriously screwing with our heads and providing terrible leadership. A message was posted from the associate dean of the law school on Tuesday that any student who is visiting away this semester will be required to return to Tulane in the spring, or withdraw from school. No one will be allowed to visit in the spring. This makes NO SENSE and it makes me sick that my school is looking out for their OWN bottom line while disregarding the financial situations of its students, in addition to disregarding the WELL-BEING of its students. Where are we supposed to live? Most of us have lost everything and apartments are mold-infested and uninhabitable. Many people have signed leases in new cities and relocated their families. Furthermore, the 1L class will be a logistical nightmare. My guess is that about 25-25% of students visited other schools; the rest are waiting for Tulane to tell them what to do, deferred for a year, or withdrew. So the majority of the 1L class will have to do some sort of accelerated program to get them finished with two semesters' worth of class by the end of the summer (!), while those of us who visited will probably have to do this too because curricula at different schools are not standardized. We will all have to go to class 6-8 hours a day, 6 days a week to do this, and the people who didn't visit this semester will resent those of us who did and think that we have an "edge" (which we probably would). I seriously doubt that Tulane will be in position to offer all the classes everyone individually needs to avoid this situation. Hell, I seriously doubt Tulane's contention that it will be operational (and New Orleans will be habitable) in the spring! This line of thinking is purely delusional and money-driven! It's really ironic that they dropped this bomb on us that we had to come back, with the rider that they are trying to get together a plan to inform us of HOW they're going to start classes in January, but they can't work on it because they are evacuating Houston because of ANOTHER HURRICANE! Basically they are really sticking it to the current law students: "Yeah, we know you're unhappy with the way we're dealing with this, but we don't care because the school needs to remain solvent." Why should students care about Tulane when Tulane doesn't care about them?

So this situation is really frustrating. University of Richmond has not yet informed the visiting students of what its policy regarding this development will be. I really hope that I am able to stay here indefinitely; if not, it might be time to re-evaluate law school, or at least postpone it again for a few years, because I would rather NOT be in school than BE in school in New Orleans. I'm never living there again. Will not. Can not. Go back. The health risks, the likelihood of many more evacuations and possible devastations in the next two years alone...not happening.

Sorry to end this post with all this negativity, I've been letting it simmer for a few days now and I am really upset about the whole thing. So I'll just get back to reading Civil Procedure and let it go for now...

Ben in Russia!

Here is a picture of my boyfriend Ben. Isn't he handsome?

His blog is very excellent and I highly recommend it. (Naturally. But serslah-- check it out!) Notes from the Volga Embankment

Just had a great visit...

I had a great evening tonight. Aunt Patty and Uncle John stopped in Richmond on their way to Williamsburg. They got to see the Grossbergs' house and meet Rick and Judy, then we all went out to dinner at Mekong (Rick's favorite). It felt so wonderful to visit with family here in my new surroundings! A very nice Tuesday night diversion. I just wish it could have lasted even longer. There seemed to be a lot of common ground shared by the two parties, with all the traveling both the Grossbergs and the Joneses have done; additionally, Judy is a pediatrician and Aunt Patty a pediatric nurse practitioner. (LOTS to talk about there.) So, awesome. A really happy time. :-)

I'm looking forward to attending my first Umphrey's McGee show since July (Big Summer Classic in Philly with Emilee!). The show is at Washington & Lee on Friday. The band is on a couple days' break right now so I'm hoping they'll come back to the stage ready to rage. I've got to get MAD studying done this weekend, though. Sadly, the time has come when I MUST create up-to-date outlines. But here's the good news: three classes ain't no thang. Yeah, I'm stressed. In reality, I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm here at U of R taking three classes rather than Tulane taking four. (I'm sure my tune will change in the spring, when UR 1Ls take FIVE clasess...)

Tomorrow I am supposed to go to Chipotle for the first time. A fellow refugee told me that they give free meals to anyone who can prove they were displaced by Katrina. So I'm psyched for my inaugural Chipotle experience. Plus, food always tastes better knowing it's free.

I miss swimming. I left all my awesome swimsuits that I purchased this summer in New Orleans. I don't even know where the pool is here at UR. My goggles, etc...all left behind. So that is something I might try to do soon. I feel more like myself when I have a chance to swim...

Is anyone else pissed that New York Times is now charging $50/year for online access to Op-Ed? Now, it is honestly worth $50 to me, because I read the Op-Ed columns pretty much every day. But it's hard to accept shelling out that much cash when you used to get the milk for free. Yaknowwhatimsayin? Seriously. Although I do think it's cool that "Times Select" also entails access to archived articles. 100 per month I believe. A lot of times I'll do a search in NYT and find links to articles in the archive and I'm all like, "Blast!" because it used to cost a couple of bucks to look at an archived article. So I'm thinking about sucking it up and doing this thing, however loath I am to buy the cow.

I miss my baby but am otherwise very content, happy and relaxed...bubble baths'll do that to ya. Buenos noches.

Mark Warner, what a strange-looking guy.

I tried to post this in the section below but didn't realize that the "add a picture" function doesn't work within Opera. Live and learn.

Hangin' with the Gov.

Here is a picture of Rick, Judy and me with Mark Warner, the Governor of Virgina. This was a very political weekend for me. On Friday I joined some of the other Law Students for Choice in a "Burma Shave." For those who are unaware, a burma shave is a sign-waving rally on the side of a street to get people driving by to honk at you. This particular "Burma Shave" took place on Belvedere between Franklin and Main, right on the edge of VCU's Monroe Park campus. It was organized by Planned Parenthood and there were about twenty of us. We held signs spelling out the phrase, "Judge Roberts, where do you stand? Will you uphold the law of the land?" (I was holding "stand?" as well as a smaller "Stand up for choice" sign.) It was pretty obvious by Friday that Roberts was going to be confirmed, but i feel that we were sucessful in getting people to think about reproductive rights as they drove home from work. Many, many people honked their support, while only two or three people in the hour and a half we were there gave us thumbs down or yelled pro-choice sentiments at us. My favorite expression of support came from a young woman, probably a VCU student, who yelled at us while waiting in traffic: "Keep your Bible out of my vagina!" A little raw for our purposes, but hilarious nonetheless.

Saturday was the Pig Roast at the governor's country house. Rick and Judy had scored the invite, and I was thrilled to go. I plan to write him a thank-you note for all that the Commonwealth has done to welcome the refugees such as myself. There was fairly tasty barbeque and beverages aplenty; but not really too much moving and shaking. Fairly sedate, as we were all too hot to move in the 90+ degree weather. But the estate was really gorgeous, set right on the Rappahannock River and huge grounds with animals and such. So basically Rick, Judy and I waited in line for about an hour to shake hands and get this picture with the Gov (eating while in line-- smart!) and then we walked around the property to check it out and left. Overall worthwhile, but I was very tired by the time we returned from being outside all afternoon and was unfortunately not very productive that evening.

Procrastination is the enemy

Well, I said that I would get around to relating what transpired following my arrival in Pittsburgh. I shall now make good on that promise.

Carrie made arrangements to meet up with one of her best friends from Penn State, who was living outside Pittsburgh with her family. So we drove to a shopping mall in Mt. Lebanon where Carrie's friend Beth met us and took Carrie home with her. I had decided to stay with my brother Jeff, who is 21 and a senior at Pitt. After a short but harrowing drive from the 'burbs to his house in the ghetto (I was a little out of it driving through the "tubes") I arrived at a very happening keg party. Although I was disappointed at not rating a glass beer stein (plastic cup for the refugee? Whaaat?) Jeff's friends were all very welcoming and in high spirits, which was fairly contagious. Unfortuantely I did not possess the requisite energy level to fully become ensconced in the party atmosphere. However, I did drink a few Nattys and enjoyed for the first time a culinary delight locally known as a "wedgie." A wedgie is a sandwich made with tasty pizza crust folded in half; at Jeff's suggestion I ordered turkey and bacon with mayo. It was so wonderful!

The party was pretty fun; I talked a lot with this kid Matt (I think that's his name), who is into a lot of the same jamband music I like. Unlike me, he really digs Jack Johnson, so I did lose a little respect for him at that point. But we danced around to "Fluffhead" with ultimate party girl Jess, who I will always remember because she got my dad to play Ruby and calls him "Mr. Jeff's Dad." Jeff tried to get his friends to donate money to the hurricane victim but I think a lot of people there didn't realize that he was serious. Around 2:30 I finally decided it was time to go home and sleep (I'm surprised I made it that late considering the 13-hour drive!) and Jeff was nice enough to walk me back to his house. The new place is really great. I know Mom was concerned for me, but Jeff's room was immaculate and he even had clean linens and towels and stuff. And thank god, the bathroom was clean too! (Very nice since I wasn't quite up for showering at Martin's. No offense.) I had a restful night and woke up early the next morning to meet Carrie and continue the last leg of our journey together.

Not surprisingly, I slept for most of the drive from Pittsburgh to Lancaster. Thanks Carrie. The trip takes about four hours and is fairly boring. We got gas on the Turnpike near Pittsburgh for $3.29, and thank goodness we did because by the time we got to Harrisburg it was nearer four dollars! Damn! The prices did go down a lot once we were back in Amish Country, though. We first stopped at Carrie's mom's house off New Holland Pike, dropping her and her stuff off. A few minutes later I was finally home! Houston to Lancaster baby! My poor car was pretty beat, but I felt GREAT. I couldn't beleive I was finally home with my parents and brothers. It was a beautiful, perfect day...sunny, not humid at all, about 75 degrees with the windows open and the pool looking gorgeous. I caught myself up with local news, reading the Lititz Record Express and the Intelligencer Journal. Then Mom invited me to check out her closet to see if I could use anything. She pulled out this amazing black chiffon party dress from the '50s and told me, "I bought this for you years ago but forgot to give it to you. Would you like it?" I fell in love with it instantly and immediately changed into it.

So I was really decked out, heels and all, when the guests began to arrive. Per my request, my parents had invited lots of family members to come over for the evening and hang out with me. There was nothing else in the world I wanted at that time than to see my beloved family and friends! It really meant a lot to me that all these people drove out to see me. Grandpa and Ann, Grams and Pop Pop, Patty John and Brian, Aunt Debi, and Uncle Kurt all came out. And they all brought me stuff too! I really am one lucky girl.

The food, people, weather were all awesome. Uncle Kurt played some songs on his guitar and sang for us. The kids got into the pool but I was too busy chatting. We drank champagne and it was wonderful!

But all good things must come to an end, and that night was essentially the last chance I had to really relax without concern for schoolwork. Because the next morning my Mom, Dad and I drove to Richmond, and that is where this blog began.

Busy, busy

So I'm halfway through my second week at U of R...things are coming together but I am really concerned about Property! The professor is kind of "mehh" and always tries to trick us which is really demoralizing! Everything else is fine though.

Ben posted a very interesting picture of our apartment in New Orleans on his blog. It is located at http://volganotes.blogspot.com

I'm supposed to go shopping with Essie Grossberg this afternoon. We are going to try to find some shoes. Hopefully her chemistry is good today.

Tomorrow I go to DC to obtain a passport, since I left mine in my (presumably flooded) apartment when I fled. This is important so that I can get a visa to visit Russia in a timely manner.

Last night I installed AIM on my computer, then this morning in class I uninstalled it. I think its propensity to preclude productivity is dangerous. Plus, it was making my computer run rather slowly. BAH!

Speaking of the computer...it's having some problems. :-( I geep getting messages saying that there are corrupt files that cannot be read. So I hope the computer help desk people can take care of it before my Civil Procedure class today.

This weekend I will meet the Governor of Virginia, Mark Warner. I plan on telling him how welcoming his state has been to a displaced Katrina victim. Then I'm gonna eat some roasted pig! Please let me know if you have any other suggestions of what I can say to the Gov at the receiving line to make him remember me.

That's all for now. I plan on finishing the story of my evacuation and how I ended up in Richmond sometime in the near future. Spasiba. Ya tebya lyubliu!

So here's what happened...

Okay...I'm finally going to detail the circumstances which brought me to where I am now. Also known as "the story."

Ben and I drove to New Orleans and arrived on Friday, August 19. We spent the weeekend getting settled in the new apartment on Fontainebleau Drive, meeting up with friends and attending my first week of law school. Carrie, one of my oldest friends and our roommate last year, arrived on that Wednesday. She didn't have a place to live yet so she was staying with us while she found an apartment.

Ben was scheduled to leave New Orleans for Richmond on Saturday, August 27. We basically found out that Katrina was coming into the Gulf after hitting eastern Florida that Friday evening. So our trip out to the airport, which under normal circumstances would have surely been tearful and horribly sad, was instead driven by emergency concerns: making an evacuation plan for Carrie and myself. Ben was insistent that we should get out of town as soon as possible, and I agreed completely.

So we said goodbye, both focused on the imminent threat that Katrina was posing to New Orleans more than our impending separation. I got back to the apartment around 10am, and soon thereafter Tulane announced that classes were cancelled for the week. Carrie and I flew into motion. We packed hurriedly, cleaned up the apartment and tried to "hurricane-proof" as much as possible. I threw a few favorite articles of clothing and a bare minimum of toiletries into a small duffel; all I brought with me besides this was my computer, backpack full of law casebooks, and a basket of dirty laundry. This being my fourth evacuation in as many years, I was fairly certain at this time that I would return in a few days and it would save time and effort to not take too much. ARG!

Carrie and I were on a tight schedule, as she had plans to meet with her prospective landlord and sign a lease on an efficiency apartment at noon. So I threw all my paperwork, favorite books, boxes of photographs, and a full bottle of Bombay Sapphire (I figured I'd need it when I returned!) into the closet in the central hallway for safekeeping and wheeled all the electronics and media into said hallway. Didn't bother to tape the windows, because in the past the windows never blew out and the tape left ugly residue. We threw our stuff into the Explorer and were driving out of the city by 1pm.

Having done the evacuation thing before, I knew not to try to get on I-10 in the middle of the city...I took the Crescent City Connection over to the Westbank and stayed on 90 West to Donaldsonville, then took back roads up to I-10 past Baton Rouge. The rest of the trip went by really quickly, and we made it to Houston in about six hours. Much better than the 15 hours it took us when we evacuated for Ivan last year!

I am so fortunate to have Aunt Jacquelyn and Uncle Jim living in Houston. Aunt Jacquelyn is my mom's younger sister, and she and her husband have two kids: Caroline, 9 and Will, 4. They live in a gorgeous home in the outskirts of Houston with a pool and two guest rooms, so Carrie and I really had it made, regardless of our refugee status. Although we were pretty depressed for much of the time we spent there watching the news, playing with Will, who has Down Syndrome, was a real joy. It was great to spend time with my cousins-- time that I never would have had if not for the storm. Also, we did some fun things, such as shopping in Rice Village.

By Wednesday evening, we figured it was finally time to leave. It had become evident that staying around in Houston, waiting to be able to go back to New Orleans, was pointless. I had started calling law schools on Tuesday to see if they would accept a Tulane student for "immediate transfer." In time I realized the correct lingo is "visiting student." Basically all the law schools to whom I spoke gave me negative information, such as, "You'll never catch up; classes have been in session for a week already!" or "I'm sorry, but our 1L class is filled to the rafters." I had really gotten pretty bummed from all that rejection, but then on Wednesday, Ben's mom called me and asked what I thought about coming to Richmond and going to law school while living with them. After all that negative energy from law school admissions officers, the thought of a possible solution was thrilling to me. I talked over my options with Jacquelyn and Jim, my Aunt Debi, and finally my parents before finally deciding that to stay in school this semester would be the best option for me. Luckily Carrie was ready to go as well.

So on Thursday morning we left Houston. It was hard to say goodbye to our gracious hosts, but it was time to head north like so many other evacuees. We first stopped in Lufkin, Texas, a town about two hours north of Houston. It was the most disgusting place I've ever seen! There were huge bugs mating and flying around in tandem EVERYWHERE. They totally swarmed all around the gas station where we filled up. They were splattered all over the windshield and just SOOO gross. Our next stop was Texarkana, where my car refused to start after filling up with our last tank of gas that cost less than three dollars a gallon. Luckily a very nice cowboy came over and determined that my coolant levels were too low. He filled it up with water and my car came back to life!

Then came about four hours of Arkansas. Not bad, really-- nice and flat, not very crowded. We passed Hope, where the great President Bill Clinton was born. I don't have much else to say about Arkansas other than to note that it was while driving here that I spoke with the University of Richmond Dean of Admissions, who was nice as could be and told me that they would be glad to have me for the semester. YAY!

Finally we arrived in Memphis. I had called Martin, my old roommate from junior year of college, to see if we could stay with him. I actually evacuated to Martin's house in Memphis for my very first hurricane evacuation several years ago. Martin greeted us warmly and invited us in for a home-cooked meal of meatloaf and mashed sweet potatoes (his specialty). Then he declared that he was taking us out on the town! We went to a few bars in downtown Memphis, then had sushi at a very cool place. After that we went to the movie theater for a late showing of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," a movie I highly recommend. We ended the evening at a neighborhood bar in Midtown. The good times of this evening really took my mind off my troubles and the turmoil in New Orleans.

On Friday morning we left for Pittsburgh. Our first stop came early on, halfway between Memphis and Nashville. We saw a big family caravaning in cars with Louisiana plates at the gas station; they were headed up to Philadelpia. Inside, the propietor told us that we were crazy to try to make it to Pittsburgh that night. "Too far!" he said. "Phooey," said I.

Carrie and I made it to Pittsburgh without incident.

That's all for now...I will eventually resume the narrative. Ta!

Time for Torts!

Well, I made it through my first week of law school here in Richmond. I really like the school a lot- it's not a very competitive atmosphere, and the students and faculty are very welcoming. Also, the weather here is beautiful! I had forgotten how much I missed fall! (Although November in New Orleans may be my all-time favorite.) I've done a lot of shopping this week to replace some of the clothes I left in New Orleans. Hopefully now I have enough to get me through a few weeks of school. I think it will be easier to concentrate on school once I'm not worried about running out of clean underwear.

Classes are going well. I managed to get pretty much caught up this week, and I think by next week my refugee-status-immunity will have worn off and I'll be fair game for getting called on in class. The law school had a happy hour event on Friday evening and it was fun to explore a different part of Richmond. Not to mention, that Pyramid Hefeweissen is pretty awesome!

There's a lot of uncertainty about what is happening in New Orleans and with Tulane. All I know is, it's a mess...and I would prefer not to go back. I've had my fun there. It was getting time to go after having my music collection stolen out of my bedroom, my car stolen from in front of my house, and our house broken into while we were upstairs. Particularly now that the burglar whom Ben and I watched get sentenced to ten years in Angola may have been one of the OPP prisoners to take off when the warden was taken hostage. It's sad that a place that I loved so much is full of traumatic memories now. It will never be the same, and I don't want to live in the "new" New Orleans.

So, I'm tending to focus on the present. And the near future, for in a little over one month I will be traveling to Russia!!!! YAY!!! Between keeping up with schoolwork and getting ready for the trip, I'm too busy to be sad about the fate of my former home. Not that I'm a big "Rent" fan, but the line from that song comes to mind: "No day but today."

And today, or tonight rather, a few Torts cases need to be read and briefed. Did you know that Richmond, VA and Zacatecas, Mexico are sister cities? Hasta luego...

In Richmond

My dad, mom and I drove to Richmond today and got here around 3:00. Then we all went to the University of Richmond for an orientation session for displaced students who will be attending classes there this semester. I was shocked when I saw Wesley's roommate Nick! Nick is an Australian law student who was going to be at Tulane this year. There are six 1Ls from Tulane and hopefully we will stick together. The staff and students at UR could not have been more welcoming, and I am confident that everything will work out for me there.

Tomorrow I will try to post more detail about what has happened with me in the past week.