Remembering 2013

We're constantly told that we live in a very narcissistic time, especially if you believe all of the media reports that millennials are the most self-obsessed and good-for-nothing generation that ever walked the earth. (Though I bet if any other generation had this technology, they'd be doing the same thing. I see you, Generation X, don't lie.) Okay - we post pictures of our meals on Instagram as if other people actually care what spaghetti we ate, 'selfie' was the word of 2013, and anyone with a cell phone can videotape themselves and upload it to YouTube. Fine. So in such a period where we broadcast our lives on Facebook and apparently care about nothing but ourselves, one would think that it would be acceptable to post what we're proud of doing....right?

Well...not really. How many times have you refused to actually say how well you're doing at your job or at school because you're afraid people will think you're bragging or self-centered? It's easy to be self-deprecating, but it's not as easy to actually just step up and say, "You know what? I did a really great job, I'm proud of myself, and there's nothing wrong with saying so."

So that's what I'm going to do now. I am actually really proud of everything I accomplished in 2013, and I want to write that down for myself as a reminder of what I can accomplish in 2014. I learned an incredible amount, made so many wonderful new friends, and gained a lot of professional experience as well. Recognizing what I've been able to accomplish and giving myself some props is healthy - and you should probably do the same for yourself, too. :)

In 2013:

• I applied for and earned a spot as part of the SuperBowl 2013 security team - and actually got to go to the SuperBowl. 

I had an all-access pass to this. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

• I got a job that I absolutely love as an Orientation Team Leader at Tulane. 
• I made it through losing someone I loved a lot and became a better and stronger person for it - and I know now that I'm better off.
• I realized how much I love just being Lauren, by myself, and seeing where that takes me. 
• I randomly went to a lecture and scored a semester-long web design internship by the end of it.
• I took a chance and applied to study abroad in England during the summer, which turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. (Just read some of the posts that started this blog.)

Love these girls.

• I worked incredibly hard and earned a spot as a freelance writer for Kicker over twenty other applicants.
• I was named the co-director of the New Orleans Universities Relay for Life.
• I put in over 65 hours as an editorial intern for NOLAWoman.com during the first semester of my junior year while keeping my grades up in all of my classes, playing for the Tulane Club Volleyball team, running half of Relay for Life, and being active in my other honor societies and organizations (of which there are probably way too many).
• I rushed and became an official brother of Phi Sigma Pi - a great decision that took me way too long - and gained a new family.

• I finally finished the second draft of my novel in September and began working on the third draft. 
• The many hours I spent watching every single special feature on DVDs finally became somewhat reality - I spent three awesome days as an extra on the movie 22 Jump Street. 

Yes, I took a bathroom mirror selfie. No, I am not ashamed. I had to hide from the producers to take this picture.

• And finally - I started this blog! This has already started conversations, changed the way some people think, and caused some smiles. As a writer, that's the best thing I can hear. 

Writing this list out actually helped me remember things that I forgot happened during 2013, and it made me realize how great of a year it actually was. Bring it on, 2014. I am so ready for you. 

What were your great 2013 moments? Take a moment to celebrate your own accomplishments from the year - you earned it.

On Interracial Relationships

I can't believe we're still having this conversation in 2013.

Oh, wait. Yes I can.

For those of you who are as of yet blissfully unaware, Richard Cohen published an opinion piece on November 11 about Chris Christie, the Tea Party, and 2016 presidential prospects. That was all fine and good until he got to this gem of a paragraph:

"Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all."

Thank you for confirming that I never want to read anything that has your name in the by-line.

"People with conventional views must suppress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York - a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children." Ah. Alrighty. So I guess every time one of the millions of bi- and multi-racial people in the country walks by a person with 'conventional' views, people just start gagging all over the place. Let's just ignore the facts that 86% of Americans support interracial marriage and that you have for some reason twisted 'conventional' to mean 'insanely racist'. People that actually marry and reproduce outside of their race are just unnatural. How dare they marry for love and not take into consideration what their partner looks like! Children who can't be easily categorized just make people sick!

THE HORROR

"(Should I mention that Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?)" No. No, you should not. Why? 1) "Used to be a lesbian" is not an insult in any way, shape, or form, as you clearly mean it to be here, and 2) that has nothing to do with her current marriage, her husband's ability to do his job as the mayor, or the point of your article titled "Christie's tea-party problem". At. All. That point is unnecessary, irrelevant, and it makes me wonder why you chose to include it - to place another nail in the coffin of your reputation, perhaps?

"To cultural conservatives, this doesn't look like their country at all." Yeah, don't you just wish we could go back to the good old days when it was illegal to stain a white family tree with a marriage to a black person? It's such a shame that people are slowly realizing that skin color doesn't have to determine their romantic partners.

Mr. Cohen, let me teach you something. You're probably unaware of this, since I highly doubt that you've ever been in an interracial relationship in your life, but those of us who have been are used to this kind of ignorant crap. People like you exist everywhere. How do I know? My family is a wonderful blend of Scotch-Irish, Native American, and black. All of my cousins on my mom's side of the family are biracial. We have all races in my family and everyone is loved - what they look like should not and does not matter. We're family. The end.

Wethers women rocking the multiracial look.

Then there's the fact that for two years of my life, I was in a relationship with a white guy - yes, the very relationship you say makes people with conventional views gag. Contrary to what you would probably expect, the majority of people did not care that our skin tones didn't match. Most people supported us! But then, of course, there's that pesky 14% of people who still refuse to believe that skin color doesn't have to be a factor in a relationship. I got used to double takes when we held hands, even from people who would have voiced their support if asked. I was prepared for the surprised, "Your boyfriend's white?!" I have heard every single variation of the jungle fever jokes and they are not funny.

Those were the easy reactions. I will never be able to explain how it feels to find out that people at your boyfriend's high school have been calling you racial slurs. And you will never know what it's like to have to face one of those people in public, look him in the eyes, and smile with all of the grace and poise you can muster because you are determined not to give him anything else to attack.

Interracial relationships have been getting hate since the dawn of racism. Your lovely piece of work is not the first to try to convince people that they should stay with a partner they 'match'. Let's not forget about the infamous Cheerios commercial that had to disable comments on its YouTube video because of the racism and anger that Cheerios had the nerve to feature an interracial couple. You're not the first. You're not new.

So those of us who have no issues with experiencing the world around us, the wonderful people who choose their partners based on a mutual love and respect and not off of the amount of melanin they have in their skin, the Bill de Blasios and Chirlene McCrays will all continue to love. We will continue to ignore the hateful comments of misguided people like you. And we will keep breaking down the barriers that you are trying so desperately to reconstruct. 

What to Do When the Worst Happens: A Conversation with Zita Scott

The following is a repost. You can find the original article that I wrote here.

They are the words that no parent wants to hear: “Momma, do you remember when you said no one is allowed to touch my private parts?” When those words left her eleven-year-old daughter’s mouth, Zita Scott didn’t want her to continue. She knew what her next words would be, and she knew that they would cause her unimaginable pain. Scott is not the only parent who has had to suffer through this – studies show that one in five girls is a victim of sexual abuse. So why aren’t as many people talking about it? Where is the support? Scott took matters into her own hands with her book, Momma, He Touched Me, Now What?. She aims to give a voice through the power of the written word to families who have been devastated by such a heinous act.

Abuse can happen at any age, but it happens usually during the pre-teen years.

When she first found out what had happened to her daughter, Scott's life seemed to stop.

"My life, the moment she told me, was put on pause, and I had no clue of how to get it restarted," she confesses. "There wasn’t a battery to jump start it—there was nothing. And...there aren’t many stories about how you can get to the point where you can smile on the inside again. We can smile on the outside and be destroyed and devastated in our inner being." There was a time when it didn't seem like Scott would even smile on the outside again. She was stuck in her anger at the perpetrator, her grief for her daughter, and anger at the world for not protecting her baby girl. Recovery seemed like a sin. How could she allow herself to be happy, why did the world continue turning, when nothing would ever be the same? 

Scott had to go through several stages before she could really get back to being herself again, to being Zita. At first, she locked herself away from the world. "There’s this thing that mothers do," she confided. "They feel they need to do what is expected of me by my friends. They need to see that I’m suffering. I need to make sure they know that this has rocked my world." So she showed just how much she was suffering - she quit her job, kept her daughter from school, and showed the world that she wasn't going to let anyone hurt her again. She realized eventually that this was not the correct approach. "What I was doing was making sure that no one hurt her, but no one loved her either," she said. "We got it together, eventually." 

Zita working in her office.

Then she started journaling to try and sort through her emotions about the situation. Four or five pages would be written each night and promptly burned - the words hurt too much to re-read. Soon enough, that became a ritual for Scott. Every week, she'd write, and every week, she'd burn the pages. The things she wrote were dark - full of anger and revenge. Burning the pages was like purging herself of those feelings. But eventually, things started getting better. She began writing with a purpose. And she began to read what she wrote. 

"I started reading what I was journaling and I was like, okay, this is good, this is better. I wasn’t where I was. I started seeing some progress," Scott remembers. "I could say, 'I’m not where I was a week ago.'" Watching her mother do all of this writing caused her daughter to assume that she was writing a book about her. Scott says, "She came to me one day and said, 'Mommy, all my friends think I’m a liar.' And I was like, 'Why would they say that, that’s a horrible thing to say!' and she said, 'Well, I told them that you’re writing a book about me and they keep asking when it’s going to be finished, and I keep telling them ‘not yet, not yet’ and so they don’t believe me.' And I was like, okay, well, I didn’t know I was writing a book, but I guess now I am." That was the beginning stage of Momma, He Touched Me, Now What? 

The 'now what?' part of the title is important - what exactly are you supposed to do when your child has been molested? Scott wasn't sure, either, but she began to find the answer through her writing. "I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck, at the point of the molestation, and they don’t realize that there is an after," she says. "That's what this book is about - it's about taking that next step...how we get back to a point where we're healthy, where we're happy, where we see a future." The book discusses how to stop being angry at everyone, how to stop yourself from constantly lamenting over the event, and how to say, 'yes, that happened,' without the pain. The child is not the only one who needs to learn how to cope with his or her new situation and move forward - the parents need help as well.

Zita's book cover

"I didn’t want her to think I was happy during this time," Scott admits. "In essence, I was doing the total opposite of what she needed." Scott and her daughter both attended therapy to help them move on from the situation. Scott's daughter bounced back amazingly quickly given her situation. The major burden for her had been lifted off of her shoulders as soon as she told her mother - after that, with a little help, she went back to being a wonderful, bright girl. It was Scott who needed just a little more time. She remembers her daughter telling her, “You know how I come into the room and you always ask me if I’m okay? I really need you to stop doing that.  Because I’m okay. And tomorrow when you ask me the same thing, I’m still okay. You need to get it together.” Writing her book helped Scott do just that - she got it together and began using her voice to help others. 

She hopes that her book will help parents who are going through the same devastating situation realize that the situation will get better. "I’m finding more and more that its not about being healed from molestation, it’s about being healed in general," Scott says. "One of the things I always want to point out is on the cover of the book, you’ll notice the black silhouette that the little girl has a pink bow on her head. That’s a symbolic message—that there’s hope. That she does have a bright future, that she does want to do great things and that she’s happy and healed." 

You can receive updates on Scott and her book through the book's Facebook page.

(Sorry, y'all, no original post this week! No inspiration - but I am really proud of this work, so I wanted to share. You can read everything I write for NOLAWoman here! 

An open letter to Congress

Dear Congressmen and women,

I'm writing to you to say thank you. I know that you're probably getting a lot of hate mail what with the whole government shutdown and all, but nah, I just want to say thanks.

I mean, first of all, I really just want to say how grateful I am that you're really keeping the interests of every American at heart. I know only one-third of Americans support repealing or defunding Obamacare, but I'm sure that you did much more extensive research. If you're being so vocal about it, there must actually be a majority of Americans who want to see this gone, right?

I especially appreciate your dedication to undermining a healthcare bill that's already a law. It shows some impressive determination to continue fighting something that the Supreme Court has declared constitutional. That kind of grit is what makes a real American. I'm sure no millennials need to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26 or anything like that, because the economy is good enough that we can get jobs right out of college. ...No? Ah well, I'm at least pretty positive that women don't need to have their preventive care covered under health insurance. We can all either ignore our bodies or find some way to pay, am I right, ladies?

Oh, yeah, and speaking of millennials, you all are being great role models for my generation. We're lazy, entitled, and narcissistic, so we have to look to you, the responsible adults, to show us how we're supposed to act. We've only done trivial things, like that time we found a possible cure for cancer. Nothing awesome like shutting down the government twice in twenty years, or starting unnecessary wars, or running the economy into the ground, or completely screwing up the planet. Nope. That was all you guys. So you see, we'd really love the opportunity to learn from the smart hard workers like you.

A government shutdown must have been necessary, too. I know Fox News thinks it's just a slimdown, but you're smart enough to know that you actually shut the government down to get what you want. 800,000 Americans out of jobs is just collateral damage, right? You really, really just want to represent the interests of the minority the best you can. That's the opposite of democracy, but that's okay. It's not as if this will harm our already fragile economy. You've been talking for so long about wanting to get the economy back on track that I know you're cognizant of the effect this will have. Maybe you're planning something that the rest of the country doesn't know yet? Totally trust your judgment, but we'd like to be in on the secret.

Finally, I just wanted to say thanks for figuring this all out like mature, responsible adults. We, the people - your bosses, remember? - will remember that the next time we vote.

Keep up the fantastic work!

Love,
Lauren

P.S. This is how pretty much everyone else feels about you guys right now. Ouch!

Announcements!

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who responded in some way to my last blog post. The views on this blog have more than doubled from just that one piece - to say I was overwhelmed is a bit of an understatement! I have so enjoyed reading all of the discussions that it inspired. I got such great positive feedback and encouraging words from a wide range of people - anyone from Facebook friends to people from all over the world who just happened to stumble across it. I'm glad that I was able to put the experiences of so many into words and help people realize that they are not alone.

So, I'm sorry to those of you who asked for one, but this won't be another post addressing something important - though don't worry, one will surely come. This is, like the title says, some exciting announcements!

After the last post went live, a former classmate and Relay for Life committee member sent me a message. He's now a teacher at a local New Orleans high school and wants to use the post in his sessions with students! So next month, my blog will be used in an educational setting, and the following class period, I'll be coming to talk to the students and discuss race and stereotypes in our society. How cool is that?

Also, the wonderful Trinity Griffin (who is the same Trinity I mentioned in that last post) has nominated me for a Liebster Award!

I'm stealing the description from her blog:

"The Liebster Award is a sweet way of encouraging bloggers with less than 200 followers (like me!). Once you're nominated, you answer 11 questions given to you, nominate 5 more blogs with less than 200 followers, and then ask them 11 questions."

Here are my eleven questions to answer:

1. What is your favorite thing about fall?
My favorite thing about fall back home is all of the beautiful leaves. I also really miss bonfires. Fall in New Orleans...does not exist.

2. What's on your fall playlist?

I don't have one - I don't make playlists by seasons, usually just by what type of music I feel like listening to. But the last Spotify playlist I made was the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

3. Would you rather take a vacation on the East coast or the West coast?
East coast - I have family there!

4. Who is your role model?
My mom. Even a head injury won't stop her from trying to be the best mother and friend possible. (She also has a blog - check her out here!)

5. If your life was a movie, who would you want to play you?
I was actually just asked this question during rush for Phi Sigma Pi. I'd want Keke Palmer to play me - plus, fun fact, her real name is Lauren. So it was meant to be.

Yeah, someone this gorgeous needs to play me.

6. If you had to choose one item of clothing to represent your personality, what would it be?
Jeans. Comfy and versatile, can be dressed up or dressed down! (I'll let you decide if that's a metaphor for my personality or not.)

7. What is your most treasured possession?
I don't know that I have one - but if I did, it would be a book.

8. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer. (Hey, it's working!) Figure skater, pop star, and President of the United States were tossed around, too.

9. Heels or flats?
Flats. Dear god, please don't make me walk in stilettos.

10. What fall color best describes your personality?
Purple.

11. Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas? Favorite?
Ooh...Thanksgiving edges out Christmas. I love Christmas, but I always stress out over finding the right gift for people. I just want it to be perfect! But I love Thanksgiving - I get to be with my whole family, the whole house is warm and smells fantastic, there's seasonal music on the stereo, and everyone makes something delicious to eat. Halloween gets an honorable mention, too.

I'll post my nominations and questions in an update soon! 

And the final announcement, reserved for those who have made it through this whole post...

Drumroll, please...

I finished the second draft of my novel! 

Me yesterday after I typed the last word. 

That's why there's an update today and there wasn't one yesterday - yesterday I was hard at work on the last few pages of that draft, and I am proud to say that it's complete! It took me one year and ended up being much longer than I anticipated (343 pages and over 100,000 words), but I am so incredibly happy to actually have a result of all of my hard work.

It's not completely done yet - I'll be beginning the editing process soon. It needs to be read over for continuity, to make sure all of the characters have strong, individual voices, etc. But that won't take as long as actually writing it did. 

Then, after that...who knows? With any luck, it'll end up on your bookshelf. :)

Why acting "White" is ridiculous

Today I'm going to take a bit of a different approach on this blog. Rather than just give you a rundown on what's been happening in my life, I'm going to talk about an issue that's bothered me basically since I was old enough to become aware of it.

I am not like the stereotypical black girls that you see on television. I am terrible at speaking in ebonics (and you really don't want to hear me try). I can't dance, but I will anyway. I'm not from the inner city of anywhere. I don't have a good-for-nothing absent father. I am a nerdy bibliophile from the Midwestern suburbs and I'm damn proud of it. However, there are many times when it seems like my peers - of all colors - are bent on making me realize how I don't conform to what they think I'm supposed to be.

"You know, if someone only heard your voice over the phone, they would never know you were black."
"I mean, no offense or anything, but you do act pretty white."
"You're not really black."

Do tell me more about how the color of my skin is invalidated because of my personality.

When one looks at my background, it's pretty obvious why I don't fit any of the stereotypes people hold. Because my father is a doctor and I'm from a two-parent household - another stereotype busted - I come from an affluent family. The Illinois suburbs where I'm from consist of mostly white people. I attended private school through eighth grade and was usually the only claim to diversity my school had. From 5-7th grade, my friend Trinity and I were the only two black people in the entire grade. It makes sense that my core friend group was mostly white - white was the only thing around me. And while my immediate family and godparents were all black, all of them were people that spoke and acted like me. I was a dreamy kid, but I could read people. I saw how they were acting, heard how they spoke, and I imitated it. Eventually, that became a core part of who I was.

Even then, when I was young, I saw the portrayals of how black people were 'supposed' to be on television. I was hyper-aware of the fact that I didn't fit that mold, and it bothered me. These were the only people that looked like me on television - was that the way that I was supposed to act? Was there something wrong about me because I didn't act this way?

When I hit high school, it was made obvious to me that according to both white and black people, apparently, there was.

Public high school was the first time in my life that there was actually a substantial population of black people at the school I attended. Even though I was then able to surround myself with black people, my core friend group remained mostly white. The reason why was simple - that's who I was most comfortable with. The majority of the other black girls at school never ceased to point out how I didn't speak like them, that I acted too 'proper,' that I was too white to be black - that I did not match their idea of 'blackness'.

I got used to snickers and rolled eyes when I spoke or didn't understand a reference they made. After my freshman year, I learned to avoid saying anything in front of them, because I knew that the moment I did, my voice and opinion would be ridiculed. I didn't understand why I was being made fun of - I was black just like they were. How, then, was I acting white when all I was doing was being myself? If I was black, shouldn't the way I was acting be called acting 'black,' too?

The same label of 'other' was placed on me by my white peers as well, but always in a more subtle way and usually with no ill-intentions - though they would never understand the negative effect their words had. Someone would remark that they didn't know any black people, and when I pointed out that they knew me, the response would be, "Well, yeah, but you're not really black." Innocent conversations would leave me out - my white friends could try out hairstyles on each other or share makeup or talk about tanning. None of those hairstyles would work with my curls, their makeup would have looked absolutely ridiculous on my skin, and there was no way that I needed to get any darker. The rise of social media already pointed out to me with every group picture that I was the lone dark face among my friends.

Prom 2011, exhibit A - gee, I wonder which one is me?

Worse were conversations where people would somehow 'forget' I was black. I still remember vividly one break during a shift at the water-park where I was a lifeguard. Normally, people sat quietly around the table for their ten minute break and ate a snack or refilled their water bottles. This time, however, several of the other lifeguards were complaining about how black people couldn't swim and always had to be saved. I stared at them, wide-eyed, waiting for them to remember that I was sitting there - but they never did. "I'm right here!" I finally said incredulously. "Clearly black people can swim since I became a lifeguard."

There was an awkward silence filled only by the buzzing of the air conditioning unit.

"Well, yeah," said one of them, leaning against the wall and giving me a pitying look, "but you're not really black, are you?"

Eventually, I understood the place society had given me - I was too black to be white and too white to be black. What I didn't understand was where that left me.

I didn't become truly comfortable with the balance between who I was and who society expected me to be until I went away to college. Immediately, during the first week, I found other girls like me - the token black girls in their friend groups who were made fun of for being too white, the Oreos.

Tokens unite.

While I had been loved and accepted by my friends from home, who are absolutely wonderful people, it was with this new group of friends that I finally felt understood. It made me realize that there was another way to act 'black' - our way. Then my thoughts went one step further - why on earth did we label the way people acted with color, and why was the way to act 'black' so constricted?

There's more than one way to "act white," to use that flawed terminology. You can be a valley girl or a punk. You can be a skater or a prep. You can be a redneck or a city slicker. You can be a nerd. You can be a jock. The possibilities of what society considers 'white' are endless.

Black people are not allowed this same privilege. There are only two ways to 'act black' according to mainstream America. One is to buy into the gangster culture that is performed on televisions and radios everyday. The other is to fit into the idea of the "good, churchgoing black folk," the lens that Hollywood uses when it attempts to prove that it can portray black people positively.

If you don't fit into either of those two categories, which many people don't, congratulations - you have just been labeled as white. Your skin color and the prejudices that come with it are irrelevant. The racism you will still inevitably experience is irrelevant. Your family history and personal culture - irrelevant. You are not really black. You do not fit neatly into the box.

These categories aren't just limited, they're demeaning. For example, they imply that to be articulate and use the accepted grammatical structure of English is incompatible with blackness - this is a solely white characteristic. "White" encompasses the majority of ways that people can act, as if those with light skin have a monopoly on all of the ways to be. "Acting white" erases not just black culture, but all minority cultures that are just as present in the United States.

It has taken me twenty years, but I'm finally able to be happy outside of the box society created for me. People still attempt to force me to fit their perceptions - just two weeks ago I got the "You're a very white person" comment from someone when he was told that no, I cannot twerk, and when I say I'm from outside Saint Louis, the stock response from people who know the area, is "Oh, East Saint Louis?" Although those comments annoy me to no end, they don't make me feel uneasy anymore.

I am who I am. I am my own version of black. And anyone who can't grasp that can get out of my way. 

Back to Hogwarts...I mean, Tulane.

I've returned to blogging!

I had intended to start again two weeks ago, but weekends just kept coming and going and let's face it, I am a lazy girl at heart. Plus even though I had some down time when I first moved in, I have once again become incredibly busy. Welcome Week preparation, the beginning of classes, and Welcome Week itself kind of took over my life. And I had to face another end - the end of being an Orientation Team Leader.

My first two weeks back in the States were mostly spent prepping for Welcome Week with the rest of the OTLs. My specific role was social media/marketing, so I had a lot less to do than the OTLs who actually had an event coming up to plan. All of the disparities in amount of work to do meant that we worked on our own time rather than coming into the office, which meant that I had more free time than I knew what to do with.

I'm going to let you in on a (not-so-secret) secret. I am the worst person ever when it comes to free time. I'm used to running around to multiple places a day, having a ton of things to do, and a strict structure to my day that means I actually get my ish done. Free time means I spend way too much time on YouTube and end up with five days straight of being unproductive.

Which means that this huge list of things for the OTLs to do makes me happy.

Training for the OCs (Orientation Coordinators) began the Thursday before Welcome Week. The OCs are the ones who actually take the freshmen to every WW event, have one-on-one time with them during the week, and put on events for the group that they're in charge of. The first day of OC training was held at the Audubon Zoo, which meant that we all got to get out of the freezing Student Affairs office and spend time outside! (Though, thankfully, not the whole day outside. It was too dang hot for that.)

Introducing ourselves to the OCs

OTLs take great candid photos.

Before we knew it, training was over, it was 8AM Saturday morning, and the Class of 2017 and their parents were taking over campus.

Move-in day is best described as organized chaos, as anyone who has ever moved into college on that designated day knows. Students show up with U-Hauls for a dorm room that's half the size of their room at home, parents are trying to cope with their son or daughter leaving home and are overly emotional, no one knows their way around campus, parking is a nightmare...and the OTLs, OCs, and move-in volunteers all signed up for this mess willingly. I think we're all insane.

I was in charge of the OCs and move-in volunteers for Wall and Paterson along with another OTL, Pam. I was lucky enough to have great people - everyone was really hardworking and on top of whatever they were supposed to do, which helped every time five cars full of stuff all pulled up to the dorms at the same time. It kept threatening to rain - sometimes it would drizzle and torment us with the thought that it was about to storm and soak everything - but miracle of miracles, it actually held off.

After the five hour chaos of move-in, the OTLs had about an hour to go home, shower, and change for the President's Convocation. I got to carry one of the seven gonfalons down the aisle to begin convocation, which was pretty awesome...even though I tripped. (But I'm pretty sure only the people in the front row saw. Or I hope so.)

Gonfalon and the chance to wear a new dress!

Looking very academic and official in my robes.

After convocation there was a reception for all freshmen and their families with President Cowen, other administrators, and of course the fantastic OTLs that helped to plan their June orientation and Welcome Week. It was great seeing some of my freshmen again, even if I was having trouble remembering names. (Hey, I warned them. Names are not my strong point.)

OTLs with President Cowen!

Lovely lady OTLs

Welcome Week is officially over as of yesterday, and it's weird to think that I won't be spending the bulk of my time with the other OTLs anymore. I got sappy in my last post about the end of Exeter, so I'm going to avoid that here, but this was a great group of people to work with and I have loved my job.

In the midst of all of this Orientation stuff going on, my apartment was becoming a home, too. All three of my suite-mates have now moved in and we bought decoration and extra furniture for the apartment. It's now a lot less sterile and white, though there's still a bit of work to do. We've even cooked! (Multiple times, which I'm sure is a shock to my family who never sees me in the kitchen.)

Roommate date to a food truck festival!

The bookshelf that Emily and I bought and assembled ourselves. 

It's an actual real dinner that we made!

I really like my classes so far, though I can tell that they're all going to be a lot of work. Thankfully, I'll only be in class Tuesday through Thursday, which gives me a lot of time to work (I officially started freelance writing for Kicker!) and go to my internship. I foresee hundreds of pages being written this semester...especially since there's that novel I'm working on, too, which recently hit 300 pages! Thank god I like writing.

Some highlights from the past week in pictures, since this blog post is already pretty long:

Allyson with a 1-day-old alligator at Reily Rocks, the first WW event

On-campus concert Sunday - STRFKR

Flash mob at Monday's New Student Welcome!

Actual people at a Tulane home football game

We won, we won!

My strawberry/pineapple snoball from the year's first Fridays at the Quad

Friday's Riverboat Cruise - last Welcome Week event!

Westboro Baptist Church crashed the Southern Decadence celebrations. They were laughed at.

My aim is to make a new post every Sunday from now on. I feel like I'll definitely have enough to talk about for each week. I also changed the title and revamped the side bar a little bit - check it out!