Safe in Shreveport
Hey, guys. If you've noticed I haven't been online in a couple of days, it's because Centenary shut the campus down on Friday and won't reopen it until Tuesday. That means our ResNet is down until then. My cell phone's been mostly useless as well. I'm at my grandparents' house right now, so I thought I'd take advantage of the connection and let everybody know that I'm ok.
My family tried to get out of Houston (this weekend was supposed to be Parents' Weekend, anyway), but after twelve hours had only gone fifty-seven miles I'm told, and so, upon being unable to find any gas at all, turned around and went back. I'm glad they did so. I would much rather have them at home than stranded somewhere in East Texas with a hurricane bearing down on them. Turns out, though, that my neighborhood was for the most part completely spared--they had power the whole time, very little wind, and very little rain. God was definitely watching out for my family this weekend.
Shreveport, it seems, got what you guys at home were supposed to. It ended up not being very bad at all--a couple trees down on campus and flickering power here and there, but definitely nothing severe. They asked everybody who could go home to do so, so basically the only people that are here right now are the Houston/Lake Charles/Port Arthur/Baton Rouge/Beaumont crowd. It was somewhat eerie on campus when the wind was picking up and everybody was dragging suitcases out to their cars and taking off. My roommate and I are the only ones left in our suite, and most of the suites in my residence hall are that way. Friday my RA came around door to door to find out who was staying. The list for the third floor was pretty short. Friday night when there wasn't much more than a little wind picking up, we all came out and hung around on the third floor (my residence hall is structured around an indoor courtyard) and listened to music and goofed around. It was awesome. There are a TON of choir kids here, and they're big hams. Two of them positioned themselves on either side of the third floor baclony-type thing and sang Phantom of the Opera songs at each other across the gaping chasm. ::rolls eyes:: It was entertaining. Yesterday, when the eye was over us and the wind died down, we went out and played in the rain. It was so much fun. The campus, strange as it may sound, was absolutely beautiful in the rain, and running around on all the little paths they have around here was really fun. Later last night when the storm had just about passed we went back out to Jones-Rice Field and played tag and duck-duck-goose in the mud. When only about a fourth of the campus is there (and it's only a 1,000 person campus to begin with), you can pretty much just run around and do really crazy things. Don't tell my dad, though. He got mad when I told him we went out in the courtyard, so I didn't tell him we left the dorm at all. ;)
The real challenge has been keeping busy for a few days. Nobody's supposed to come back until Tuesday, so it's the same little group of kids for four days with no classes and, until today, no steady access to anything outside our rooms at all. And no internet. That's hard. But we have had power. I went to Target and got Apples to Apples (starting the trend in Shreveport! I hope they don't hate it. I'll be really sad if I've got no one to play with.) and some paint. I've been sitting out in the suite hallway painting the stool I have to use to get up into my bed. It's great fun. I'm sure by Tuesday, though, I'll be really eager for classes to start again. It could get kind of old kind of fast, this having absolutely nothing to do.
Ok, I'll wind it down. I don't normally inundate you guys with mundane stuff like this, but I thought some of you might like to know that I'm all right. I'm really glad to know that you guys made it through ok, and I hope that we're done for the year. Keep your fingers crossed and pray a lot. You're all in my prayers. Have a good week!
My family tried to get out of Houston (this weekend was supposed to be Parents' Weekend, anyway), but after twelve hours had only gone fifty-seven miles I'm told, and so, upon being unable to find any gas at all, turned around and went back. I'm glad they did so. I would much rather have them at home than stranded somewhere in East Texas with a hurricane bearing down on them. Turns out, though, that my neighborhood was for the most part completely spared--they had power the whole time, very little wind, and very little rain. God was definitely watching out for my family this weekend.
Shreveport, it seems, got what you guys at home were supposed to. It ended up not being very bad at all--a couple trees down on campus and flickering power here and there, but definitely nothing severe. They asked everybody who could go home to do so, so basically the only people that are here right now are the Houston/Lake Charles/Port Arthur/Baton Rouge/Beaumont crowd. It was somewhat eerie on campus when the wind was picking up and everybody was dragging suitcases out to their cars and taking off. My roommate and I are the only ones left in our suite, and most of the suites in my residence hall are that way. Friday my RA came around door to door to find out who was staying. The list for the third floor was pretty short. Friday night when there wasn't much more than a little wind picking up, we all came out and hung around on the third floor (my residence hall is structured around an indoor courtyard) and listened to music and goofed around. It was awesome. There are a TON of choir kids here, and they're big hams. Two of them positioned themselves on either side of the third floor baclony-type thing and sang Phantom of the Opera songs at each other across the gaping chasm. ::rolls eyes:: It was entertaining. Yesterday, when the eye was over us and the wind died down, we went out and played in the rain. It was so much fun. The campus, strange as it may sound, was absolutely beautiful in the rain, and running around on all the little paths they have around here was really fun. Later last night when the storm had just about passed we went back out to Jones-Rice Field and played tag and duck-duck-goose in the mud. When only about a fourth of the campus is there (and it's only a 1,000 person campus to begin with), you can pretty much just run around and do really crazy things. Don't tell my dad, though. He got mad when I told him we went out in the courtyard, so I didn't tell him we left the dorm at all. ;)
The real challenge has been keeping busy for a few days. Nobody's supposed to come back until Tuesday, so it's the same little group of kids for four days with no classes and, until today, no steady access to anything outside our rooms at all. And no internet. That's hard. But we have had power. I went to Target and got Apples to Apples (starting the trend in Shreveport! I hope they don't hate it. I'll be really sad if I've got no one to play with.) and some paint. I've been sitting out in the suite hallway painting the stool I have to use to get up into my bed. It's great fun. I'm sure by Tuesday, though, I'll be really eager for classes to start again. It could get kind of old kind of fast, this having absolutely nothing to do.
Ok, I'll wind it down. I don't normally inundate you guys with mundane stuff like this, but I thought some of you might like to know that I'm all right. I'm really glad to know that you guys made it through ok, and I hope that we're done for the year. Keep your fingers crossed and pray a lot. You're all in my prayers. Have a good week!