Gustav inspired art

It has been a very harrowing week. Tulane's decision to close down the school forced my decision to evacuate which I had hoped I wouldn't have to do at the beginning of my senior year, just as I had had to do at the beginning of my freshmen year.

I drove back to Nashville with my friends Ted of New Jersey and Patrick of Evanston. Having my friends there and going through all the strife and worrying with them helped tremendously and along with our other friends Ned and Justin we we weathered the evacuation together.

Since this was the first major storm since Rita, there was a lot of uncertainty and theorizing about if the near future would play out like it had 3 years before. News of the storm arrived around the three year anniversary of Katrina, as I'm sure you know, so that left a lot of us on edge. The entire time I just didn't even want to hypothesize about what I would do if school closed down again for another semester.

So since I refused to even think about that possibility my mental energy had to be directed somewhere else. Thinking positively and holding out hope for the future became my only option. Over the last week I've remembered the importance of having faith (in anything mind you). Its just so important to have idea in your mind you can believe in to keep your worst fears and anxieties at bay.

Admittedly, I didn't do an incredible job of this. My faith was often shook and I drank and smoked a lot over the past week because I didn't know how else to cope. I was not down on my knees, begging to god all week but shaking my head, unable to imagine an alternative for this place that has become my home.

This is still very hard for me to make sense of. I'm really grateful that our levees held and that we can only come together again back in New Orleans. I'm also really grateful for everyone outside the city that expressed their concern for what might've happened to New Orleans.

Here are some things I drew during the week. I had the template already done up (and in fact it is already screen printed on the next issues back cover)