My plan

Tulane cancelled the semester, which is no suprise. After some confusion, first year law students were released to enroll as visiting students at other schools--the upper years had been permitted to do so earlier in the week. But I decided I wasn't in any shape to show up at a new school in an unknown town, my whole life in a shambles, and expect to do well in my first semester of law school.

Staying with my parents seems like the most sensible option, though it may severely test my sanity. It's not just the way your mom and dad can drive you nuts in ways that no one else could if they tried. It's also the horribleness of this place, St. Charles County, MO, quintessential ugly suburban sprawl. It's the total spiritual opposite of New Orleans.

It's depressing. I cry a little bit everyday for New Orleans and for the life I had there. The prudent thing would be to just start school over next year, but I don't think I could take a year here. I'm not sure where else I could stay for that long. The only other long-term option that I can see is to stay with my sister and other relatives in York, Pennsylvania, which in a lot of ways is a more attractive alternative. It just seems like it would be harder to find something to do there, but maybe I'm mistaken.

However, on the internet I've found a small environmental law firm in St. Louis that does the kind of work I might want to do when I get out. I'm going to try to get an internship there or somewhere similar. If not, or additionally, I'll see about volunteering with the Red Cross or some other agency that's involved with rescuing and salvaging New Orleans. I'm going to call the Princeton Review office here in St. Louis and see if I can teach some LSAT classes.

If I've got something to do, this should be more bearable. If I can't get anything to go here, I'll think about migrating to PA.

I'm not in any immediate need for money, although I will be. I have the financial aid money that was supposed to last me till the end of the year. Eventually I should be able to get some compensation from FEMA for the contents of my house, I think. But if I'm not back in school in January, I'll need to be in a full-time paying job.

I'm going to need to buy a car soon. (I still haven't been able to contact my landlady and for now I'm still driving her car.) And since all I brought was jeans and t-shirts, I need to buy clothes.

August 2005 may go down as the most stressful of my life: move, start law school, flee catastrophic hurricane that destroys the town I loved.