Like many of my fellow classmates, my sophomore slump had hit me hard by the time spring semester rolled around in 2007. I was aching to get out of the mundane routine of Hill House, homework, and Bates dinners. And the cold New York weather wasn’t helping. I knew that I needed to get out.
I, like most of my friends, chose to go “abroad” for my junior year at Sarah Lawrence. I use quotations around abroad because my experience didn’t take me out of the United States. It took me to New Orleans, Louisiana.
I spent my junior year at Tulane University for the sole reason that it felt different than SLC. It was six times the size. It had sororities and fraternities. It had a football team. And ROTC kids doing drills on the quad in the mornings. And a bookstore the size of our entire campus. And a Taco Bell in the cafeteria. And ten bars around the corner. And PARTIES: big parties with costumes and ice sculptures and Jello shots and boys who didn’t wear skinny jeans and girls who didn’t write poetry. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I write poetry. I’m just saying tt was a nice change of pace.
And New Orleans kind of felt like a foreign country. The food was extreme: Cajun spices on everything from eggs to lasagna, bottom feeders boiled to a crimson red that I was taught to “suck the brains out of” at my first crawfish boil. The weather was weird: rainstorms that would last for days, flooding the boulevards so severely that busses would stop running, schools would be shut down, followed by the most intense heat waves I’ve ever experienced, a Saturday so hot, all you could do was rub ice cubes on your stomach. And the people there were different. Their accents were warm; their voices covered you with maple syrup drawl. Their handshakes were soft and their smiles were big and their attitudes were simply slower which, to me, at the time, after two years in New York, automatically meant better.
Every block in New Orleans felt like a different city. There were ghettos next to mansions and cemeteries next to shopping centers. I lived in a four story French Victorian that was down the block from the Hollygrove ‘hood that Lil Wayne reps. There were bayous filled with alligators next to shantytowns next to monster truck shows. Men were playing trumpets in front of the oldest cathedral in America. Women dressed as vampires not for any pagan holiday but because they actually thought they were vampires. I mean, New Orleans was the definition of melting pot. And I loved being able to be a part of it for a year.
That said, Louisiana is not a foreign country. In no way would I ever try to say that my experience down south is comparable to Rachel’s in Oxford or Sarah’s in Florence. I could still pick up my cell phone and call my father. I could work without a Visa. And I could still watch LOST every week on my television.
But I do think that the term “abroad” is relative. Because, as wonderful as SLC is, I think that it’s crucial to experience a different kind of education, if not to keep your sanity, at least to appreciate SLC more upon your return. After the depressing droop that was sophomore year, New Orleans single handedly helped me out of my slouch. So God bless you New Orleans, Louisiana. You’re a(hot)broad enough for me.