Alrighty then...

One think I learned during my exchange was that "blogging" is NOT one of my strong suits... as you can tell. Although, my posted may have been non-existent I would like to share that I did not forget about my blog! I can assure you that I thought about it every time I did something "post worthy." I would even contemplate how to describe things; what things to focus on and how to describe them... This, of course, did you no good.
I suppose I was reluctant to blog due to time constraints, here and there, caused by a mixture of writer's block and attempts at being excessively "posh" with my diction trying to impress my number one fan! I appreciate your support and apologize for having let you down :( (Morgan, you're amazing!) As for anyone else who reads my blog, odds are you're pretty chill yourself!

In lieu of this... instead of trying to artistically state how my time in New Orleans was spent, I'll just leave you with some pictures and a few descriptions!
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(eventually)

First Impression:

Continuing on from the night of little rest, my mom, my aunt and myself hit the road early that morning. After two decent naps, a good bit of music, a few bridges, and some snapchats to my girlfriend we made it to New Orleans! (Shout out to my mom for driving the whole way! You go momma!)

Planning to stay at my cousin's house in New Orleans for the time there (Thanks!), our first mission was to find it! I remember looking at all of the bridges, building and even the Superdome from afar! Beautiful city! However, it didn't take long for my eyes to be open to what was my first impression of New Orleans...

While getting close and close to my cousin's house, we turned onto the one road that I will not forget! One the left side, fairly nice house that anyone would be thrilled to live in! One the right, some combinations of wood and steel to form what appeared houses. Although a slight exaggeration, the economical gap was clearer than the yellow line that split the road, warning people not to pass.

My Apologizes...

I have, unfortunately, not been keeping up with this blog as well as I would have hoped. My goal is to post about interesting events in general rather than like week by week. So enjoy!

Pre-Departure

Ever since selecting the University of New Orleans as my school to attend within the National Student Exchange I have been busy: making sure the classes I take at UNO will transfer back to USC, making sure that UNO will accept the prerequisites I have from USC, and making sure that the classes I get approved will schedule without any issues! Coordinating the class equivalents was by far the most difficult thing to accomplish due to the fact that I am still not able to enroll in three of my classes, which start less than a week from now...

On top of this, telling everyone that you won't see them for at least four months, if not more. :'(
Plus being worried about finding friends and fitting in there (basically being a freshman all over again), along maintaining friendships that I have at my home campus! How to balance school work, exploration, new friends, home friends (text, call, viber, skype), and sleep? And most important, staying true to myself while further developing.

Now all of this may should hectic or saddening, as it should; but it wasn't all bad by any means! Actually, Dan Harper, the National Student Exchange liaison has been super helpful with figuring out classes, and calming as his says not to worry if the classes won't add yet. Also on the plus side tuition, scholarship, housing, meal plan, and other things have been very easy!

AND... The excitement that I have had thinking about going to New Orleans for a semester has made the few difficulties seem negligible! Thinking about eating cajun food everyday (priorities), seeing the architecture, attending the festivals, and just the possibility of learning so much through embracing a completely different culture!

As of this moment, I am 3 hrs and 28 mins from my departure to NEW ORLEANS!!!
(I went to bed hours sooner on Christmas Eve!)

*DISCLAIMER: due to the stream of consciousness which these entrees will be typed (and lack of revisions), I am NOT responsibility any grammatical errors used--including but not limited to misspelling, run on sentences, common splices, "text typed emotions" i.e. smiley face", jumbled up thought process, unclear sentences, poor sentence structure, words wrongly used, slang, words that do not exist or placing shame on the English language in another way. However, I can assure you that no fowl language or inappropriate topics will be used in the creation of my blog updates.*