Mother nature

Here is my tropical storm Irene recap:

Evening is setting in. There are lots of clouds.... doom is in the air.

We were all gathered together for a meeting, which actually I think caused more fear/ worry than help. I mean, if you get a group of people together and tell them about all the potential things that could happen.... especially a group of people who have never been under "hurricane" conditions... we worry. I remember hearing the fierce winds and running to the window.... and someone said "Where are you from?" Haha. The locals didn't seem to worry, so I was calm (mostly) too.

They did tell us (and turned out to be very true) that we would lose electricity and therefore fridge power. (Didn't mean a whole lot to me because my fridge doesn't really work anyway) But we cooked chicken AND beef quesadillas. I mean, you don't want the meat to go to waste, right?

While they cooked, I played with the windows and the wind. (until someone came and told me to close the windows)

They have all these announcements on the PA system...(they apparently kept announcing to close the windows... for safety reasons or something) but I never understand them. Imagine someone speaking into a cheap walkie-talkie and doing do in a thick Puerto Rican accent (in Spanish).... yeah, didn't get anything. THEN they say the same but in English... and I wish they would just repeat in Spanish. Anyway- point is, if there is an emergency.... the exchange students will have no idea what is going on.

After dinner I went downstairs and played on my computer until the power went out. Thank you to Teresa at the Red Cross for my lovely emergency radio/ flashlight. It came in handy when I had to use the little girl's room when it was pitch dark here in the dorms. :)

Then I went upstairs and watched the storm from the 11th floor for a while.

I wanted to stay awake til 2am when supposedly the storm was going to peak... buuuut I fell asleep, but woke up to this:

(yes, that is my love dorm... the one that costs me a TOTAL of $220 for 5 months rent)

I don't personally think its that bad.... I was expecting worse. BUT! I would much rather see a few garbage can knocked over and some tree branches thrown around than my bedroom window blown out. So.... yeah..... until next time!