Good Intentions

I keep meaning to write this blog before Sunday. I have big plans to become an honest to goodness blogger, and analyze the world deeply and share my profundity, while being intensely witty. I am filled with the best of intentions, but execution is shaky at best.

Somehow though, I feel like this pattern puts me in line with the rest of the city. There's so much here that was begun with the best of intentions and ended up awry. Obviously, I could talk about Hurricane Katrina: toxic FEMA trailers, Mayor Nagin's unfortunate "chocolate city" comment, sensational media coverage and the list goes on. There are even the less publicized failures in post-K New Orleans, or at least ones that somehow didn't make it onto my radar, like the tent city under the overpass near Carrolton where people work daily and live in squalor. Or the recovery school district that has no budget for music programs (as far as I've learned on my job) or anything else (from what some of my colleagues have learned on their jobs), while down the road charter schools are taking trips to France. I really do believe (partly out necessity) that there were good intentions behind all of the things that led to the current issues. But clearly there are issues with execution.

But when I say my own patterns meet the goal of immersion for DukeEngage NOLA, I'm not just talking about Crescent City as a whole. I think it makes me a definite member of our group of 18 as well. We all came down here with big hopes and dreams I'm sure: to impact New Orleans, learn as much as possible about this amazing city, and to learn something about a few of our fellow Dukies. Once again though, that execution is rough. The first goal remains to be seen, and I feel like the second one will be a given, since we're mostly subscribers to Duke's unofficial "work
hard play hard" motto. But I'm not convinced about that last one. To me, it seems like there are already some obvious divides, and it's a bit worrisome.

Of course, this is only the second week, so perhaps I'm a bit premature. Still, it feels a little like RealWorld Duke style with everyone playing into some prescribed role, and divisions along fairly predictable lines that were brought with us from school. Some of it is just what happens when "18 strangers are picked to live in a house..." We're bound to find favorites and get on each other's nerves. We talk too much and too little, go to bed too early or party too loudly, are too free or close-minded. We view everything racially or completely ignore overtones, and leave each other out and are too concerned with what other people think. We blog about things we should walk down the hall to say.

But, on the off chance that my fellow DukeEngagers are reading this, I hope they take this as my attempt to do better. I think there's still plenty of time to "lean into discomfort"- 7 weeks to be exact. And yes, they say the road to some very unpleasant places is paved with good intentions, but I prefer to be more optimistic. I'm an Obama supporter, so I say "Yes we can!"