I’m back home after a week in New Orleans. Thursday I was at Xavier to do a little recruiting for the University of Maryland graduate school, the actual reason for the trip to New Orleans in the first place. We only met with 15 undergraduates, and most of them were not eligible for the summer program we were there to discuss. I ended up feeling pretty useless since no one really had any relevent questions for me. On the bright side, it was good that we were there the week before Mardi Gras since next week the Xavier students are off Monday thru Wednesday, and will probably skip the rest of the week. Next year we’ll have to do a little more pro-active pre-planning, and get more sophomores and juniors.
Speaking of next year, I’m not sure I’ll want another whole week in the Big Easy; I got kinda tired of the whole thing after 2-3 days. It didn’t help that I was staying dead in the center of Bourbon Street, and the music blared until 5am everyday. I did have a rather large pang of regret leaving today since the weather improved readically, and the average age of the tourists was finally droppping into the early thirties/late twenties as I was leaving. Also I clearly missed the best of the parades; as evidenced by the New Orleans promotional piece playing on the plane from Chicago to Baltimore. I suppose I’ll have to schedule the trip closer to the actual day next year.