I never got to takin’ about my New Orleans trip ‘cause of finals and everythin’ else that went on. Now it is so long ago that I can barely remember details in chronological order.

“Southern hospitality” my friends called it, that most of the service peoples were really nice and polite and sorts.

To see the ethnic breakdown of other states are quite interesting. It saddens me as well though. African Americans made up of most of the service jobs, which I mentioned, were quite nice and polite. Of the areas I’ve visited, the bulk of the homeless people were African Americans, and among those who did some interesting cultural stuffs (like the young African American kids who did their tappin’ dancing thingies or like the metallic color people who you pay for pictures with). I’ve been to a few shops with Asian people, even Pilipinos, and just around the general area residing other than the people at the conference.

National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education was what we attended. That Wednesday was our chill day since we didn’t pay for the pre-conference workshops. Actually, I had access to them because I had a blue name tag while my group had red ones, so I suppose that was a little mistake, but I could’ve gone and should’ve gone, but I didn’t know until Steve said so.

Oh yeah, I went with Steve Klass (our AS External), David M. (AS Diversity Affairs), Noel S. (representing KP), Tiffany (AASU), and there were more UCSD peeps around like Edwina from our Cross Cultural Center and Denise (for the CCC and for MEChA), and Charline from the Cross also (did I spell her name right?). There were also some SOHR people there, but I didn’t see all of them. Oh yeah, I went to represent APSA :-D

The five of us—myself, David, Steve, Noel, and Tiff—shared one two bed room, which was cool. All the students that I knew of shared rooms with bulks of people, which was kinda cozy and sorts. Two to a bed since Noel didn’t want to get on the bed LOL which was kinda funny if you were there. Inside joke, hehe, and retelling it would just sound so wrong! Eh, that’s prolly how he got sick, hehe, on the floor! Noel’s so funny!

Anyhow, Wednesday was our chill day. We went out to the French Quarters to check it out. We bought a few things, and we ate in a few cool places. Eh, I forgot where we ate that day. Oh yeah, our meals were paid for by the school! Yay! Eh, $20 per day, so like $100, which was more than enough.

Maybe it was the day it was raining really hard. It was hot, but wet! Air’s pretty thick in the area, being swamp area. We went to this one restaurant where their seafood stuffs were the best and sorts. They were the first place that we had hush puppies, which are these fried bread! LOL I sorta rationalized that they made fried bread because in the area, they were too lazy to bake! Umm, prolly not, but keep in mind this is like the heart-attack center of the world or something! Food is so hella unhealthy! I forgot what I had, but it was good, as everything else I’ve tried. David got a seafood thingie, I think. oh yeah, Steve, myself, and Noel ordered the same thing, but I can’t remember what it was!

I remember eating at this one place down on our walk to the French Quarters. It was really cool. We saw like a bunch of tour groups. Anyhow, this was the day we were like searching for a place to eat, and we decided this place. Steve wanted to try their red beans and rice or jumbalya and sorts, but didn’t know which one to get. So, I found this special in which served everythingh he wanted, even gumbo, and the dessert of bread pudding, which was good. I ordered the same, too. We had some good stuff. Err, I miss the food there!

Oh yeah, they have some horses there and they’re icky. I saw lots of poop around, hehe. I wanted to ride one of those carriages, but it looked expensive.

Eh, how did Noel get sick? I don’t know. LOL Funny guy, hehe.

Oh yeah, the actual conference. I don’t have my packet with me, otherwise I’d detail my workshops.

I met some USD folks. A few of them I got to know pretty well was Krystal, Pea, and Demetres (sp?), and this other guy, which I remembered his name but totally forgot since it’s been a long while. I hung out with them a lot of times. I’ve been to a few workshops with a few of them.

Had lunch with them a few times. Wendy’s, hehe, sheesh, I ate there and I like have Wendy’s at school! Sheehs! But it was good. We ate at my room since theirs was being cleaned. We have a cool view, very high up at the 27th Floor!

LOL I think this one dinner we had, maybe on our final evening Saturday, I went to eat with them rather than our UCSD bunch! LOL I like found our UCSD bunch and then told them I’d be sitting with the USD peeps! LOL that was funny ‘cause it’s like they said, fine, we’re not like good enough for you, sort of thing, which was funny, hehe. The keynote speaker that time was interesting, but I guess a little off….talk about it later. But anyhow, we were pretty close to the front ‘cause these USD people were like the first in line! Nice! I got a good seat.

Really cool people that we all got to hang out. They have this thing at their school called The United Front, which is the umbrella for a bundle of organizations at their school, even their Pilipino Club called Fuso (is that right?). I want to make connections with them and start again the Tri Alliance, which they’re working on, too, and now we got stronger contacts this can happen. The Tri Alliance as I understood it is State’s, UCSD’s, and USD’s Pilipino orgs together. Don’t know what happened, but would be good to reestablish it. Eh, schedule is different than all of us, but let’s see how we could work it.

Oh yeah, their United Front is like our SAAC, but it’s more than just an umbrella, but it has its own organization and members and sorts. That’s really cool. I don’t know if we’d like to do that with SAAC, but I’m curious to how everything there works. Hehe, told Steve and David about it, and there’s something cool about the idea of a United Front…perhaps to unite every cultural org in school? Hehe, that would be so cool. Wonder how would that work. Kinda figuring somethin’…..

There were some New Jersey folks that were cool. One of them was Larry, but too bad I didn’t get his contact. Talked about our majors, I’m a psychology major and he’s a sociology major, but when I told him about my interests, it sounded like I was more into sociology, which I agree and actually having second thoughts on mine. Eh, I dunno. Eh, was really interested in the work he mentioned in one of the workshops I attended…actually it was the Asian Caucus, and I was really curious to what he’s been involved with in his area. He’s Pilipino, too, so I thought that was cool being from New Jersey. LOL Just that most Pilipinos I know of here in the states are from California, where I’m from! So I wonder how different is it elsewhere? Eh,

Eh, lots went on in New Orleans, hehe, I barely touched on a few things. More later…