With the festivities of Homecoming Week underway, it may be easy to realize that two things were lost last week, the release of a physical copy of The Lion’s Roar newspaper and fall break. One is understandable, the other I completely disagree with. 

For those who wondered why we did not have an issue of the paper to hit stands last week, it is because The Lion’s Roar schedules newspaper production dates a year in advance and we took into account fall break. However, fall break did not happen due to the flooding that took place in August. 

I understand that it was a tragedy. I understand that some people lost everything as well as their memories if they couldn’t recover some pictures. Yes, it will take time to recover and we are still recovering today, but I was one that did not see the need to start school a few days late just to give everyone an extra weekend. 

A number of organizations on and off campus came together to help their neighbor. This continues today, but one extra weekend isn’t going to help people recover; it will take much longer than that. Due to the over-dramatic, high-cry of people saying that it was “wrong” or “the university isn’t taking into consideration those who were flooded if we start classes on the scheduled start date,” shame on you.

I was flooded with emails about the university working with students who flooded. A couple of my professors sent out emails to let myself and my classmates know if we flooded, they were willing to work with us and needless to say, I think it would have been okay if some students missed what has become dubbed as “Syllabus Day.” 

I’m sorry, I do sympathize with those who lost everything, but God isn’t going to come down Himself and miraculously fix everything over one weekend. As the saying goes, “We are Louisiana strong, we will rebuild and we will recover,” and that is just it, “We will.”

So now, due to an unneeded outcry of some students, most who I noticed through social media didn’t even flood, we had to deal with the loss of fall break. I am one who uses that time to catch up on schoolwork in classes that I have fallen behind in. Now, I have to continuously work on my schoolwork already burnt out. Fall break, for me, is a time to rest, catch up on schoolwork and then go into midterms strong before the dreaded finals are here in early December. Well, because so many people thought a weekend would let the Hand of God come down and touch every individual that was affected, friends of mine had to cancel family vacations, others had to drop classes because they lost the time they needed to catch up on their schoolwork before the drop date and others, myself included, have fallen behind on life because we need time to recuperate and we don’t have it. Some of us have to work 20 hours over the week/weekend to attend college. Fall break is something that we look forward to recharge. 

That being said, when tragedy strikes, think about the future. Think about how canceling one weekend may impact what takes place later in the year. I know with living in America, most Americans believe the world revolves around them, but it doesn’t. 

Haiti is dealing with their tragedy, blizzards will happen in the North, people will kill one another, corrupt politicians will move into the White House, an earthquake will happen in a country and nobody will hear about it because it may happen in a third world country. The list can go on and on. My point is, think about the long term consequences before you outcry about starting school a few days later. I am sure there are plenty of people on this campus that deal with their own personal tragedy each day, and they still come to class. They still complete their work, and if it affects them so much that they are unable to continue, they hang their hat on the wall and pick it up when their life is back together; much like the people who may have dropped their classes because of the flood. When they are ready or can handle it, they will be back on campus working their rears off for that diploma. 

Now, if a hurricane would have come and completely tore through Hammond and destroyed everything in the process, I would have understood, but we started classes only six days later than originally intended and it isn’t like the creation story. We didn’t solve all the issues in South Louisiana within six days. We could have started classes on time, had a fall break and if someone truly needed help recovering, fall break would have been the perfect time for people to once again, come together, and then go out and help those who are still in need from the devastation of August’s flooding.