Jason Bess: How did the hurricane affect you? Did you lose power or have to relocate or anything?
Melissa Malton: Well, we have a bay house in Kemah that’s probably about three blocks off the boardwalk. We lost the whole back half of the house.
Bess: Did you lose a lot from that?
Malton: Oh yeah.
Bess: What did you think about campus opening up so soon?
Malton: I guess it was fine if you had power and were ready to come back. I didn’t come back until today.
Bess: So today was your first day back.
Malton: Yeah, and the parking lot I always use is gone. There was stuff everywhere and I was like, ‘Where the heck am I going to park now?’ You know, it’s always hard to find parking around here.
Bess: Parking is always an issue.
Malton: I mean, I guess I understood the reasoning behind wanting to get back with every day life, so long as we’re not penalized for anything like tests or assignments.
Bess: So what did you do last week with your time off since you weren’t in class or anything?
Malton: I had to gut my house.
Bess: Not much of a vacation.
Malton: Yeah. In fact, we just wrapped that up yesterday. We had to meet with insurance adjusters and everything.
Bess: You’re probably ready to be back in class.
Malton: Yeah, it was a lot of work. But at least the rooms are air-conditioned and everyone seems to be ready to get back into everyday life. Now we just need traffic lights back on and street signs up and we’ll be good.
Bess: That and get some of the debris out of the parking lots, right?
Malton: Yeah, and get some of the traffic off the roads. There are a lot of stoplights that are out.
Bess: So you’re a full-time student?
Malton: Well, yeah. I just get to hang out. But my only concern, I guess, is that I had a test scheduled the week of the hurricane and now the first two tests are going to be combined.
Bess: Oh, so like two-in-one?
Malton: Yeah, so now I’m kind of worried about the percentages.
Bess: Right, now you can’t bomb this one.
Malton: Exactly, it’s a lot more pressure because all the percentages are going to be off.
Bess: I had a few teachers who said they had to be here, but told us not to come.
Malton: Right after the school opened back up I saw that a professor, I think in the Law College, wrote a scathing editorial in the Chronicle, . . . Complaining about how they had to call everyone back to class. I was kind of like, "OK, I guess some people are really unhappy."
