It’s good to be back. I can’t seem to say that enough these days. Despite the military police, piles of rubble, abandoned refrigerators and everything except bars being closed past 9 p.m., it is so good to be back. For a while I was afraid of returning, afraid the places I love would be different and the people I love would be gone. Thankfully, I was wrong.

We are back, and while I hate to go down the cliché “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” trail, this experience has changed me, has changed all of us, and I suspect we may be better for it. As tired as I am of talking about it — swapping evacuation stories and lamenting things lost — it has changed us, as individuals and as a community, and that is something worth acknowledging.

The best and most frightening thing about being back is that New Orleans will certainly be different than it was before. But whoever said different was bad? With different times come reshaped attitudes and new ways of thinking. We are different, this semester will be different and we must learn to play the cards we’ve been dealt.

We have learned so much from being away from our school, our friends, our homes and our city. We have had to learn, to adjust, to grow, all because we have lost. We have lost so much — homes, family members, possessions. We have lost friends to other schools and professors as well. Combined, we have lost every kind of thing that can be lost, but collectively there is one thing we all have lost — time. We all lost a semester on this campus, with these people, and because of that we have hopefully cultivated a new appreciation.

We now know what it means to be without our campus, our friends, our community, and in turn we have learned the value of life. To me, this is the most important thing gained from the Katrina experience — this renewed appreciation and reverence for Loyola.

Having lost time here with the people I care about has made the time I have now, the time I will have this semester, mean so much more. Being back, being together, has become more than just inevitability — it has become a gift. This gift can inspire us to make a difference to ourselves and each other — to meet new people, build bridges, become open, accepting and reverent and to value what we have.

Without us, this place is just a campus. Without this campus, we are just a bunch of students. Without each other, we are only individuals. But together, with this place and these people, we are a community — we are something real and something powerful.

We are something that can make a difference to our wounded city and to one another. We can volunteer. We can rebuild. We have been offered the opportunity to be a part of something historic, something amazing: to give something back to the people and places that have given us so much.