By BJ LEWIS

Staff Writer

Every day she would greet the morning sun with uncertainty in her mind and a prayer in her heart. She would pull back the blinds, gaze skyward, clutch her Bible and ask, "Why Louisiana, Lord? Why am I here?"

Ayanna Alexander, a senior sociology major, asked this several times her freshman year at Tech. She had found herself in the midst of a massive culture shock coming from Washington, D.C., to Louisiana.

One part of her adjustment was getting used to the way Louisiana natives speak. Common vernacular like "fix'n" and "fin" is like nails on a chalkboard to Alexander.

She is originally from the British-founded colony of Trinidad and Tabego and prides herself on her speech, though she often found herself on the receiving end of sideway glances at how "proper" she talked.

When she was not adjusting to the language, she was getting used to the weather. "I thought it was summertime year round," she said.

She is accustomed to bad weather or cold weather of the East, not the weather changes of north Louisiana.

Her parents feared for her coming to school here initially, this being the South and all the confederate flags flying high.

"If you've never been down here you have to go off what you see on TV, what you read about, unless you really experience it you won't know what its like," Alexander said.

She discovered new foods like jambalaya and crawfish. She called them crayfish at the beginning, and "they were little things you caught in the creek," she recalled.

"I would have never thought of eating them, we used to make them fight and have them as pets."

Concentrating on school helped ease Alexander's mind as well as participating on Tech's track team.

Alexander is the vice president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She said she takes great pride in the sisterhood of the organization coming from a masculine-dominated household.

Alexander is on her way out but contemplating a return for grad school. It was hard in the beginning, she said, but being here has "grown" on her.