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My introduction to Iowa was rice krispy chicken strips, the lack of sweet tea and a Trump rally. I was one in 15 students from Mercer University in Macon, Ga. to go to Iowa to see the candidates up close, work with their campaigns and observe the Democratic caucuses. The trip was due to a mixed class of journalism, political science and communications students and professors. We arrived in the cold, unknown state Thursday. There were two flight groups: Southwest and Delta. I flew Delta, along with two other journalism students and my journalism professor, Jay Black. We arrived about an hour before the Southwest group, so we decided to eat at one of the restaurants in the airport. Two of us ordered the “krispy chicken strips.” We didn’t know the chicken would be covered in literal rice krispies. We also discovered that the restaurant only had unsweet tea. Note: We were a group of Georgia students and professors. The blood of the true southerner is 95% sweet tea. You can’t have a group of southerners and then NOT have sweet tea. That’s just not the way our world works. But yet, here we were in Iowa with rice krispy chicken and unsweet tea. I would like the record to be shown that the chicken was actually good. We were about done eating by the time the Southwest group arrived. We joined them at baggage claim and proceeded to divide ourselves up into the “party van” group and the “big bus” group. Jay Black drove the “party van” and Chris Grant, the political science professor, drove the “big bus.” I like familiarity, and I dislike people; let alone people I don’t know very well. I knew Jay Black, so I decided to ride in the party van with five other journalism/media studies students and one english student. The big bus mostly consisted of political science and communications students. After we got situated into the hotel, we were told that we were going to a Trump rally. Everyone. My Black Muslim woman self was against this idea wholeheartedly. It didn’t help that I was on my cycle. That paired with being told I had to go to a place with people against my very existence caused me to slip into a state of depression. If I didn’t bring a journal with me, I don’t know how I would have coped. Because reading and writing are my escape, my coping mechanisms. So I took to my journal. “I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding because of my cycle, but I’m also bleeding on the inside. I am going to a Trump rally. I, a Black Muslim woman in the U.S. of A am going to a Trump rally. A place filled with people that are against my very existence. But I am going. I am going because he’s the “president of the United States,” so anything he does is automatic news-worthy. And I’m a journalist. A journalist who is very aware of her identity right now. Those with privilege may not understand this sinking feeling of despair, because your Whiteness is accepted. Your Christianity is accepted. Your maleness is accepted. But my Blackness is not. My Islam is not. My femaleness is not. Yet such is the picture of America. A country burning down in its homogeneous lack of culture or identity. Such is life. Such is my life.” “You know how to make a robot cry? Stick her in a Trump rally.” “It’s like going to see the devil.” To clarify my second entry, I am a self-identified robot who is really good at holding in her emotions. Which is why I didn’t cry though I felt like it. Is it healthy? No. But I wasn’t about to shed tears in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know very well. We get to the Trump rally only to find out it was very crowded, so we leave. So sad. Hint: That was sarcasm. As we were trying to leave the campus that the rally was held at, we saw Trump’s motorcade, which, not going to lie, was pretty cool. Thus ended my introduction to a cold and unknown state.