As I sit here composing my thoughts during this fine snow day, my tendency to write about current events once again seems to get the best of me. I reflect back to the significance of this "get out of responsibilities type of day."
When I was little, I remember looking forward to hearing snow was coming. And most of all, we all used to look forward to that 5 or 6AM call from the superintendent of schools saying that school is closed for the day, or staying up late the night before watching the TV screen listings for school cancellations on the news.
Coming from a school district that NEVER canceled school when it seemed most appropriate, it was always disappointing hearing about and seeing my friends and family in other districts home enjoying their delayed openings or days home, while I was stuck in school. So, when it worked in our favor, it was definitely a treat.
A few snow day formalities seem to ring a bell to most. You know -- the old spoon under your pillow, wear your pjs inside out, do the snow dance type of series of events before bed. We were young and ignorant. But hey, we did it for the hopes of waking up in the morning to an amazing surprise! After all, when we are young we have no other job on snow days than to build snowmen, igloos and fill the lawn with snow angels! Oh, and of course there is an expectation for hot chocolate when we come back inside!
To this day, there is no better feeling for a student than having your alarm go off, and being able to ignore it and go back to bed!! We always dread leaving our warm covers to step foot on the cold floor in order to get ready for the day ahead. But this struggle is alleviated when we open our emails just to see an alert cancellation message from the university, if you haven't already woken up to 20 messages from your group chat exclaiming their excitement! I think we can all agree these are the best kinds of mornings...
So what do we do all day with these newly freed up time? Well it's tough being a student, we can no longer play in the snow (or maybe sometimes we can) and instead our attention is diverted to using this time for academic purposes. There is more time during snow days to catch up on assignments or to study. We often should use this time to our advantage to get ahead, especially since extracurriculars are most likely cancelled as well. Or maybe as students we might use the time to relax and stay inside to catch up on TV or sleep!
I find that the older we get the more weather affects us, and the more action we need to take in dealing with and preparing for inclement weather. Are we all rooting for snow days like we used to? Doesn't seem like it!
Teacher's are forced to make up for lost lecture time, and this can be stressful since weather is something out of their control that cannot be pre-planned or woven into their syllabus. They are forced to adapt, and postpone deadlines, which is something beneficial to the students but maybe not so much for professors themselves.
Parents, although grateful they do not have to travel, they instead have to watch their kids and cater to their needs instead of going to work. If this is not attainable, they might have to deal with the inconvenience of finding a sitter.
As for adults in general, they have a lot of clean up work to do. Shoveling is not exactly their first choice in things to do on this "day off," but someone's got to do it! In addition, they need to stock up on food in the house and ensure that all the cars are filled with gas. Although we are grateful that every fresh batch of snow brings excellent skiing conditions, we are mindful of the fact that it can affect vacation plans and flights that you or a loved one is a passenger on! The driving conditions during storms are not safe, so we are prisoners in our own houses whether we like it or not!
So what is my message to you?
Enjoy the day, no matter how old you are! That is of course, while taking proper caution necessary for the safety of yourself and all those around!
