Snow day – not until UR freezes over

Having just finished digging my car, self and room out of the small Himalaya that’s been progressively dropped on us as of late – a feat of snow-removal aided rather significantly by the same freezing rain that caused my car, self and room to slide and crash into any noun we happened to pass – I’m taking a drip-n-dry moment to reflect on the past few weeks, while also attempting to thaw my feet from a state of “absolute zero” to a mere “gangrene frostbitten.” And, much like the preceding sentence – one that ran on like a tribesman, clad in dead gazelle, chased by a lion – my reflection was long, irrelevant and in the end, nonsensical.Yet I realized something about those cold winter days when, between ‘nose checks’ to ensure that said nose was where I had left it, I trudged begrudgingly from class to class in a journey I’ve since dubbed the “walk of maim.” The snow day, a staple for disenfranchised high school pupils everywhere, seems to have an age limit – and despite the faade and facial hair production of a high school student, the snow day age limit is one I appear to have exceeded. My best guess on the matter is that the university recognizes that we are now of college age, and that the pampering we received as high school students is now inappropriate. Instead, we now possess the fortitude to tramp through swamps of snow – like waist-high pools of cold quicksand – that, rather than pull you into an odd watery-sand grave below, will just freeze your knees and prompt a phallic recession that no man should have to endure. The administration knows that the education we receive at this university is both expensive and essential, and those in charge would sooner find themselves tunneling to their car than deprive us of our money or knowledge. And for this I would like to say – screw you guys.I like my circulatory system. Always have, and that’s one reason I miss the snow day. But more than that, I miss the excitement it fostered. I miss catapulting myself out of bed in the morning to see white freckles adorning my window, and then cranking the radio to listen to the monotone roll call of schools whose students could go back to bed. And though my own school was rarely on such a list – the Guilderland School District evidently employed the “napalm snow plow” at the time – I even miss hearing that one damn school that, without fail, always had the day off. For this disgruntled capital-districtian it was Ichabod Crane High, an obscure if not fictional school that may or may not have resided somewhere outside Albany. But, sure enough, ol’ ICH would cancel school for flurries, rain or light-colored confetti left over from a “snow day” parade the town held the previous day. So, while Ichabod Crane students curled up with the warmth that a two-week net school year provides, I would stand at the bus stop wondering if a snow gopher had eaten my non-responsive toes and grumbling about what a stupid name Ichabod Crane was for a high school. But that time has no passed, college is upon us and the snow day is gone.Or so it seems. Instead, as I’ve discovered, the snow day exists in a new incarnation – that is, Monday. Or, perhaps, Wednesday. And unlike its winter-bound predecessors, the snow days I observe – unannounced, exclusive and infinitely more exciting – are limited to neither season nor weather conditions. Lightbulb broken in the bathroom? Snow day. Impending Tecmo Super Bowl playoff game? Snow day. Spilled Spaghetti-Os on your mesh shorts? Better believe that’s cause for a snow day. I think it’s a credit to our administration that, while neglecting to announce snow cancellations while casualties pile up in the arctic quad, they actually leave the responsibility in our hands. As a result, we can make informed mature decisions about whether the conditions – weather related or otherwise – are too foreboding for class attendance. No longer must we stir at the break of day to hunch over the radio – no, in college, snow days can be scheduled the night, if not week, before the actual day off itself! Granted, the anticipation and excitement may be gone, but not the allure – and now the power, one might say, is in our hands. At least, until our grades come.Janowitz can be reached at njanowitz@campustimes.org.