Snow days aren’t what they used to be. I’m sure that I once participated in putting my pajamas on inside out or flushing an ice cube down the toilet, hoping that the call would get made before I went to bed. It was easy to hope for a day off, a phenomenon not nearly as easy in an online-learning format. As many of us are met with snow, we are met with a lack of snow days as well.
On Monday, an alert was sent out sharing that from 4 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, in-person events and classes at Ohio University were cancelled. For the majority of us online, both at home and in Athens, this was but another painful reminder of the snow day that once was. As the weather gets worse, many of us will still be “going to class” via our devices.
Spending last winter in Athens snow days and even snow in general didn’t cross my mind very much at all. This year, spending my time completing classes at home in Toledo, snow is on my mind again.
Toledo isn’t huge on snow, and a fair amount of our familiar totals today are discussed in relation to the infamous Blizzard of 1978. A few of the right totals and wind chill temperatures over my years did manage to earn days off of school. Snow was always something to look forward to in that sense. Snow in my life remains, but not in the same way.
When snow used to come, I would wait for it to be enough to cancel school. Now, I am hoping that it won’t be too much to take out a power line and make me lose internet connection. With classes online, a snow day for one is not a snow day for all.
Although no longer promising of a day off in such an online setting, the snow is beautiful. It provides a reason to look away from the screen, coating the trees and grass. No matter where you are enjoying the snow from, and even without a snow day, it is still worth looking at.
Nevertheless, the snow day is yet another relic of life before the pandemic we may not see again when things return to normal, if that ever happens.
Lauren Patterson is a sophomore studying journalism. Please note that the views and ideas of columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Lauren? Tweet her @lpaatt.
