PrintOn Tuesday afternoon, breathing heavily while carrying my groceries from Westside Market, I entered a packed elevator in which two eager girls were discussing the potential snow day. “They’re shutting down the school,” said Girl A to Girl B. I listened silently.
A and B ruminated on the symbolic meaning of a day off from school, at one point likening it to the miraculous. B chimed in with the staggering, (albeit false) bulletin that Morningside Heights would be blanketed with 33 inches of snow come morning. I chose to ignore the embellishment, and with several grains of kosher salt, I left the elevator, hardly daring to allow myself hope.
And then the rain came.
On Wednesday morning, with bated breath, I opened the Office of Communications and Public Affairs webpage, by which I was informed that Columbia University will remain open for classes. 9:10 Cultural Anthropology? Still happening. 10:35 Late 20th Century Art? See you there, professor Alberro.
Bean boots and a bruised soul, I weathered that blizzard with my non-JTS and non-Nursing School compatriots. And I asked myself, what does Columbia stand to gain by antagonizing the entire student body? Forget the logProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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tics—money squandering aside, student morale was abysmally low. I can only wonder about how the lighthearted chit chat between girls A and B transformed into an exchange of complaints and condolences.
Was this Columbia’s version of the ROTC? Was this all an elaborate scheme to match our physical stamina to our intellectual prowess? Perhaps the waiting game was a test of our endurance.
So for those of us who had classes before 3, and are tired of hearing about this alleged “snow day,” stand strong! We are the few, the proud. (The marines.)