Oh, the First Snowfall of the Winter

"Oh the first snowfall of the winter
Was a day that we all waited for
When it drifted to and fro
Why you should've seen the snow
It was near seven feet or more
By the old barn door

Oh the first snowfall of the winter
What a joy for a boy to behold
In each house you'll find a sleigh
That was waiting for this day
And of course, down the road a hill
For each jack and jill

Every winter breeze that scurries
Sets the snowflakes up in flurries
It's the good old sentimental season when
Folks put runners on their surreys
And forget about their worries
When a man becomes a boy once again

Oh the first snowfall of the winter
Jingle bells bring us spells ever dear
Under wintry skies of gray
It was snowing all the day
And it showed no signs of stopping
Every kid with eyes of popping
Will soon be belly-whopping on his ear

Oh the first snowfall of the winter
Oh the first snowfall of the year
The first snow of the year
Is just about the best snow
Well I'll say any snow
Is a pretty good show"

This Carpenter's song has been stuck in my head ALL DAY! And why? Because it snowed for the first time this winter!!! :O
Though it is a bit early for snow, the first snowfall of the winter is nevertheless a major cause for excitement, especially when the flakes falling from the sky are so big and lovely as they were today.
Picture this:
I am sitting in my writing class, discussing elusive sensibilities like "bro" and "dude" and even "Jew," when suddenly outside the window there appear tiny flurries of snow. Baby snow. I try to suppress my excitement at this new development so as not to burst out in the middle of class discussion with a totally irrelevant "It's snowing!!!!"
After class I hurry to the Cathedral Cafe for a hot caramel apple cider; if I'm going to make it over to the Newman Center alive, I'm going to need something to keep my hands warm on the way and to warm my belly once I get there.
Thus I find myself pressing a steaming, fragrant cup of hot cider between my palms (with traveler lid, of course, to prevent spillage) as I make my way through increasingly picturesque snowfall toward my favorite spot on campus.
Isn't life wonderful??
The snow hasn't stuck, which is probably for the best, because now we have all reaped the benefits of a beautiful snow without having to deal with the grossness of slush. Ew! Slush is so February. So far nothing has frozen over, either, and the last time I checked it was a not-too-cold 40 degrees outside. I have a feeling that winter in the city isn't always going to be this nice, so I'm enjoying it while I can.
Now, if you'll excuse me, there is a paper that I am supposed to be writing as well as three journal entries for my Italian class. Yes, I must write it all in Italian. We're supposed to pretend that we are keeping a journal during a visit to Italy (HA I wish) highlighting our sightseeing and shopping and eating, thus encompassing all of the vocab from this unit. How convenient.

Elevator Adventure

It is a well known fact in Lothrop Hall that our elevators can get... well, a bit moody. Sometimes they'll take you where you want to go and other times... they just won't. It seems that every few weeks an elevator breaks or is out of service, making the remaining elevators run a bit slower due to the large number of people using them. There was a period of time when only ONE of the four elevators in the building was working.
Although I personally had never been stuck in an elevator, I had heard many many stories from floormates and other friends who had been stuck, missed classes, etc. I considered myself to be rather lucky in this respect... until today.
Today, as I approached the elevators with a personal pizza from the Pizza Hut in Schenley Cafe, I was not even remotely thinking about the possibility of getting stuck. I was thinking of my pizza, and how much I couldn't wait to get to my room so I could eat it. Unfortunately, Fate and the elevators had other plans.
I pushed the "up" button as usual and boarded the first elevator to open. I pushed the button for the 8th floor and the doors closed. I was alone. The smell of my pizza filled the space and I smiled at the though of my impending meal.
Beep... beep... beep... as the elevator passed floors 1, 2, and 3. Then a beep... and then a shudder. As soon as the car hit floor 4, it rumbled a few times and slid back down to the space between floors 3 and 4. The screen displaying the floor number, which just a few seconds ago had been displaying a cheery red 4 (half way there! gaaaaahhhhh!!!!) flat lined into an ominous red dash. The "8" button that had been lit so promisingly went dead and, despite my many attempts to revive it, stayed that way.
Not quite panicking yet, I pushed other buttons: ground floor, doors open, anything! No luck.
I felt myself moving gently, but in my distraction couldn't really tell if I was going up or down. I heard voices in the lobbies I passed and suppressed the urge to scream "HELP HELP I'M TRAPPED!!"
"Deep breaths. Calm yourself. You can figure this out." The inner dialogue continued as the elevator grated to a stop. Would the doors open this time??? The suspense!!!
Ding! Doors opened. I allow myself a brief sigh of relief as I scoot quickly out of the elevator. Now... where am I? What floor am I on? Ah... 14. The top floor of the building. An all-guys floor. Crap.
Praying that no one sees me wandering around this floor on which I know exactly no one, I crept to the stairwell. I pushed gently on the door for a few seconds before I realized that it was stuck shut. I pushed harder. Still no. Locked? Who locks a fire exit????? Thinking that perhaps this is one of those doors that sets off an alarm, I stopped pushing and backed away slowly. Now what??
I remembered that on my floor there's another stairwell down the hall from the elevators. If I can just make it without anyone seeing me! I tippy-toed down the hallway, hoping against hope that all those doors with boys' names on them would stay the way they were: closed.
Finally reaching the stairwell, I scurried down the 6 flights of steps to my floor and sauntered nonchalantly to my room. Success!! Yay!!!
And THEN I ate my pizza. It was delicious, by the way.

Sorry that was kind of anticlimactic. ... It was a big deal to me at the time. hahahaha

and In Health :)

I'm feeling better!!!
I know that I haven't written anything for a long time, but I've been so sick that all I've really had to talk about is how much my throat hurt/nose was stuffed/body couldn't seem to sleep at night. We've all been through the common cold, and it's not pretty. So why relive it? Exactly. Let's not.
It was about 3 days ago that I finally felt like my old self, able to get out of bed in the morning without wishing I could sleep for another few hours and able to breath out of my nose at long last. One good thing about being sick is that it makes you appreciate your health ever so much more.
Unfortunately, for two weeks I've been in survival mode with my school work, only doing what was absolutely necessary and skipping all the extra preparation before class and review of the material afterwards. The purpose of this was to make time for more sleep and general recuperation, but now that I'm better I have some catching up to do. There are whole chapters in some classes that we just flew through in class that I now have to do all the readings for. Then I need to sit down with the readings and the notes and make connections that I would have made in class if I had done the readings when I was supposed to instead of sleeping all the time.
This is a whole new kind of makeup work for me. But I think I'm up to the challenge.