This past Thursday, Eastern University experienced its first snow day of the school year. The whole state of PA was bracing for a significant amount of snow to cover the ground, but it had been over a year since I had seen anything worth closing school over. My last spring semester was spent in England, where it only ever got cold enough to rain and I never saw a single snowflake in all three months (Hallelujah!). Needless to say, the only snow days I remembered were harkening back to my freshman year – I think every student on the East Coast remembers the continuous blizzards of 2014 – so I was skeptical of this weather’s potential to actually bother my day’s plans.

But alas, the snow came! I was woken up Thursday morning to an email from the university telling us that all classes were cancelled for the day, and I celebrated by falling back to sleep. When I woke up next, I remembered that my dorm building’s RA staff was making free pancakes in our lounge, so I was out the door as quick as possible to join my fellow residents downstairs. I guess I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised at the turnout. There was a line out the door to wait for hot chocolate and chocolate chip pancakes; everyone was still in the pajamas, of course. I looked out the window to see the ground covered with about 5 inches of powdery snow. Since the roads hadn’t yet been paved, it was all beautifully undisturbed and sparkling – amazing, since the day before had a high temperate of 50 degrees.

If there’s one thing I love about snow days that I missed, it’s the comradery that you can feel with your fellow students. No one has class, there’s pancakes, you can stay in your pajamas all day and watch movies, you can go out and play in the snow – the campus is your oyster! For myself, I opted to stay in my PJs and share a study room with a friend to work on homework together. I always enjoy cuddling up inside with coffee and having a view that makes me feel like I’m in a snow globe. It gets better when I remember that I have no reason to go outside and hike through 10 degree weather and clouds of wind-blown snow drifts. More than that, a Thursday snow day brought to me the blessing of a four-day weekend, so I couldn’t have enjoyed it any more if I had tried. Hopefully there will be more to look forward to!