Is the snow day truly dead?
In 2020, the snow day, (mostly) beloved haven of many a child, student and worker during the dark winter months, passed away at the virtual hands of Zoom, having raised many of us in the continental U.S. with some degree of ingrained hope for that blessed little snowflake symbol on the forecast. It was known for childhood fun, various cancellations both joyous and frustrating and eventual copious amounts of forbidden root beer slush.
As we mourn the loss of the Old-Fashioned Snow Day, read on for some highly scientific analysis of the new Zoom Snow Day from Naomi Mengel and Caroline Hinrichs.
Anatomy Of A UU Zoom Snow Day
By Naomi Mengel
Phase 1: Anticipation
10 days out, the little snowflake icon appears on your iPhone weather app. You don’t allow yourself to get excited, knowing that most of the time, you’ll be betrayed by the rain cloud icon that seems to inevitably hover over West Tennessee in February. Your roommate from Delaware, who can’t stop reminding everyone that she’s from The North (kind of) where it’s so much colder and snowier than here (it’s not really), scoffs as she eats frozen key lime pie just to prove she’s not cold (she is; it’s me).
On Sunday night, right before the snow is supposed to arrive, you release yourself from restraint and allow a tiny spark of hope to light your cold, hardened heart. Will that fluffy white blanket coat your class plans in the blessed warmth of your bed/couch and free you from all social obligation? Maybe for a day. Surely not for the whole week.
Phase 2a: Emails
Your phone keeps buzzing. Is it? Could it be? No, it’s your Intro to Biology professor reminding you that the class Zoom link is posted on Canvas in case of inclement weather.
Phase 2b: More Emails
The moment has arrived. Somewhere in a dimly-lit office or secret underground bunker, Dr. Dub or some other school official has pressed the magic button, granting the wish of multitudes of students.
All Union University campuses will be closed tomorrow (2-XX-21) due to inclement weather.
A shout erupts in Cobo. Cheers and whoops resound from the salad bar and taco line alike. The promised land is in sight.
Then the next flood of emails come in: happy snow day, see you in class.
Phase 3: Snow? Day
You roll out of bed at the usual time out of habit and panic, forgetting for a moment that getting to a Zoom class involves much less preparation, commute, makeup and putting-on-real-pants time than a regular class. You stumble blindly out of your room, where your roommate will inevitably giggle at your zombie face and Snuffleupagus hairdo. But there’s no walking to school uphill both ways in the snow for you today. You shuffle to the kitchen to acquire a bagel and coffee before retreating to your room to log into Zoom, where you do your best to pay attention but dissociate a little while staring at your giant Baby Yoda plush.
Phase 4: Instagram
This phase actually begins long before the others, when the snow day is but a distant hope. At the beginning of winter, you fantasize about running through the snow in a ballgown like the Pacific Northwest granola girls on TikTok and look for one at Goodwill. You ultimately realize your elvish “Lord of the Rings” dream is an empty hope and forget about it until snow is already on the ground and travel is near impossible on the saltless Jackson streets.
So after class, you put on a beanie, grab your dark lipstick and throw some snow in the air for a little bit of *spice*. You make sure your Instagram friends know you’re having “snow much fun” or that “there’s snow place like Union” before shivering your way back inside to sit on your couch, ensconced in your fluffiest blanket and completely ignoring all your Canvas assignments. Time isn’t real and hasn’t been since March, anyway. You interrupt your TikTok scrolling to see that Dr. Dub has liked your post, and you feel complete.
Phase 5: Repeat
By the fourth day, you have become the grandparents from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” You are a grizzly bear hibernating with only the sustenance of blueberry almond milk and $5 Kroger sushi that you risked your life to acquire on Wednesday out of boredom from the eight walls of your bedroom and living room.
After a dramatic banana-peel-style slip on the black ice behind Providence (my back still hurts) and an inner tube popping directly underneath you in the middle of Pleasant Plains during a sledding session (my hip still hurts), you’re kind of done with the humiliation of floundering in the snow. So you admire it from your window after you’re let out of a Zoom class early, thankful for its beauty and for professors who sympathize with your plight and just want to help you keep learning.
Zoom snow days may not be completely ideal, but I for one appreciate the chance to wear my Baby Yoda pajama pants all day and subsist on pepperoni slices and Sour Patch Kids (which apparently are not supposed to make your face feel warm and tingly), almost like I used to on a middle school snow day. The snow day isn’t dead; it’s just evolved.
So go and have “snow much fun” with that photoshoot. Admire the peace and quiet of a snow-covered evening. Probably don’t risk your life sledding on Pleasant Plains right as cars go by or driving to Kroger in bad conditions solely for the $5 sushi. A snow day is still a snow day, after all, just with a little Zoom for flavor.
SWOT Analysis of the UU Zoom Snow Week
By Caroline Hinrichs
Strengths
- No one can go anywhere or do anything. So, your roommates are forced to hang out with you. For our room, this leads to creating 70s-style conversation pits (more like conversation cracks) with our mattresses in the living room, decorating with Lightning McQueen-themed artwork and watching NASCAR at 2 a.m. (note: we have no interest in NASCAR, just that one M&M car in particular. Shoutout to you, Kyle.)
- Christian Girl Winter™ photoshoots pop up in abundance on Instagram (some may consider this a weakness—or worse, a threat).
Weaknesses
- No one can go anywhere or do anything. Which means no more wandering around Target for an indefinite amount of time, fantasizing about an extreme dorm makeover, then leaving with some hangers and a giant Baby Yoda plush.
- No sleds in The South. And the $2 inner tubes we bought from Walmart don’t have the longest lifespan (see: my tube popping the second I sit in it after dragging it halfway across campus in the snowfall; this doesn’t do much for my self-esteem.)
Opportunities
- A campus-wide snowball fight. This is my official call for ResLife to make this an impromptu UU Cup event. The last dorm standing gets an extra Dub bobblehead and the newest model of the Buster stress toy as well as a comment from Dr. Dub on your latest Instagram post.
- Oddly specific UU Instagram accounts catered to our current snow predicament. Recent accounts have garnered a quick surge of fame by arbitrarily measuring snow depth around campus. Personally, I’m thinking about rating the taste of snow in each quad or maybe classifying every snowflake as a Taylor Swift song. The possibilities are endless.
Threats
- Almost getting hit by a car when tubing/sledding onto Pleasant Plains (note: always have a roommate that will sacrifice life and limb to grab you before your lime green tube slides right in front of a station wagon. And if you don’t have one… Well, what a way to go, am I right?)
- Almost getting busted by a cop that made sure people weren’t getting hit by cars when tubing/sledding onto Pleasant Plains.
- The pile of sweatshirts, sweatpants and fuzzy socks staring ominously from my laundry basket.
- The snow “art” that I witnessed being made at 1:33 a.m. by a mass of boys in the center of the quad. Naomi and I considered running outside to mess it up, but we, alas, are cowards. Plus, the boys seemed to have a rotating cycle of guards walking to and from the various quads to make sure their artwork was preserved.
- The northerners who can’t stop reminding people that they’re from The North, where they eat below zero temperatures for breakfast. @ Naomi Mengel
Based on this analysis, the UU Zoom Snow Week has been somewhat successful in letting us revisit the good ol’ (normal) snow days from our youth. Sure, there may be endless Zoom calls and homework assignments that bring back traumatic memories of the cursed quarantine semester, but Zoom can never take away the joy of waking up to a fresh blanket of snow, even if you have to sit through a few classes before you get to have that traumatic sledding experience.
