North Carolina was caught off-guard last weekend with an uncharacteristically powerful snowstorm. A region that usually sees no more than a few inches all year had its second considerable snowfall of the season. Because the first storm came over Winter Break, Friday and Saturday were the first chance for many new Dukies from the north to witness a city completely shutting down due to a relatively small amount of snow.
Service-crippling snowstorms are rarely convenient, but this one in particular fell at an unfortunate time. For one thing, the snow’s late Friday arrival meant that no classes would be cancelled. The semester may only be three weeks old, but who doesn’t like the reprieve of a snow day? At least we won’t have any classes paradoxically rescheduled for the days after LDOC like last year.
This was also the weekend that we were finally going to see some tents in Kville.
The snow wreaked havoc on the scheduled start of Blue Tenting season, with night after night of grace and the cancellation of the party meant to celebrate the transition out of the Black and into the Blue. Personally, I see this as a sign of the basketball gods’ disapproval of a tenting policy that kept Kville unpopulated until mid-January. Hopefully Durham and Chapel Hell freezing over will signal a return to the days when the Craziest of Crazies could put up tents in December.
(One last memo to the line monitors: On one hand, you have perpetually decreasing turnout at smaller games against non-conference teams and the dregs of the ACC. On the other hand, you decided to shift the traditional first-come-first-served tent numbering model to one that rewards “merit.” Put two and two together—maybe prior attendance is a better judge of who deserves the best seats at the UNC game than a Blue Devils trivia contest. Reward the basketball fans, not the basketball nerds!)
And for all the bros and bros-to-be on campus, last weekend saw the Interfraternity Council recruitment process come to an unfortunately anticlimactic close. Many groups’ final events, which were their last chances to get to know and impress rushes, fell victims to the wintery conditions.
On a personal note, my own fraternity’s semiformal was scheduled for Saturday night, and with the snow beginning to pile up Saturday morning, our crisis management team took to the phones. The restaurant hosting our evening affair was not open for lunch and wasn’t answering our calls. The C-5 wasn’t running, and snow in the Blue Zone kept us from driving our cars. Even all of the cab companies we tried to reach wouldn’t honor reservations that evening—some had closed altogether until the snow passed.
Now, I’m from Massachusetts. We’re used to the snow; we even have different words for different kinds of snowstorms (a nor’easter is a blizzard, but a blizzard is not necessarily a nor’easter—ask someone with a thick Boston accent to explain it to you).
Up North, if you’re trying to plan an event in January, you know going in that there’s a chance that the weather will shut you down. If that happens, you adjust your plans as best you can and roll with it.
Apparently this mindset is not universal—a number of brothers and their dates were upset that their fancy night of dinner and dancing was being taken from them. Some clung to the idea of holding semi long past the point that it was realistically feasible. As panic set in, the finger-pointing started, but the only direction to point was up at the clouds that were responsible for the snow. Cancelling semi was nobody’s fault except Mother Nature’s, and the more productive question to ask was, how can we salvage our Saturday night?
In spite of the Negative Nancies, we managed to put together a smaller event in the comfort of our section. Our “snowed-in” circumstances were the inspiration for the theme of the evening, and I spent the afternoon with a handful of optimists making hot chocolate and cutting and hanging paper snowflakes around the dorm.
Of course our section shindig did not have the same allure as a night on the town, but it had a charm all its own, and those in attendance made a great night out of a less-than-ideal situation. After all, we can reschedule the semi for another day when icy conditions won’t pose a threat to cars on the road and girls in heels.
Things don’t always go the way you’ve planned, but an open mind and a positive attitude can make the difference. From snowmen and snow angels to sledding and snowball fights, luckily you’ve got plenty of options when life hands you snowflakes.
Bradford Colbert is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Tuesday.
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