Come Together (The Beatles)

There's something about snow that just creates a larger sense of camaraderie than one normally sees. The weather's been pretty schizophrenic lately - warm one day, freezing the next - but yesterday evening was, quite literally, the icing on the cake as it were. After an absolutely miserable day full of nothing but frigid rain and nasty howling wind the day managed to cool off just enough to create about 6-inches-worth of heavy snow.
The snow was a quaint novelty all through the evening. At least it was until about 11pm when Nadine came bounding down the hall and then proceeded to bang on my door as if she were taking point on a dangerous police raid. Four very loud and enthused seconds later she was bouncing up and down in front of my door like some weird hybrid of a rubber ball and a hyperactive child screaming, "school's been canceled! School's been canceled! Come and play in the snow!" About half an hour later I was outside with my roommate and several other people from the hall building a giant snow monster and running around like little kids.

It was a fantastic throw back to being 6 years old. Everyone was building snowmen and sliding down the various hills on campus on makeshift sleds made of everything from trashbags to laundry baskets. We had races rolling down the hill until we couldn't see straight. I rolled down the hill racing my roommate and felt like I got to spinning down that sope at about 20 mph. It was brilliant.

In making our way down to the Quad in order to see the snow there, our group managed to get embroiled in several vicious snowball fights. It didn't matter if we knew the people who were bombarding us or not; everyone was having such a good time. Our first skirmish involved a group of football players and their friends. In the end we realised that we knew a few of them, but initially it didn't even matter. Several stupidly heroic charges were somewhat reminiscent of "Charge of the Light Brigade"...none of the other girls could keep a straightly aimed, high-velocity trajectory over more than 8 feet.

The best fights were on the Quad itself. Several suicidal charges were led against a group of baseball players. I stayed behind with the guys and provided long-range cover as the girls went in. My aim and range improved significantly over the course of our time outside. I even managed to score a few good hits on the athletes: one face-shot in particular was highly satisfying to watch from about 30 feet away.

The best bit of it all was that no one cared who they were starting a snowball fight with. There must have been five simultaneous fights going on and everyone was having a fantastic time tiring themselves out and slowly freezing appendages. (I conceded defeat by the cold when I had to work to make a fist.) People with whom you would probably never talk or hang out on a normal basis were suddenly fair game to become targets for frozen projectiles or to be tackled full-speed into the slushy snow that had been churned up by everyone's boots and shoes.

Two hours later, just after 1 in the morning, it was definitely time to admire our winter wonderland from afar. It took a while to warm up enough so that the most moderate of showers didn't feel scalding hot on my nearly frostbitten flesh.

The whole of the weekend has been quite nice. Had a lovely time at my friend Brittni's 21st birthday. She went with a goth/emo theme which was just oodles of fun to dress up for. Really, I''ll take any excuse to break out some black fingernail polish again. Of course the Eva Green a la Casino Royale eye makeup and the black lipstick were just an amusing departure from reality altogether. Not to mention that this snow day afford an extra week to practise the Telemon canonic sonatas and Nel Cor Piu for my flute teacher. Mostly, though I think today will be spent finishing my Aphrodite paper for Greek Myth. The great tragedy is that the gym is probably closed. I could definitely do with spending an hour trying to distract myself from the reality that I'm climbing 3-miles-worth of stairs by focusing as much brain power as possible on a fashion magazine. We have to keep low standards here, anything with real substance will require too much brain power and defeat the purpose of helping me to ignore the exertion to which I am subjecting my body. For now though, it'll take some Ben Folds and perhaps the Dark Knight soundtrack to distract me from the fact that I'm spending an hour deciphering and passing judgment on Hesiod and Homer's portrayals of the goddess of love.