Monday, December 3, 2007

so much snow

so...the snow is here to stay in orono. i'm not sure how many inches we are talking about, but it's serious. classes were cancelled at noon for the rest of the day and it's only supposed to keep coming down. according to the weatherpersons, it will stop sometime tomorrow, after dumping 12 to 18 inches on our fair town. regretfully, i do not have any current pictures b/c it is dark now. these pictures were taken around 11:30am, so you can imagine that things have only gotten worse.

my car has gotten stuck in the snow only once.

i have fallen on the ice only once.

i have a feeling that i will keep track of these numbers. it could get interesting. i'm going to intersperse comments from my students, pat and classmates throughout.

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this is what i woke up to. very early stages. i also woke up to these:

Unfortunately, I won't be in class today. My parents told me I could not go to school because of the weather. They said something about rather having a stupid living kid than an educated one that died in a car accident. Sorry. I will try to catch up later. Jason.

Dear Ms.Hedrick,
i hope that if you're driving to school this morning that it didn't scare you too much. I wanted to let you know that i'm a commuter student and unforunatley for the month of december i dont' have a car, and due to the snow i have no way of
getting to school. I'm assuming a lot of commuter students won' t make it up to Orono today. :( Please fill me in on anything i miss in class.
-Kristen

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on campus, walking in at 8am.

complete email from pat burnes: It's also a good idea to keep a shovel in the trunk or back seat of your car. P

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we couldn't find a ruler in any of our offices, so we used matt's einstein action figure. as you can see...the snow is chest level.

matt: "put your coat on, virginia. we're going outside."
me: "but you guys don't have coats on!"
matt: "yep. put your coat on. let's go."

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i can't be bothered to rotate. brian is slightly taller than einstein. neither are altogether helpful in terms of scale. this was all still early at 11:30am.

in response to my question of how long winter in maine lasts -
one of my students: "one year it snowed on my birthday."
me: "oh yeah?"
student: "yeah. my birthday is in may."

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matt in the snow.

me: "it certainly wasn't fun cleaning off the car this morning."
another student: "oh...just wait."

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no rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will keep them from their smokes.

yet another student: "did you drive today?"
me: "yes, i did."
student: "how did that go?"
me: "very slowly."
student: "good."

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this is how i found my car in the campus parking lot. i had been on campus for a little over three hours. needless to say, i had some work to do before i could leave. snow is so quiet. it's very strange.

the first thing i said as i arrived at laurie's for the stuculty meeting: "umm...so my car is stuck. but i think it's out of the road."
laurie, looking out the window: "oh yeah, you're fine."

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this is the last picture that i took before i uploaded pictures. you might be able to see that accumulation, but it's much worse now anyway.

conversation as we were shoveling out my car -
laurie: "oh, i love the snow! but then again...i don't drive in it."
me: "well, i'm not going to do it again."

tomorrow i will walk. and i'm looking forward to my winter wonderland. i hope my shortcuts are manageable. might just be a disaster. i'll let you know.

3 comments:

Anita said...

Oh Manda, snow snow snow:)( I absolutely love that your friends, colleagues and students all have an awareness of your southern upbringing in regards to weather. It sounds as if they are all watching out for you (or just watching you). I think the walking thing is a good idea...just stay far far far off the road.

Amanda said...

i'd say that pat is watching out for me, and maybe a couple of my students are. i think the rest are really just watching and enjoying the show.

good thing i don't mind an audience!

Anita said...

Way to go Manda!:) Hold that attitude with pride.