I'm starting the wonder if I should change the name of this blog to "The Ornery Undergraduate" given my experience at Rutgers. Today there was a snow/ice storm, and I had little choice but to walk home in it. I can somewhat understand why Rutgers did not close down the university this afternoon, but as night fell traffic ground to a near-halt and the snow gave way to ice. I knew things weren't going to be pleasant when I heard the tapping of ice crystals against the window during my human osteology lecture, but by the time I got at 8:00 out things were pretty bad.
The city, for whatever reason, did not salt or shovel the sidewalks and some business owners had workers in their employ throwing slush onto the sidewalk so it wouldn't be in the way of their storefronts. Things were a little better on Rutgers property, but they hadn't shoveled since the ice started coming down (nor had they salted the sidewalk) so it was still pretty slippery.
Why didn't I just take the bus? The Rutgers bus routes going towards my apartment are all on a single, one-lane road through downtown New Brunswick, and by walking I beat the entire fleet to their destination. Students were getting off in the middle of traffic so I assume I wasn't the only one who figured it would be faster to walk. When I arrived home, about a half an inch of ice/slush had accumulated on my noggin, enough to essentially be able to "peel" off the stuff.
I know there are people who have it worse, who live and work in places that are icier & colder, but today Rutgers & New Brunswick slipped up when it came to the storm. If it had come all of a sudden, if there was a blizzard or very fast accumulation of snow, I wouldn't be so irritated, but it seems that things were just bad enough to make life miserable without being bad enough for school & city officials to do very much about it. I'm going to go collapse now...
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I think it's the places that aren't so used to snow that have a harder time with it, though our winter has been far from pleasant either- we just got out of two weeks of -30 to -40 weather. And we greet the new warmth with more snow!
On the plus side, there is a new tiny pterosaur to celebrate today!
My undergrad institution very rarely canceled classes--maybe only once or twice in the 4 years I was there. I think this was mainly because they assumed all of the students (or most of them anyway) lived on campus and therefore traveling wasn't an issue. Although that reason doesn't take into account the fact that the professors still had to find a way home.
Senior students are always disgruntled. I think it comes from having to deal with the bureaucracy for so many years. After awhile you just don't want to be patient with the administration anymore.
Drink some hot chocolate (or whiskey, your choice). It'll warm you up and you'll feel better!
At our place we let the snow sit under the ice layer until the whole storm is done.
That way, the ice stays on top of the snow and the whole mess is more easily removed. My cement driveway is now dry and has no precipitation in it. My road, however, is a sheet of ice since the county did plow the snow off and salted. The ice was too much for the salt and sand.
Now we wait for mother nature to let the sun shine on it. I can get out of my driveway (an up hill slope of 15 degrees) but cannot drive down my flat street.
When I was at Wash U we had a decent snow storm. It snowed like nobody's business all over the weekend, and then the snow froze. The city of St Louis put grit down on the sidewalks, but the university didn't.
Whether or not it was a rumour I don't know, but I heard from another student that it was because, if Wash U gritted, but gritted badly, and a student slipped, then they were entitled to sue, because the university would have been negligent in its gritting (!). However, if they did nothing then the student would have no legal leg to stand on.
Sometimes I wonder about that university, and where it gets its legal advice from...
A Canadian linguablogger I read (q_pheevr) wrote this a while back:
You know what I like about it when the campus closes because of snow?
It's not the part about not having to teach; I enjoy teaching. It's the part about not having to get on the subway at quarter to seven so as to get on the bus at quarter past seven so as to get to my office by quarter past eight so as to be ready to teach at nine.
You know what I like about it when the campus closes because of snow at 8:30 a.m.?
Absolutely nothing.