Impending Storms

            Today is a snow day, something I will never stop being excited about despite the fact that I am 22 years old.  There is almost a foot of snow, no one has touched our streets, and the weather channel is telling us that the worst storm won’t even come until 5:00 tonight (so hopefully snow day tomorrow to make it a 4 day weekend?).  Right now I am settling in to a day of warm foods, snow ice cream (an old family recipe), and alternating between writing my thesis and watching Netflix.  Life is going to be pretty great today. 

            But at the moment, it’s yesterday I’m thinking of.  The day before a potential snow day is hyperactive compared to the snow day itself.  People running to the stores (I witnessed empty bread and egg shelves at price chopper), everyone giving contradictory weather reports, and just the general buzz of speculation, excitement, doubt, and dread in a few cases (to those people, I say “Grinch.”). 

            Yesterday was also the day of the graduation fair.  My classmates and I filled out forms for our cap and gown sizes, contemplated how much we actually wanted to spend on announcements, and chatted with career services about our plans for next year…or lack thereof. 

            As we wait to hear back about Alumni Service Corps (me, I’ll talk more about that later), Physicians Assistant school or volunteering in Costa Rica (my roommate Elizabeth), or a job at Visitation elementary school (my roommate Anne), the emotions are similar to that of waiting for a snowstorm (though unfortunately I don’t think life after college is like a snow day).  Some people—like those who hear about classes cancelled early—are celebrating their acceptance into Boston College’s social work graduate program (my roommate Emma…and with a full tuition scholarship!).  Others are dreading the difficulties that storms and graduation brings, and others are as ready for the next adventure as a kid for a snowball fight…and most of the time we are a mix of all of these things.    

            Life next year is a storm brewing, and we wait, we dread, we wonder, we pray for what the next stage will be.  I remember so clearly my graduation from high school and I am thinking all the cliché things one thinks when looking back—it seems so close, but I have grown so much, will I look any better in these graduation pictures than some of those atrocious old ones?

            But we are ready.  Elizabeth absentmindedly tells me about medical terms that I find on paintings I’m looking through for an art show without even having to look up from her homework.  Anne grills me about grammar while she is making a test for her student teaching class and I pass with flying colors.  Emma patiently explains to us the difference between cognitive and behavioral psychology when we have no idea what she is talking about for her capstone.  Most days we are excited for what we will do…we are the storms brewing!  Gathering strength for four years and ready to break on the world!  At least, that’s what I tell myself on good days.

            But today, no graduation fair, no applications, no brewing my own storm…the only thing that is brewing is a big breakfast with with my roommates and a day of enjoying the snow and the happiness of being a college student whose classes are cancelled…

 

Snowpocalypse

 

Future social worker and future physicians assistant on a snow day...auspicious beginnings

 

 

A little throwback to the high school graduation.  Here's to hopefully getting better educated and more photogenic after four years...