There is a common reaction among Southerners when it comes to snow or any inclement weather. The steps usually include a premature rush to cancel school, a hustle to stock up at the grocery store and a panic about any form of driving.
As a born and raised South Carolinian, I have been through this drill at least a couple times a year, every year that I can remember.
To me, this tradition of treating snow like a precious miracle every year is the only way to live, so I was surprised when I came to a large school with students from various places in the northern U.S. When I talked to people from Chicago or New Jersey and heard about the many feet of snow that they got each year and still had to walk through to get to class, I laughed.
“Oh yeah, there is no way we would walk through snow to get to school,” I replied.
With this comes more talk about how southern states just don’t know what to do in cold weather, in which I might also agree. However, the thing that gets under most Southerners skin is the attitude of superiority to snow day excitement.
Okay, so you get a lot more snow days than us back home. Okay, so you came to USC to get away from snow days. Whatever the fact may be, let us have our excitement! There is nothing more exciting than waiting the night before a potential snow day waiting for the schools to cancel class, so that you can revel in your snow day laziness.
Snow days equal going outside to take cheesy snow pictures with the one to two inches of snow that actually sticks and then scrolling through your social media timeline and seeing twenty other similar pictures. Snow days are watching movies and drinking hot chocolate, even if you don’t feel like it because the snow aesthetic is too much to compromise on a bad day.
I know that these traditions may be a thing for only those below the Mason-Dixon Line, but I urge all students to immerse themselves in this culture of snow day revelry. To reach maximum snow day excitement, complaints about walking through four feet of snow for a month could possibly be held inside until the summer season. All I’m saying is let us have our fun while it lasts.