Snoooooow

Valentine's Day brought with it the first real snow of the year (and probably the last). More accurately, it brought wintery mix. I was delighted when I looked out my window and saw something not rain falling from the sky. I was less delighted when I stepped out of my door and discovered that what was coming down was sleet, not snow. It had snowed over night, and the sleet was slowly covering all surfaces with a layer of ice.

In my typical fashion, I was unprepared and had various encounters of the injury-inducing kind.
The city and the college made no pretense of plowing, much less salting the sidewalks and streets. So instead we took baby steps around campus. I was in a rush to one class, and went through a courtyard. I was running along the path to exit through a gate when one of the maintenance men called out to me. "Watch it over here, it's slippery!" I heard him just in time to slip and go flying eight feet into the gate. I slammed into and held onto the bars to keep from breaking my hip on the ground. I looked back to see where I'd come from, and noticed a nice 9 ft x 9 ft square of ice right in front of the gate.

Later that night, when my friends and I were walking back from a singles Valentine's Day dinner, the second mishap of the day occurred. My suitemate from California had never engaged in a snowball fight. We started an impromptu one. Five minutes in, though, she picked a nicely pre-formed ball from the ground. Before I could stop her, she lobbed it at me. She nailed me directly in the sternum with an softball-sized chunk of ice. I legitimately had a mild bruise under my clothing. But I guess it's a testament to how hardcore I am.

But now the snow/ice has gone from the nice stage it was at to the ugly stage. So instead of sliding around campus, I know have to climb over gigantic, pitch-black mounds of ice to get into the street or back onto the sidewalk. And then it all started melting today into giant puddles at all the corners. Mmm, the joys of winter.