Cold Day Tomorrow?

I remember in middle school when we used to call our snow days "cold days" because we were afraid that we would jinx our luck (or perhaps the snow "gods," whom we danced to) by calling them "snow days". For whatever reason this didn't carry into high school, though. Maybe it was all of those icy car crashes (like the one I witnessed walking home today) or perhaps it was slipping in the slush (which I have done in years past and will probably do again this year) but for whatever reason we have lost this "cold day" idea. That's not to say that we don't get mad at our teachers for jinxing us by not acting like we're going to still have school the next day nor do we no longer get excited when we watch the 10 o'clock news- or perhaps go to sleep and let our parents tell us in the morning- and find out THERE'S NO SCHOOL! However, it seems to me that we've lost the innocence of it by the time we reach high school. We just want to get out of school so we don't have to do the work- not because we're genuinely happy about the snow. This loss of innocence is even affecting the middle-schoolers now. The elementary kids are our only hope for this genuine excited-ness.

One thing we did carry over, though, is this idea of rituals. Like wearing your PJ's inside out or putting a fork and a spoon under your pillow- like that was supposed to do some good? I would really do that in middle school but end up sleeping on the floor for fear of getting a fork shoved into my head. Many people even slept the wrong way on their beds. To which I said, "so you get a fork in your foot instead of your head, seems reasonable" not even seeing the illogical-ness of it all. I never would have imagined that somebody in a small office in the center of town would be the deciding factor in whether or not school was canceled. I guess that's the magic of the season for you- instead of using our time "wisely" we use our time to make up silly snow dances and other rituals in order to not have school the next day (or perhaps the next week...) and to appease these made-up snow people.

Well, I'm going to drink some hot tea and get some math or Latin homework done. Here's hoping that we (and I'm not trying to jinx it here) have a "cold day" tomorrow and that I don't have to do my human geography homework because I'm too lazy to do it now.
~Haley