School's Closed, But So Are the Roads

Second semester has commenced! I promised myself at the beginning of 2010 that I would stay on top of all my schoolwork, go to the gym more and have an overall good year. Well, so far so good. However those three days of school were unnecessarily brutal. Between the frigid, biting air and the battle for sleep, I gradually found it more difficult to get things done. By Wednesday I wanted nothing more than to come home from school and just sleep. And sleep. And sleep. However there were hopes of having a snow day! Seeing as how we live in Fulton County, I knew there wasn’t a chance; but there was still that miniscule opportunity of having a half day. I went to wsbtv.com at around eight o’clock and watched as all of the private schools, technical colleges, and (of course) Forsyth County slowly post their school statuses. I refreshed the page every so often and nothing happened. I would occasionally jump at the sight of other counties starting with an “F”, only to be disappointed by my apparent lack of reading ability. Deciding to accept the obvious, I fell to bed, setting my alarm on the way down.

My mom’s redundant call of, “Zoe, time to wake up” barely stirred me. The frosty air was just hanging over my blankets, ready to engulf me. I buried myself deeper in the massive cover that wrapped itself around me. Drifting back into sleep, my alarm slammed on. Yes, slammed. It was the loudest alarm I had ever heard in my life. I guess I forgot to turn the volume down the night before; the Black Eyed Peas was then telling me that tonight was going to be a good night. Little did I know that they were absolutely right! Thursday was another typical school day with substitutes attempting to keep classes awake and motivated, a struggle I’m sure they face every day. But by the end sixth period, it was hard for teachers to keep their students in their seats. Why? There was snow! Little tiny drops of semi-frozen water were drifting lightly to the freezing ground below.

Seeing people jump out of their seats to look at this pretty picture never ceases to amaze me. It has snowed practically every year in Georgia for the time I’ve been here (14 years) and every year it is as if people are witnessing a miracle. I, on the other hand, get a little disappointed with the snow. Schools are shut down, roads are closed, and people are flocking to their nearest Kroger to stock up on food. And for what? The thinnest layer of snow barely veils the grass beneath it. It’s nothing to build a snow man out of and it’s nothing to go sledding on.

However, getting a day off of school I cannot complain about. On Thursday night I checked the website again about every five minutes. At around ten thirty, Fulton County was still not on the list! How could that be? I start my homework facing the facts that we’ll be dragged into school the following day. Right when all hopes were thrown down the drain, my mom, a teacher, gets a phone call. My heart fluttered a little at the fact of someone calling our house at eleven o’clock at night. “Allison. There’s no school tomorrow!” she said.