Snow Problem
It would have been a rather pedestrian (the irony of which will become apparent later) week now that a routine of Physics (adding Physics into any mix of things always makes them a little more funny) and alcohol was firmly established (as Dr. H—said "We will be using ethanol as a solvent, a chemical which I believe that all of you are well acquainted with") if not for the icy fingers of winter wrapping themselves around our necks.
Like "icy fingers" or "winter wonderland", the snow and cold have various cheesy connotations associated with them, not in the least those that incite the babbling madness that overtakes sensible (and not-so-sensible) students and propels them into the frigid death-trap that is a winter night, if only to coo uncontrollably at ice flakes falling from the sky. Such is the overly romanticised treatment that many people give to snow.
While a pristine landscape coated in pure white does lend a hint of beauty to otherwise pallid surroundings, the benefits, if we may call them that, which snow brings to us are not at all commensurate with the immense annoyances they cause. Indeed, snow is a terribly pretty thing, probably the dressiest, flashiest weather phenomenon there is, something like a white grand piano. The first ever time anyone sees snow there is a rush of euphoria at its uniqueness and an element of curiosity, as it is with other new experiences. But thereafter the rationality ends, and I find it difficult to comprehend how people from Scotland, the glacial wasteland of Britain where people are probably now cowering in igloos under an ice cap in the heart of freezing Glasgow, cannot cease becoming a gibbering idiot in the face of white flecks drifting from the sky like some unmanageable dandruff of nature.
And after the first time, it becomes as maddening. Snow is fun to peer at with a mug of hot chocolate in front of a heater, during the weekend. In fact, it does make us feel at peace with the world and that nature is at it's heart benevolent. But apparently snow was designed at a time when people didn't really need to go anywhere, because it is a major hindrance to any form of locomotion short of scrounging around on one's knees. Many of the modern vulgar vernacular must have been invented by people who had to fish around in a foot of snow to even find their bicycles.
But I do exaggerate, as people tend to do with such things like the weather or size of fish/houses/automobiles, and we've only had a couple of inches of snow. One always has to sympathise with the people who have to deal with the real, apocalyptic, life-destroying blizzards like those in Canada, or Russia. But those have turned into so much of a way of life that extremes of snowfall are treated with the same cursory nod that one might give a Burger King cashier. Over here there tends to be a little bit of a doomsday complex. Headlines that scream "Arctic Weather dumps an inch of snow on B--"; an inch? Terrifying, I say.
Nevertheless, because snow is such a rare occurrence over here (almost as rare as Classics students, or my Natwest bank statement) I tend now to look upon it more misty-eyed than I would any other weather phenomenon, which snow basically is, water in its most annoying state.
