Random Acts of Kindness

Today I met my guardian angel in Kimmel. I had just went out on a limb to try that weird stir-fry thing in the center of the food area, which I haven't had since first semester freshman year, so don't judge. I sauntered over to the cashier, and he was ringing up the order when the girl behind me said that she had a lot of money on her supercard and offered to buy my food. I protested, but she handed over her ID card anyway, and the cashier said I was all set. I was in a state of amazement. Who does something like that? I'm thinking in the cheesiest terms right now and encouraging the readers of this blog to PAY IT FORWARD just like little Haley Joel Osment would. To that girl, wherever you are, you did a truly great deed. The stir-fry was just okay.

In Defense of Old Man Winter

Now that it's December, it's time we took a good hard look at our surroundings. Looking out windows across campus, we are faced with an inevitable white reality. Today I cleared off 2 feet of snow from my car, just to move it to the other side of the street. The futility was never so staggering. Walking to class is now a 30 minute walk as opposed to a 15 minute walk. And it's cold. There is a new style of Uggs being sold at J. Michael's. Moonboots are still being sold at J. Michael's. These are all things we let get us down year after year, but for the first time today I began to think differently and I encourage you to do the same.

Perhaps my mind has become a nice shade of jade after four years or maybe I am subconsciously subscribing to the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" motto, but rather than seeing all the bad things, I could see the good things. Let's first throw out the obvious literary allusions: the snow is a form of purity, a new landscape everyday to be shaped, digested, urinated on for monogramming purposes, a tabula rasa for everyone. Now, let's go deeper. Snow acts a great equalizer of campus status, socioeconomic differences, and even the great divide of man and woman. Before this goes political, hear me out. When a Theta girl slips on the ice, an interesting thing happens. It is precisely the same thing that happens when a brother of TKE, an Asian graduate student, an African-American athlete, a top 5 ranked Halo 3 player, and an old woman fall. Stereotypes aside, the results are always the same: total loss of control of limbs. Instantaneous playing-it-cool demeanor upon rising. Nervous laughter coupled with a rapid over the shoulder look around. No one is above this: it's a knee jerk reaction to an all too common occurrence here, and we've all experienced it. ¡Adios class divisions!

I'll take this a step further. Snow provides us the means to achieve previously unobtainable common ground between people. What better ice breaker than ice itself! When people arrive at various locations around campus, haggard faces are met with other haggard faces, boots of all kinds, scarfs of all colors, jackets of all shapes, and personal creeds of all kinds. College Democrats unknowingly sharing a word with College Republicans between classes? What is this magic powder? There was always something to be said about the group of people you climbed Mt. Everest with, so why should a trip down a wind swept Ackerman be any different? Your nostril hairs are frozen? I hear you, my brother. Your knee is skinned from slipping down your front steps? Amen, my sister. Who can forget that girl or guy, seemingly completely different from you in every conceivable way, that you added as a Facebook friend Freshman year after a heartfelt discussion regarding how terrible the snow really is? I know I haven't.

Best of all, the snow demands nothing from us. It provides us with thousands of opportunities for humility, cooperation, interpersonal connections, self improvement (I got to the Geology building in under 20 mins yesterday!), and most importantly a functioning environment. The next time you find yourself cursing your professor for not canceling class, I implore you, nay, demand that you reconsider your situation. Firstly because it will never happen again, secondly because maybe this class will finally be the one where you work up the courage to talk to that good looking girl/guy that has ignored you all semester (hint: defog your glasses BEFORE approaching). Or maybe you'll catch a glimpse at the latest insulated fashion as promoted by all those trend setting winter warriors, braving the trek to that last Statistics class before the open book final. In the end of the day, you'll be sleeping soundly in your warm, heated bedroom and you will have forgotten about the trouble snow may have caused you. But lucky for you, just when you think you've forgotten, there's always a friendly reminder just one Lake Effect Emergency Weather Warning away in Syracuse.