When I was a young lad around the age of ten with an innocent and malleable mind, I had an incredibly skewed perception of the world and the people around me. I am sure you can relate.

Every occurrence and every person I met in life was filled with wonder, joy, mystery and excitement. Everything that happens, happens for the first time. Everyone you meet is a new friend. Basically, life is new, easy and simple.

Despite the fact that most of us, by this point in our lives, have grown out of our once immensely powerful imaginations, there is one thing that keeps us young—it is white, sometimes fluffy and falls from the heavens.

You guessed it: snow.

When it falls, it comes with a few good things. Among them are days off from school and work, snowball fights, igloos, snowmen, snow angels and sledding.

We embrace this frozen precipitation every time it arrives. But when is it too much? When is cancelling class over and over again too much? When do boring nights sipping hot cocoa by the fireplace become too much?

When do we get tired of no work and only play? And when does it start to take away from our experience as students?

Well, the reality of the matter is that that time has come. Snow, please stop screwing us over.

Winter Storm Juno dumped almost 20 inches of snow onto much of Long Island, and with another storm on its way before Juno’s mess can melt away, we have to stop and think, practically, just how much snow sets us back as students.

Let’s start with the disgruntling fact that because we have not yet had class on a Monday (which is awesome, do not get me wrong), we are going to be forced to make up for that lost time on Fridays (March 6 and 27). I normally do not have class on Fridays, and I am sure a lot of you reading this do not either. Just the thought of going to class on my special days off makes me wonder about how much material in any class can be thrown out.

Maybe professors can find a way to condense lessons and finish them faster.

I mean think about it: in every class that you take in college, I would say there are at least two days of class that go right down the drain.
It just worries me that so many people will have to restructure their schedules, take off work or research, and to a certain extent change their study plans in order to attend an additional class. We will see how that works.

The second thing about the snow is that it makes getting around campus, whether it be on foot or by car, all the more difficult. Obviously, walking on snow and ice presents students with great danger.

Slips, falls and injuries are essentially inevitable. Even though the walkways on campus are usually adequately salted, poor walking conditions just make it less appealing and usually exciting (implying that it is fun) to walk to class on an already blistering cold night.
The only problem with the way in which Stony Brook cleaned up the accumulation, is that the parking lots remain largely untouched.
Hundreds of cars were stuck in their respective lots this past weekend and it was up to each and every individual driver to somehow obtain a shovel and dig his or her own vehicle out of the frozen tundra.

Despite the fact that drivers, for the most part, cleaned their spots, most spaces are still covered with thick layers of what seems like unbreakable ice. This makes getting in and out of spots an adventure. One that can lead to damaging your car. That is definitely not something anyone wants.

The sad reality of adulthood is that snow, despite its beauty and fluffiness, has become an inconvenience for students and faculty alike.

We are at the mercy of Mother Nature. What else can we do but pray the storm this coming weekend saves us from even more Friday classes?

To be honest, we just have to toughen up and deal with it.