The Class of 2019’s First TO ‘Storm’

Unless you’ve lived under a rock (or equivalent room with no view or exposure to the oustide world) for the past few days, chances are you’ve noticed the sudden uptick in snowy weather. For most of us freshmen, it was the first time we've actually had to navigate the campus and/or city whilst in such conditions. As one might imagine, the class of 2019's Facebook group was rife with posts of aggravation at the school remaining open, while others were closed. While it ended up being a bit of an overreaction - and that's from a 'Raincouver' native - as the 'storm' turned out to be far milder than anticipated, the past week on freshman page has been quite eventful. The start of the week brought news of an impending storm, one that had students across the 6ix on the edge of their seats as they awaited news of cancelled classes. As Tuesday came and TTC delays caused commuters no shortage of grief, U of T first-years were getting antsy. The snow started coming down towards the evening, and first-years across the campus, being none the wiser, gained optimism. As upper years started shooting down our hopes and dreams, we got a little over-eager.

I think we were only half-joking at that point - I guess midterms were getting to some of us. Better to still have them, than for them to all be rescheduled to the same week, in my opinion. But I digress. As the night progressed, humour turned to muted frustration as some noticed that more schools were closing for the evening. Overreactions? Perhaps, seeing as how the snow was at the most a slight inconvenience while trudging from class to class the next day. Personally - and this is coming from a Vancouver native, where it hasn’t REALLY snowed since before we hosted the Winter Olympics - it hasn’t been awful to the point where I'd openly complain. I know, I haven’t had to commute while at the mercy of the TTC, but I still feel this winter has, all things considered, been way nicer than people have made Toronto winters out to be typically. Sure, the Tuesday/Wednesday patch of snow was a sudden change of pace from the cold-but-clear skies of late, but it’s still a little strange to see the reactions to other schools closing for a few hours. Despite the delays, getting to and around school was still very much a viable (if inconvenient) task.

At the end of it all, we first-years ended up surviving our first taste of Toronto snow - slightly frozen and with stuffy noses, but in one piece nevertheless. I'm expecting that when winters in Toronto return to normal, the storm of memes will be just as strong as the storms outside.  Just the other day, I noticed that news site Vancity Buzz shared a photo on its Facebook page of cherry blossoms in Vancouver in full bloom. Meanwhile, I look out the window here, and I see a construction site coated in a fine dusting of snow. I think we all know #WestCoast won that one, but it doesn't mean that us downtown-campus students didn't make the best of things. The student body laughed it off, and had an epic snowball fight to end the week. It was entirely too much fun, and I can't wait for next year's!

"And the public wants what the public gets But I don't get what this society wants I'm going underground" - 'Going Underground', by The Jam