My first significant snow experience.

A couple of weeks ago I traveled out to Columbus, OH and State College, PA to interview for grad school programs. The two programs and geographical areas are very different. The Ohio State University program will have about 30 students, while Penn State's will have 8. Columbus is a pretty decent sized city and State College is basically the Penn State Campus. I still have to interview at NYU and see how I feel about it all. I know, I'd be jealous of my jetsetting life too.

Anyway I digress from the real important information.
I WALKED THROUGH FALLING SNOW!
It was seriously one of the most exciting things I've done. For all you out there who ski or snowboard regularly or even better grew up in places that get the typical four seasons, this probably means very little to you. So screw you, I only like people who encourage my excitement over things.

It's not like I've never seen snow before. When I was an (even more) wee lassie, my family would take trips up to Big Bear. I don't remember too much of these little escapades besides hating the long drives and crying when the elders woke me up from sleep. There are pictures though. I'm in a pink mini snow suit playing in the rock-like snow-ice. Maybe the reason I dislike pink so much now is because my mom dressed me in pink as a youngster while making me do things that made me cry, like being really cold or walking down wedding aisles while throwing flowers. I am smiling in the snow photos, so it couldn't have been all bad. Can't say the same for those wedding pics though.

I had a window seat on my flight to Columbus. Upon touching down my attention was drawn to the TSA workers who were unloading our luggage from the plane. One guy got to ride up this conveyor belt into the baggage hull. I remember thinking, "Well that's kinda fun" when all of a sudden I see little white thingies floating around the outside of the window. "Oh What!? That is snow. I am seeing snow fall right now" was the set of words my brain spit out through my mouth. The man in front of me couldn't decide whether I was talking to him or not, so of course he just looked at me and judged. I paid him little mind because it took me about 2.3 seconds to whip out my phone, wait for T-Mobile to find a signal, and start texting people back in the 77 degree weather.

The rest of my time in Columbus, sadly only 27 hours, was mostly spent indoors interviewing with different Student Affairs offices and mingling with other candidates and current students. I was bummed to leave the Ohio State campus. The bit of time that I was actually outdoors was pretty enjoyable. I had my new super cool, made for a twelve-year-old boy winter coat. That's right, I got kids clothes on sale! It's double savings. Jen Nelson, my wonderful host, lent me a pair of gloves. This SoCal native can handle 20 degree weather. And it was 7 degrees when we first walked across the large ass OSU campus. Tough chick? That would be me. OSU was super beautiful the way it was covered with a little blanket of snow. It really was something out of a Christmas movie for me.

It was in State College, Pennsylvania that I actually witnessed and experienced snow fall. I had just finished my round of assistantship interviews at Penn State when I walked back into the main room where all the prospective students were held. One wall of the room is entirely glass and guess what I saw. Flurries of snow being whipped around. Now up until this point in the day, I had been acting like a good Student Affairs interviewee. Professional, articulate, and friendly were the character traits I was trying hard to present. All that totally went out of my mind as soon as I saw the windows. Kristin Glinzak, a former RA in Hitch and Hedrick, was actually at the same interviews that weekend. An absolutely pleasant surprise. Especially since she was the only other person in the room with her eyes glued to the windows and waving her arms.

"Get your coat on. We're walking to the [Student] Union." Kristin didn't need to be told twice. Both of us were all ready to go outside when the current students in the program all tried to stop us from leaving. I guess they were worried that we wouldn't make it back in time for the day's following events. Or maybe they saw that I was wearing dress shoes with no socks. I can only guess. One of the students offered to take us to the Creamery which was just across the street. Kristin and I just wanted to be in the falling snow and ice cream sounded good too.

As soon as we got outside we both turned into giggling messes. We walked around with out mouths open, freaked out when snow blew into our eyes, and kept pointing out the fact we both looked like sugared pastries. Once inside the Creamery we proceeded to freak out the boy behind the ice cream counter. We told him at length that this was the first time either of us had been in falling snow and how a lot of the snow in Cali is manufactured by snow machines and that we were the type super-bubbly-happy-crazy people that are curiously only to be grown in the land of the (nearly) eternal sun. Ok that last part we didn't actually vocalize but I'm sure he got the point. He was entertained enough, so no harm.

We then took our ice cream back across the street, which made it harder and colder than when it was first served to us, and continued to make the other candidates uncomfortable with our enthusiasm. Once again I felt the judging looks from the many of the other prospective students. Only a few of them were kind enough to humor us. The others were absolutely bewildered at the fact that people could think snow is exciting. "At least I'm having actual fun," is what my brain said. "So screw you."

And that my loves was my first significant snow experience.