Getting a snow day off is cause for celebration in any school across the country, particularly at TJ right before midterm week. The promise of snow opens up time to study and more importantly de-stress. However, there are also downsides to missing multiple school days.

For instance, having a dad that waits for a snow forecast before he tries to buy a snow blower ensures I’ll be outside shoveling snow when a storm comes around.

But the most prominent problem is the question of when we will return. Although I always plan to use my time catching up on homework and studying, much like many other students, this is often not what happens. Instead I wait until the night before we get back to do the bulk of my work, but when you have no idea when the next school day will be, it can be quite difficult. This causes me to stay up late into the night to deciding whether or not I should cram or hope for an announcement of another snow day.

In addition, finally waking up at 6 a.m. to go to school again is much harder after consistently getting up after noon the previous week. Learning is harder because I forget most of the curriculum if I don’t go to school for more than four days. Because of the time at which this storm hit – close to midterms and the end of the semester – I also have close to no idea which classes I’ll be taking when I get back.

Furthermore, I always have a fear of a much more rigorous class with the return from a long unscheduled break. After the snowstorm of 2013, my math class kicked into high gear to make up for lost time when we had relaxed classes with ample breaks before.

Admittedly, most of these worries and problems are minor and could be solved with changed behavior on my part. And they certainly don’t stop me from praying to McElveen with everyone else for another day off.