snowstorm!

Yes, it is April 16th. Yes, that is waaaaay past the Spring Equinox. And yes, I'm in the NorthEast and just got almost a foot of snow. (ETA: The picture above is what I found when I tried to leave for class this morning. No, that's not a perspective issue... the branch really is about the size of my car. It missed it by about three feet.)

Mr. Squirrel's college has closed for the day. My college (as usual) has not. Honestly, it's not impressively bad outside, so I'm not surprised that we're open -- most of the closings are because of the timing of this storm, not how bad it is.

My neighbor is out shoveling, which I find ridiculous as it will be 45 tomorrow, with rain.

I did cancel my office hours for this morning, which is excusable due to the storm. In reality, I reached the saturation point of dumb student emails around 10pm last night, and needed the morning off. Not that any of them come to office hours, or read the syllabus, or read the "reminder!" emails I send out. One student in particular last night, while trying to explain why she wasn't prepared for her seminar today, included the questionable line "I've been really busy with school."

Uh, hello? School, here. As in, your senior seminar?

I'll assume she's talking about her other school and leave it at that.

Update on the weather situation: Boy, was I wrong about it not being horrible outside. I realized - after seeing that branch and clearing my car off - that this is HEAVY, wet snow. I did leave for class, and nearly made it to campus... first, I had to drive over a downed power line. (Er, that probably wasn't very smart, but it was in a major intersection and there wasn't much choice.) Second, the main road to campus had just been closed off by a Very Large Tree crashing down. Finally, as I backed up and turned onto a back road, I was confronted by a Muni Bus that had... jackknifed? Obviously not, but whatever you call it when a bus skids off the road and partially overturns.

I turned around and came home.