Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Group 1 - Snow
During the winter months, weather.com must be my most-visited website. On a school night I check it just about every hour when a substantial amount of snow is predicted. Of course my parents say the same thing every time I mention that there is a possibility for a snow day but I know that weather prohibiting, all will be jolly good. That night it’s a lot like Christmas Eve. If I wake up at all during the night I make sure to look at our streetlight to see if it’s still snowing. If I go to the bathroom or get a drink of water, I check it again on my way back to bed hoping that the snow has started or has become more intense. I try to make out how much snow has accumulated on our street, a small cul-de-sac that will never get plowed during any decent sized snowstorm. I also look at how much time is left until “the point of no return.” If school is not cancelled by 6:30, there’s no hope. The last thing I do is call the school’s weather line, where a recorded, unenthusiastic man’s voice, who I cannot put a face or name to, comes on and says the same thing, “Good morning, school will be open today. Thank you.” In fact he almost seems cheery that he doesn’t have to tell people that they have the day off. I cannot figure out why he wouldn’t make it a lot more exciting; like we have won the lottery. If I could be the recorded guy my version would say, “CONGRATULATIONS! School is closed today. Get some rest, be safe, and enjoy your day off. You deserve it! Happy snow day and many more!” His most recent recording on a day off that we did get was recorded like this, “Good morning. For Friday, January 8th, Hawken School will be closed today due to the weather storm, which is coming in. Thank you.” Given, the important thing is that there is no school. But this is exciting news. A huge feeling of relief and happiness comes over me. By the time I wake up for lunch, the roads are usually pretty safe and this week’s Saturday comes early, unexpectedly, and one extra time. Upon hearing this, I shut off my brain and alarm for the day and go back to sleep under my blanket of warmth and darkness.
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This all flows really well and you kept me reading. But I kind of wish you would spend more time talking about the waiting aspect. You mention the instances a few times and talk about checking weather.com several times, but you seem to be missing some of the emotional description that is present in the beginning of the story.
ReplyDeleteI could totally connect with checking the street light at night to make sure its snowing. Similarly, I hate the guy who records the snow messages. He always makes me feel like I should regret having a day off from school. I'm curious to see what else is present in your piece because this part feels like a fairly standalone piece of writing by itself.
ReplyDeleteI like this piece because it's easy for me to relate to it and the language is simple. I also like the part where you seem to be ranting about the voice of the man on the phone. I can totally relate to that too.
ReplyDeleteNear the beginning I feel like the essay becomes somewhat redundant when you're talking about how often you check the snow outside. By the time you're talking about how you check the amount of snow that accumulated on the street you've already established that you look outside a lot. So, I feel like that little section could be blended somehow.
I like how the voice of the essay is that of a student who really doesn't want to go to school, and that's probably because, again, I can relate! :)
I know this isn't my blog group but I just wanted to say that I really, really enjoyed this piece. It had great specific descriptions and the conversational, casual voice allowed the reader to relate to the author.
ReplyDeleteThe author gives a nice description of how he used to play football in the snow on snow days. I think it could add to the piece if there was also a paragraph with what the author does on a snow day now. It could also add to the piece if the author wrote about his anticipation for snow days when he was younger. (Did you obsess over them like you do now? or was it more about the surprise?)
Basically, what I'm saying is that its captivating and you definitly have the possibility to add more to the piece and help develop the narrator as a character.