posted 2008/02/06 at 19:27
Twenty minutes into my class tonight, MCCC's PA system (which sounds about ten times worse than any drive-thru speakers I've ever heard) crackled on to say that all classes for the rest of the night were canceled. Not only was I not able to explain my class' next two assignments to them in depth, but given how bad the roads were at that point, I didn't even get home much earlier than I do on a normal night. Now I'm forced to consider whether I push ahead with the same lesson plan for my Tuesday/Thursday class tomorrow night, or if I cut that class short as well just so I keep both classes going at the same pace.
posted at 17:13
I don't like talking about the same topic twice in a row unless it's something on the scale of politics, but I can't help but write about the weather again today. My drive to and from MCCC takes a little over half an hour, and the intersection of US-23 and Ida West Road, where I get off of/onto US-23 up here in Michigan, is almost exactly the halfway point of my drive in terms of time. When I left the house a little over an hour ago it was raining fairly steadily, and between all the rain of recent days and the snow melting, we're actually seeing our street starting to have serious flooding issues. It used to be that our street never flooded, likely because we were all using well water, but several years ago Toledo mandated we all switch over to city water. I used to think the awful taste of the tap water was the only problem caused by this switchover, but I think the fact that we're not using well water any longer may be contributing to the flooding problems we've been having lately. (At least all the houses are significantly higher than street level, and very few houses in Toledo have basements since we're basically built on swampland.)
The rain was bad enough as I left here, and as I drove into Michigan it got so heavy that visibility became a serious concern. About halfway up US-23, though, the rain got heavier, and little ice chunks began to show up on my windshield. I literally drove right into freezing rain, and in the two miles before I got off of US-23 I counted a half-dozen cars that had slid off of the road. I immediately slowed way down and basically drove in a crawl up here to campus, thankful that I always budget a lot of extra time to get up here in case I run into circumstances like these. Things have since switched over to a heavy snow, and I can tell that driving home tonight will not be fun at all. Before I leave here I may try to get onto a mapping Website to find an alternate route home that doesn't require highway driving, because trying to drive home in this is going to be a serious test of my abilities. Is this the universe's way of getting back at me for saying the fog wasn't so bad to drive in earlier this week?
I can't say that I'm too happy with the college for not canceling class this evening. We don't quite have blizzard conditions here, but the snow is steady and the roads are going to be icy as all get-out by the time I let my class go tonight. If it weren't for the fact that I get paid by the class, I probably would have canceled class tonight just for the sake of my students. I mean, yes, part of the reason colleges have fewer snow days is because we want to get students accustomed to how few snow days there are in the work world, but the measures by which campuses are and aren't closed still feel way too against the students and teachers to me. Most of the people going to college are fairly new, less experienced drivers, and so I think it's in the interests of the school to be a bit more lenient when it comes to canceling class just to help keep the students -- and those who can't avoid driving in these conditions -- safe and secure.
posted 2007/12/05 at 23:09
Our first snowfall of the year wasn't too far off-schedule; we normally get our first accumulation sometime in the last third of November, and this year it came this past Saturday. As is my tradition, I play Björk's Gling-Gló during the first snowfall, partly because I remember buying it on my winter break that year I went to Antioch from a locally-owned music shop, and partly because those of us who grew up watching A Charlie Brown Christmas will, for better or for worse, always associate soft jazz music with the season. The next day we warmed way up above freezing and it all melted away. Temperatures dropped again soon after, though, and last night we had an inch fall on us that will probably be on the ground here for some time to come.
Given how long of a drive I have to and from work, having the roads get snowed on becomes an even bigger hassle for me; I'm used to doubling my estimated driving times to get to and from someplace when it's been snowing, but not when that place is over a half-hour away. Yesterday I asked my students about how well Michigan keeps their roads clean (about as well as they keep the roads repaired, which is to say not at all), and they helped me find an alternate route to take to campus that should be plowed more frequently than my normal route. What particularly concerns me is that I heard that last year, when down here in Ohio the whole county I'm in shut down for two straight days because of a huge snow emergency, MCCC still had classes going on because the snow wasn't so bad up there. Obviously there's no way I'm going to break the law to go up to campus, no matter how much I like my job, but the problem I run into is that I don't get paid for the days I don't teach. I suppose this is another reason for me to work on getting a tenured position as quickly as I can, so I can get salaried and be able to take the odd day off over the winter if I don't feel like fighting the roads. (There were at least two accidents on the highway in our backyard this afternoon alone, and the roads didn't look to be that bad.)
All of this leads up to another interesting dilemma, because I'm scheduled to go to Cleveland for a DDR tournament this Saturday, and sure enough there's the dreaded "wintry mix" in the forecast that day. The last time I went to Cleveland for a tournament back in February the roads were hazardous from snow and ice, and I wound up arriving about ten minutes too late to register for the tournament. (Not that I had any shot of winning, but it's the thought that counts.) I don't like that I'm having to hold off on making a decision about whether or not to go until the last minute (particularly given all of the baking I'll be doing for the tournament over the next couple of days), but I suppose that it's really out of my hands. Even though I've lived up here all of my life, I still can't get used to how, in these coldest months, the weather can mess up my schedule so much.
Labels: driving, stompity, weather
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