Another winter storm, another snow day. Let’s be honest, you never use your time wisely when you get an opportunity like this. No classes means the possibilities are endless. Well, as long as those “endless possibilities” don’t include activities requiring you to drive anywhere. Or leave your apartment. Or even your bed, for that matter. So, I’ve done you a favor and laid out some simple options for your snow day itinerary. Whether you’re enjoying yourself, bettering yourself or just getting off Facebook long enough to get your s— together, I hope you do something with your life today.
1. Call Your Grandma
Let’s be real, talking to your family, particularly your grandparents, is one of those nagging thoughts in the back of your head every day that you know you should do, but you just don’t have time to get around to it. Well, now’s your chance. You have no classes and no obligations. Call your grandmother, grandma, granny, gram, nana, G-mizzle, or whatever she prefers to be known as and ask about her day. Odds are, she probably just baked something and watched Wheel of Fortune, but it’s the thought that counts. Call her up, and catch her up on your life. If she doesn’t already have a phone, why not visit fanmisenior and buy her one so she can call whenever she likes. It’ll make her day, I guarantee it. Just don’t call between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; that’s when her soaps are on.
2. Calculate your Student Loan Debt
You tryna get smacked in the face by reality on your snow day? Sit in your cozy apartment and add up how much you’ve borrowed from the government in order to be sitting there. Even better, follow that up with how long it’ll take to pay off the amount with a job in your field. The whole process will be sure to send you into a spiraling depression once you see how screwed you really are. (Especially us journalism kids; but we all knew what we were getting into when we majored in a dying industry.) You know what? You might wanna call Grandma again after this one. Maybe she’ll be able to cheer you up, or, at the very least, pity you and slide an extra $10 in your birthday card this year. If you are reading this and you are thinking about applying to colleges, but the idea of having student loan debt does not sound appealing to you, doing some research to find the answers to questions such as what is the maximum student loan amount for lifetime, may help you discover that there is a solution for pretty much anything, especially when it comes to dealing with personal finances.
3. Research Presidential Candidates
You’re an adult. Voting is a thing you can do now. Voting is an important thing. You should vote. However, if you’re gonna vote, get informed. The primaries are coming up March 1, and the presidential election is nine months away. Start researching your candidates. You can check out our breakdown of the leading candidates, but why stop there? Google “who is john kasich” to figure out who the hell that guy is. Watch that movie where Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Ben Carson. Find out where Vermin Supreme stands on issues facing everyday Americans, such as the zombie apocalypse and time travel. The world wide web is your oyster when it comes to political research. Brush up and feel the Bern get informed.
4. Go Outside for 5-10 Minutes Before Realizing you Made a Terrible Mistake
You talked with your grandma, realized the government owns your first born child and saw an above average TV movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr. Odds are, you’re already getting sir crazy. Now it’s time to venture out into the outside world!
But then you immediately regret your decision. You didn’t the think the wind would be that bad, did you? You thought putting on those boots with “extra grip” would stop you from falling, didn’t you? You didn’t think gloves were necessary, did you? You thought it’d be cool to throw that snow ball at your friend, didn’t you? You forgot how cold snow actually is, didn’t you? Am I right? That’s what I thought.
5. Netflix and Chill (literally)
You’re back inside and you just want to crawl into your bed and die. Before you do that, pull up your Netflix. Catch up on Orange is the New Black. Rewatch House of Cards. Revisit that season of How I Met Your Mother that all your friends think was underwhelming but you love. Or just try something completely different. Invite some friends to join you, or even that cute girl on your floor that you’ve never had a chance with, but now she’s trapped in dorm so may have a chance for a movie date. Just don’t be a creep. Netflix and chill should only be a synonym for hanging out or, in this case, a punny section title that plays off of current weather conditions. Just relax and forget about school. De-stressing and catching up on pop culture counts as being productive, too.
6. Read a Book
Remember all that stuff I said in number five? Lies. All of it. Television is melting your brain, man. Kids today will never know what it’s like to turn the crisp pages of a William Faulkner novel, get extremely confused as to what Shakespeare was trying to say, or deal with a troubling amount of uses of the N-word in a Mark Twain tale. What you need to do with your free time is a read a book. It doesn’t mater what kind. It can be a Nicholas Sparks-esc love story, a gritty crime thriller or a graphic novel. Expand your cultural understanding by actually reading the source material to your favorite movies like Gone Girl, Fight Club or The Fault in Our Stars. You could even tackle the Song of Ice and Fire series that Game of Thrones is based on. (Editor’s note: Does anyone actually watch Game of Thrones? I know it’s a big deal, but I feel like the amount of college students with HBO subscriptions and an interest in medieval fantasy is very low.) Not sure what to pick? We’ve got you covered, with a list of snow day reads from last month’s winter weather.
7. Support Student Media
Now, forgive me if it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn here, being as I’m both a member of Sidelines and WMTS, but you should take the time to support student media today. Head to wmts.org to hear whatever student DJs braved the snow to bring you some tunes today. Turn to MT10 to watch some completely random archived shows from the last decade of student creators. Browse this very site to read about what’s going on around campus. Better yet, head down to your dorm lobby and pick up one of our print editions. They make for excellent papier mâché hats reads for the day indoors.
Follow John Connor Coulston on Twitter at @JCCoulston.
Follow us at www.mtsusidelines.com, on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines and on Twitter/Instagram at @Sidelines_Life.
To contact Lifestyles editor Tanner Dedmon, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
