Ahhhh! Snow!

Please, allow me to preface this post by saying that I am a born-and-raised Floridian, and that it hasn't snowed in Florida since I was 5 years old.  Please forgive any excess of exclamation points.  Additionally, I am freezing, so I am typing in gloves; please forgive any typos as well.  And without further ado,

WOOOOOOOOOO!!! 

Ah.  Much better, thank you.

So, about a week ago I woke up to the following terrifying weather report on my computer: 

 What I found outside my window, though, was far more glorious!
(And far less depressing!)

Naturally, I did as any responsible teacher would do in my situation, and spent the whole day playing outside and taking pictures:

(A few friends and I pose for the camera.  You might recognize Mao Yeye on the left (remember her?).  Also pictured is Mani from India, and Zhijuan, formerly known in English as "Better".)

First things first, I rounded up a few of my friends and made up for all of the standard fun-in-the-snow time that I missed as a kid.  It was awesome.  We had snowball fights, made snow angels, and even tried in vain to make a snowman!  Classic!  One of my favorite activities, though, was the series of snow races across the incredibly slick polished marble that the school has inexplicably laid down everywhere:

After some general horseplay, I managed to convince the braver souls to join me on a journey to the highest rooftop we could find, so we could get a nice view of the campus.  This conveniently happened to be the library we were playing in front of:

Interestingly, as opposed to the locked doors I'm used to, in Xuchang apparently you can just walk up to the roof of most buildings without any issue.  Most likely highly related, the idea of going to the roof for anything but official business doesn't seem to cross the minds of the Chinese people I meet. That is, of course, until I meet them.

After a long time of frolicking and fun, I eventually had a class scheduled in the afternoon that I felt mildly responsible for, and felt I needed to attend.  Luckily, I have a lot of freedom with my curriculum.

"Class, today we are going to go outside and learn about 'weather'"

Best teacher ever.

(If you are reading the Sinocopia main page, make your way to the post page for a few more of my favorite photos from the day!)

More Random Shots

(I really wish there was something on the left side of this photo to balance it out.  Almost a pretty well-composed shot...)

A lot of Chinese people had umbrellas. I thought it was cute.

This picture has no snow in it.  But it was taken on the same day, so it totally counts.