First Snow

Last night:

I was sitting alone in my room, minding my own business and watching television, when my phone rang. After a few minutes of hunting and discovering my phone buried underneath my accounting book and pillow, I answered to the voice of my father commanding me to look out my window. A few short minutes later I was struggling into my trench coat (with phone plied to my ear) and ballet flats and running outside to experience the first snow of the season. Perhaps it wasn't that cold, or perhaps my jubilee at the sight kept me warm, but I didn't even shiver as I trotted around in my bare legs and ignored the looks of bemused peers as I snapped pictures of the snow with one hand and talked to my sister on the phone with the other (my father has since hung-up).
I had no problem living in Hawaii and not experiencing a white Christmas (aren't twinkle lights in palm trees just as lovely as candles on evergreens?), but even I must admit there is something magical about the first snow of a season. The sight of small white flower-like pieces of ice always manage to take one back to childhood.

In the photos I took, I like the way the snow is catching the light and the contrast with my favorite red bushes on campus. The leaves on these bushes turn a vibrant red every year, without fail. They are spectacularly bright and gaudy and the leaves they cast to the ground look more like a littering of rose petals than fall foliage.