Remember when you were a little kid, and you’d actually wake up on time for school… just so you could huddle next to the radio and listen for your school to be called on the list of snow days?

With winter’s doom impending and temperatures dropping faster than an eight ball at Amy Winehouse’s flat, we can’t help but cross our fingers and pray… Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Are snow days something you never grow out of? Or, in college, do they prove that miracles really can happen? Here’s how our anticipation of snow days has evolved since grammar school.

Then: A snow day meant a day off from times tables.

Now: We don’t have to finish copying someone else’s MiniTabs before Stats lab.

Then: We would make a beeline to the street and get all the neighborhood kids together for a snowball fight.

Now: We don’t have to brave arctic winds to walk to class and sit through lecture with snot-cicles hanging from our frostbitten faces.

Then: Since we were already up at the crack of dawn, we could take advantage of the snow day and start building a snow man as soon as we got “the word.”

Now: We can go back to sleep for about six hours, and wake up just in time for happy hour. Read More »

Every now and then, you wander across those stories that make the tears well up in your eyes; stories about amazing people doing amazing things that you can’t help but admire them for. Nigel Hearnden is one of those people.

Nigel Hearnden and Anne Hearnden were your typical storybook married couple, the kind that you never hear about anymore. For 29 years, they loved each other, were there for each other, and supported each other. And when Anne was diagnosed with cancer in August 2001, Nigel was with her every step of the way. With her amazing strength and her loyal partner ever at her side, she went through 20 months of chemotherapy, three invasive operations, and overcame three different types of cancer: Hodgkin’s lymphoma, bowel cancer and liver cancer (twice).

Tragically, despite her many victories and accomplishments, Anne unexpectedly died in November 2005 from a heart infection.

Nigel and Anne had planned to go to Rome for their 30th anniversary. But even though Anne isn’t with him, Nigel is still making the journey. On foot. Read More »