On Superstorm Sandy and "Halloweek"

“Please hold from an important message from The Masters School. The Masters School will be closed Monday Oct 29 and Tuesday Oct 30...”

I got this call around 1:30 yesterday afternoon. My mom was driving and as I screamed with excitement, she almost crashed her tomato red BMW. For the next two days, I had no school.

In times of a weather crisis, every student eagerly awaits a call from the beloved “snow day number.” Formally known as a K-12 Alert System, schools put this procedure into place to be able to inform all relevant members of the community of an important announcement.

Last year, around Halloween, a blizzard blew through the East Coast, giving our school a two-hour delay on the one and only day of the entire school year that students do not want a two hour delay. The year before that, my freshman year, we had about eight snow days, including back-to-back ones, and a multitude of delays and early dismissals.

As I get older, and the old traditions of Halloween begin to wear off, new ones take over. Instead of trick-or-treating in Silver Lake, where giant pillowcases full of candy aren’t an uncommon sight, I’m treated with mounds of homework, assigned one day and due the next.

Sleepovers with friends eating candy have been replaced with “Halloweek Parties” and stories of friends taken to the hospital because they’ve had a little too much to drink. Even on Halloween itself, the weather causes probelms and traditions are delayed.

School has been cancelled for Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday night an update will be received as to if we have school on Halloween or not. Superstorm Sandy has yet to strike Harrison, but I hope that mother nature this year, for Halloween’s sake, will be kind.