“You have received the following message on February twenty fourth, twenty ten at 10:25am. Power has now been restored on campus and classes will resume today at 12:15. Thanks for your patience with this delay. Press 1 to respond and confirm I have received this message. Press star to repeat this message… Your response has been recorded. Goodbye.”

This morning I woke up to my suitemate knocking on my door, and excitedly exclaiming that, the power was out. It was like third grade all over again, looking out my window at all the snow, my clock radio dead, and feeling that desperate wish for a snow day. With the power out and the Internet down, I realized that I didn’t know how to find out if classes were cancelled or not. My suitemate and I called public safety on our cell phones asking, but they had no answer as to whether or not class was on. Hanging up our cell phones, we remembered that there is an automated phone message sent out, both as a call and text. We are always connected. There is always a way. Had it been 1994 and the power was out, I’m actually not sure how we would have found out about school closing, because the phone lines would have been dead and I wouldn’t have had a cell phone. I guess we listened on the radio for schools to be listed… Now I get a personalized, auto voicemail, and a text message from that weird 55626 number.

“This message is for Hannah, Katharine, Epstein….”

It’s great that we are able to be updated so easily due to our technology in cell phones, but today I actually wished we had been less connected. Without cell phones and the ability to update us every three hours, classes would have had to have been cancelled in the morning and remained cancelled through the day.

I am happy about other technology on snow days, such as my digital camera and e-mail. My mom would love to be in this snowstorm more than anyone I know. Unfortunately she’s stuck in New Jersey, and not here to see it. But this morning I was able to go out in the snow for an hour with my camera, and easily e-mail a bunch of images to her. Now anyone checking my blog can also see what a storm we got.

P.s. At breakfast my friend said, “Nat would be the most ill prepared person for a disaster.” ….. because his cell phone was dead. Are we really THAT reliant on technology, that we think we’d be lost in a natural disaster without it?! Come on people… we must have SOME survival skills leftover from our cave man days…