Expect the Unexpected, But Don’t Celebrate It

I woke up on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 18 with a strange feeling in my throat, as though the Sahara Desert had taken over my vocal chords. None of the lights were on in my room, but my eyes opened as the light from outside glared through my bedroom window. I heard banter from my roommates in the hallway directly behind me, but I looked at my clock, noticed I had two hours before it was time for work, and planted my face back into my pillow, attempting to disregard the dryness of my throat. But I couldn’t ignore the inevitable for long, as I heard my name shortly after.

“Hey, Tanner! Can you believe this?!” yelped my roommate. “We have no power!” I begrudgingly rolled over, smacking the light switch that was directly next to my bed. Nothing. At that moment, I knew that day was going to be a rough one – especially as I began coughing my lungs out with a force I haven’t heard in years. 

After 30 minutes of cluelessness in near-complete darkness, I heard the beep of the room’s microwave, signifying that our power had finally returned and encouraging me to take a celebratory shower. But little did I know that from this moment, I was about to endure the most hectic week I’ve ever experienced in all my years at Centenary. 

The first time I opened my laptop that day, I realized that we had lost our internet access in the power outage, and it refused to connect to the network. An inconvenience, yes, but I thought it’d surely be fixed by this afternoon. As the hours ticked by, I heard nothing, as everyone I spoke to had an issue with connecting to our WiFi. What started off as a brief annoyance turned into a ridiculous waiting game, as I was forced to use the hotspot feature on my phone to get my work done and submit anything. 

But I could barely even do THAT, as Moodle – our classroom hub site – experienced campus-wide server outages, leaving all users unable to access it without pure luck! Eventually, I received a text message saying that I had used up all of my hotspot’s hours, which essentially forced me to use my phone’s data plan for all of my campus functions until the internet came back on. I was THRILLED…

That’s not to mention the other power outage this university had, the literal day after the first one. It only lasted for 10 minutes, but when the lights went out in my Newspaper Production Studio classroom, I considered opening my phone and booking a flight to Florida. Not helping was the fact that after the power returned, we STILL had no internet! It wasn’t until 11 p.m. that night when we finally got our connection back, which was the biggest relief I’ve felt in a while. But I couldn’t celebrate for too long, because that sore throat and cough I had when this all started had evolved into something much more aggravating: a cold. 

Not only was I coughing all of my oxygen away at once, but I was congested in every meaning of the word, leaving me with a stuffed nose, raspy voice, and muffled ear – and this was before the new week even began! Throughout all of this, I had been devouring cough drops like they were Skittles, hoping that I could at least tame my symptoms, but with little to no avail. After days of struggling, I lay in bed and wrapped myself in every blanket I had, hoping for a fresh start the next day. But as I glanced at my phone one last time, I opened my weather app and stared in horror at the following day’s weather report. 

A blizzard. And not just any blizzard, but one that had the potential to bring 16 to 24 inches of fresh snow to New Jersey. Mind you, the snow from the previous storm that hit campus was still laying about, and was FINALLY beginning to melt. But in almost an instant, a fresh new blanket arrived and painted the campus white once again, much to the chagrin of everyone I knew. 

As I continued to cough – convinced I only had one lung left in me – I barricaded myself in my dorm room and stared out at the snow. It was both the most beautiful and the most heinous thing I had ever seen, as it was gorgeous to look at, but I knew it was going to be a pain to clear off my car the next day. By that point, I was convinced that I was living in the biggest practical joke of my life, just waiting for a guy with a camera to jump out and say “GOTCHA!” As I stared out at the snow, I let out a sigh which fogged my whole bedroom window, ready for the week to end before it even began.