Skip to content ↓
MIT student blogger Laura N. '09

Rain is evil by Laura N. '09

There's only one kind of good snow, and rain isn't it.

I hate New England.

No really, I do.

Ask anyone who’s had the misfortune to be around me the last few weeks. All I do is complain about the weather. Granted, the weather is not all that different in New Jersey. Except that it’s a little bit warmer. And a lot more humid. Not nearly as much of this static electricity buildup nonsense that’s been driving me crazy lately. Plus, at home, I never have to walk 15 minutes to work/the grocery store/class in the cold. So basically every day I’ve been complaining. “I hate the winter. And layers. And bulky winter coats. And static electricity. It has no right being this cold out if it’s not going to snow.”

And then. Then! Lo and behold, it snowed!

It was very….low quality snow. But it snowed.

And then is started to hail. And then it started to sleet. And then it started to rain.

And then, because the snow on the grass is just snow-like enough to keep from falling apart completely, it creates perfect little dams. And then the rain is free to collect everywhere that people have trampled the increasingly low quality snow into slush.

And then the guys whose job it is to shovel snow don’t really have snow left to shovel, but they shovel the slush anyway.

Oh, and by slush, this is what I mean:


Edit: Ruth pointed this out in her comment below- it may be hard to tell from the picture, but that’s a minimum of two inches of ice water (much deeper in places), just sitting there waiting for you to have to wade through it.

Arg! I am so unhappy about the weather! Also, it’s apparently going to freeze tonight, which means we’ll be greeted with several inches of solid ice covering every artificial surface when we wake up in the morning.

That makes me even more unhappy. So guys, if you live anywhere in the area of this crazy “winter” (and I use that term loosely….*glowers at the rain*) storm, be careful out there!

Coming soon (like really, really soon): the end of IAP (2.670!) and the beginning of spring classes! Whoo-hoo!

P.S. Also coming soon: Class of ’09 Ring Premiere is this Friday and I am really excited! Expect pictures and stuff! =) (In the meantime, you can read Melis’s entry about last year’s Ring Premiere to get an idea of what I’m talking about. There are some great links from her entry for more info.)

28 responses to “Rain is evil”

  1. T says:

    Hey, I live in Vancouver, WA. You should see the rain WE get!!

  2. Ruth says:

    If you can’t tell from the second picture, that’s four inches of standing ice water.
    After four years in Boston, today was the first time I microwaved my socks between classes.
    Very low quality snow.

  3. I LOVE RAIN……. YEAH, HERE IT’S RAINING, AND RAIN IS MY VALENTINE NOW….. BUT SHE MADE ME A VERY BAD COLD, I AM WAITING WHEN CAN I RESUME MY DUTY AS A RADIO JOCKEY………..

  4. The pics you posted are making me mad… I want to drench in the weather….. in the rain….. in the snow…… Do you know, here rain symbolizes love, and the closeness, and the coziness of love……………

  5. Alyssa says:

    I have little weather related sympathy…
    I live in the suburbs of Chicago, and this February has been the coldest in 122 years. Plus, we’ve had feet and feet of snow! (My golden retriever has to hop around our backyard.)
    …and yes, it’s slushy here, too.

  6. Anonymous says:

    hey can anybody tell will SAT will be deal breaker if other things r at par

  7. Anonymous says:

    You should have been on Comm Ave yesterday when the slush and water was up to mid-calf level and the passing cars would send a spray of it onto passing students. I stepped in one puddle to my knees.

  8. Meara says:

    Woot, Chicago! Yeah, pretty sure we’ve got you beat as far as cold goes. You know it’s bad when you’ve been warming your car up for fifteen minutes and you can STILL see your breath inside it. We were just happy when it the temperatures got back up into double-digits. Having a high of zero degrees Fahrenheit for two weeks straight is not pretty.

    My sympathies on the slushy-water lake, though. That sounds exremely unpleasant. There are few things more depressing than several inches variously melted slush.

  9. tony says:

    see the snow torontonians’ve got in the last few days!

  10. Elizabeth says:

    yeah T- WA! Only Seattle’s better, pfah on Vancouver. Thankfully our wierd winter was earlier (see posts from Josh V and me in both December and January). And btw- I hate rain. I don’t care that I live in Seattle- it’s not so much the rain as the white and gray skies for 9 months of the year. Baahhhh!

  11. Z says:

    The Midwest is just as bad as New England right now… but at least you have MIT. -___-

  12. Evan '10 says:

    Alyssa –
    I don’t think you understand. This wasn’t slush. This was an entirely new, man-made water table with snow as the structural element. And no drainage pattern. You couldn’t walk from point A to point B without going through several inches of water. Especially if you were crossing a street.

    Geez. Mass Ave was disgusting. And walking clear across campus for FIRST construction was worse.

  13. Jillian says:

    I live in Northern Virginia – pretty much all of the counties in Northern Virginia are closed today and tomorrow due to snow/ice/sleet/hail/slush – but I go to boarding school. Classes no matter what. And now they’ve deemed it too dangerous and banned playing in the snow – but we still have class.

  14. It really sounds nice [not sarcasm] though I wouldn’t really know [I’m less than 12 degrees from the equator.] Anyway, I *love* the water pouring down in tropical storms, so I’d like to visit Cambridge … later this year … in October … and stay a while … (4 years) … or longer. When will I know?

  15. Sorry, not October; I don’t the order of the months [or maybe I do, but haven’t slept since I started writing some code a while ago] so I’ll just hope you know what I mean.

  16. Alyssa says:

    Evan –
    I’ll take your word for it on the slush!(Or entirely new compound of watery unpleasantness…) The cold in Chi-town has been impeccable, though…(Although I hear it’s supposed to get up to 38 degrees next week!!)*jumps for joy*

  17. turnef says:

    When the water freezes, you can wear skating shoes and slide on the ice when going somewhere!!! This way you can also move faster!!! Isn’t this awesome? smile
    New England is nice in fall though!

  18. Yohini says:

    I’ve never seen snow… believe me.
    Lived in a tropical country all my life. Would love to come to New England, esp. Cambridge and spend my life there.

    Oh i just hope.. to get into MIT…

  19. Josh V says:

    Cold? Rain? Please. Hahaha. You said it Elizabeth.

    But I will concede that we do not get nearly as much snow most years as you New Englanders/Midwesterners.

  20. @ The madman who makes people fly aka Captain SS Wandering Albatross
    hi….kolkata?…me 2..tamilian here..
    i like the rain here..it’s really nice..n thank God it’s cld again here:):)

  21. Anonymous says:

    hi yohini..which country?
    arwen

  22. Anonymous says:

    I am chilled.Even watching these pics gives me shivers!!!

  23. Solomon says:

    I haven’t ever seen snow here in the equator but during the rainy season around June to August the tropical rains pound down on us in a way that you can only imagine.

  24. Christina says:

    Yeah, my UGGs were very confused. I had to bring out the rain boots. smile

  25. theresa says:

    I don’t know if this is any comparison, but in my area of NJ, it snowed. But then the one day we had substantial snow, the plows (which usually patrol by every 5 minutes) DIDN’T plow. thus, any snow that’s not on the road was either shoveled or pushed out of the way by cars. How’s that for irony?

  26. Yup Arwen, but howdy know I am from Kolkata?

    And where are you in Tamil nadu?

  27. Anonymous says:

    rain is evil, sun is ?

  28. Eugene says:

    Hey, don’t complain. I live in CNY (Central New York), and on Valentine’s Day (well, during that week) there was upwards of 11 feet of snow in some parts. I have no sympathy for you, and I actually think that the weather over there sounds absolutely balmy. Enjoy!