Here’s what happened in 2010:

January: There were exams. There are always exams. For the four years you are at Princeton, you will never have a January that isn’t at least partly awful, on account of exams. However: Dean’s Date liveblog. —DCW

February: Chatroulette was just starting to become a campus phenomenon, and by phenomenon, we mean something that people would do at parties when they were drunk. In February, we brought you the story of three friends who ran into each other on Chatroulette–while 16,216 other users from around the world were also chatting and nexting each other. -AW
All month, we crossed our fingers and it happened: February 10th – Snow Day! With classes cancelled, Princetonians’ inner five-year-olds came out to play. The day unfolded like a story — like Beginner’s Reading story from Highlights For Children where nothing bad ever happens ever and instead the characters perform one wholesome recreational activity after another until it’s time to go home and get warm and Mom’s made hot chocolate with marshmallows oh yeah! It was simple. It was uncool. It was so, so wonderful. It was: Snowball fight in the Junior Slums! Quick now sled down Whitman Hill! Hide out in an igloo! Build a snowman on Alexander Beach! How could you not go to bed that night with a smile? — DCW

March:A monsoon hit campus over Spring Break, shutting down the Dinky and leaving some on campus without power. Nonie Darwish finally spoke on campus, after last year’s hullabaloo. The women’s basketball team became Ivy League champions. We uncovered the mystery of FML meme “Anna?” And most importantly, March marked the arrival of Robot Unicorn Attack. That’s all we’ll say about that. No link to the game in this post. It’s almost Dean’s Date. You don’t need that temptation. That’s for the liveblog. —AW

April: April is the cruelest month. It doesn’t take Eliot to figure that out, my sinuses conveyed the message just fine. Oh, as did several thousand high school students worldwide. But for those that did make the cut, there was plenty of fun to be had during prefrosh weekend, where they enjoyed the anomalously bad weather and practiced the fine art of stilted conversation. And yeah, they may not have picked up on this, but in lieu of the Deep Intellectual Conversations they had envisioned for their undergraduate years, they walked right into a robust discourse on bodily function — April had the dubious distinction of being the first-ever Excretory Month at The Ink.  On a non-prefrosh, non-poop note, we did have some fun with music. The Roots swung by for a memorable Lawnparties, and Professor Paul Muldoon hit viral status with his stone-faced critique of Ke$ha lyrics, which reared its hilarious head on pretty much every internet web site ever. - GN
Governor Chris Christie announced that the price of NJ Transit train tickets would go up, starting May 1, and your escape to New York started costing $32, round-trip—about 50% more than it used to. And the fight over the dinky started to heat up. After the announcement in March that the dinky might be replaced with a bus, April saw Princeton students and residents raising their figurative pitchforks on Facebook, fighting to keep the dinky for financial, environmental and nostalgic reasons. (The controversy was finally put to bed in December with the announcement that the Dinky would not be replaced.) In other happenings, Princeton students had their first opportunity to fill out the census individually rather than as part of their families, and a fire started in Dod Hall when cigarette ashes were dumped in a trash can. —MG
Let’s end on a happier note: That month, we also almost got into a blog war with IvyGate, and taught you how to become a Supreme Court justice. —AW

May:So the end of the year rolled around, and we were like, aw, sad! And then Da’s Thai closed and we were like, oh that actually kind of really sucks. And then TV producers wanted to shoot a reality show about Princeton and we were like, this is the saddest thing, but why not try out for it? But then May decided to be nice, so Elena Kagan ‘81 got Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court, our Dean’s Date liveblog was better than ever, and, of course, alumni destroyed campus in the collective rage of Princeton reunions (which happened to be the hottest thing in the May issue of GQ). The cherries on top? One, Prez (but not a bro) Shirley Tilghman herself stared down the barrel of a Smirnoff Ice. Two, CDY and Jonathan Schwartz ‘10 skipped the whole graduation thing and headed straight onto CBS’s The Amazing Race, giving us oh so much to write about for the following months. —WAS

Summer! I don’t know, what were you doing? —AW
Nothing ever happens in Princeton? Well, maybe, but alumni keep chugging along. For instance, Gen. David Petraeus *85 *87 took over U.S. forces in Afghanistan (fun!), Meg Whitman ‘78 won the California Republican primary (premature celebration!), and Elena Kagan ‘81 was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court (hearings!). Also, some Some Dude, Princeton Class of 19??, claimed to be LeBron James’s dad. As per the usual summer news, undergraduate life was wholly unexciting, peaking perhaps when Yaro unveiled the new webmail client. …Awesome? —WAS
More terrifyingly for us undergrads, Kagan’s old History department thesis received a lot of scrutiny during her confirmation hearings, showing us that (gulp!) our work here might actually come back to haunt us in the real world. —JMB

September: Classes began, but more importantly, so did the Fall TV season.  Usually I feel guilty for holing up in my room to watch hours upon hours of reality television — when I could be, you know, socializing with my peers and stuff — but this year two shows allowed me to get my fix in the company of some fellow Princetonians.  September 8th saw the premiere of America’s Next Top Model, in which History major Jane Randall ‘12 vied for a spread in Italian Vogue.  And on September 26th, recent grads Connor Diemand-Yauman and Jonathan Schwartz ‘10 set off on an Amazing Race around the world. Unfortunately, they flamed out just three episodes later.  Jane stuck around, however, making Top Model’s final four - ”personality” be damned.  She then went on to reach even greater heights of fame and fortune in a series of Press Club YouTube videos.  Team Nassoon hasn’t done so bad for themselves either: Connor’s in Seoul producing content for Korean PBS, while Jonathan gets to experience one of America’s most dynamic work environments as a cast member of the Spiderman musical.  Hopefully 2011 will keep Princeton’s reality streak alive — fingers crossed for the Bad Girls Club!  — DCW

October:For Tigers past and present, it was a month of epic highs and, well, some pretty dismal lows.  While we undergrads were slaying the dragon better known as midterms, things started looking bad for California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman ‘71.  Whitman’s $162 million campaign set a self-financing record but it still wasn’t enough to beat rival Jerry Brown.  To top things off, her son Griff Harsh ‘09 was accused of covering up a rape allegation during his sophomore year at Princeton – not exactly ideal for mom’s campaign, or Princeton.  On a brighter note, Mario Vargas Llosa, the 2010 Distinguished Visitor in Princeton’s Program in Latin American Studies, won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  In addition to author, journalist and critic he’s been a Peruvian presidential candidate and winner of a fistfight with rival author Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.  Neither newfound celebrity status nor a “Kafkaesque” 5:30 am commute kept him from his classes on Borges and creative writing – now that’s dedication. -LEZ
In perhaps less important, but more compelling (I think) news, Dan Feinberg ‘13 got trapped between the stacks in Firestone, Star Wars style. —AW

November: We mourned the death of a favorite potent potable – Four Loko, how little we knew thee. Perhaps that was intentional on your part, you fickle mistress; your unique blend of 12% alcohol by volume and copious caffeine made it virtually impossible for one to remember anything ten minutes after polishing off a can (it’s ironic, perhaps, to write a remembrance of something whose primary goal seemed to be making its user forget). Your meteoric rise and subsequent fall has been well-chronicled (thanks ASG!); You were guzzled by rappers and Ivy League students alike. But while every Attorney General in America vilified you, we here in the journalistic community loved you because, like every craze to ever sweep the nation, you brought heretofore unseen linguistic versatility to the English language.

You were, of course, a noun: Four-Loko (n): A highly caffeinated malt liquor in a variety of fruit flavors. See Also: cocaine-in-a-can, Insta-Blackout

And an adjective:Lok’d (adj.): The state of being under the influence of Four-Loko, usually used as an euphoric exultation or a means of apology (sometimes simultaneously). Used in the expression, “Get lok’d and be someone!”, also known as the worst advice ever issued on Princeton campus.

And an adverb:Man, I was so lok’d up last night that I raged until 5 a.m., vomited on my roommate’s shoes, and missed my French exam this morning.

So the collective livers, GPAs, and legal records of Princeton students will be better for your demise. But we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t something bittersweet about seeing the biggest trend story of the year fade into oblivion. And until college kids start licking toads, or drinking mead ironically, or whatever the next crazy trend ends up being, know that there’s a 23.5 fl. oz., fruit-flavored, can-shaped hole in our hearts. —SKG

Hummus happened. The Princeton Committee on Palestine looks into Sabra hummus (late meal staple, sold at a C-Store near you) and argues that the chick pea dip is linked to human rights violations by the Israeli military. Tigers For Israel isn’t convinced, and the sparring begins. For a few weeks, our typically sedate campus erupted with petitions and editorials and USG referendums and appeals of USG referendums, and people were talking. The result of all that talking, for better or worse: Princeton got some heavy international media coverage. —GN

December: Ultimately the student body votes against the request for alternative brands of hummus, 1014 to 699, but PCP prez Yoel Bitran ‘11 says it’s not over — he plans on taking the results to the administration as a “consumer survey.” In other words, November and December marked the most recent sightings of that rare flightless bird, Student activism, once rumored to be extinct but now confirmed as alive. – GN.
In December, the university announced that Dean Malkiel, known to many students as the architect of Princeton’s grade deflation policy, will step down in July, and will be replaced by Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature Valerie Smith. We also introduced you to Rhodes scholars, Nick DiBerardino ‘11 and Khameer Kidia ‘11, and most importantly, batman at princeton.edu. And…ugh, it was so cold. And later, snowy. —AW

The Blizzard of Twenty-Ten, they’ll call it, The Day Princeton Stood Still.

Classes: canceled. Precepts: canceled. Libraries: heroically kept open.

But on Feb. 10, there was little time to study. Though snow days are rare here (the last was in 2003), students knew exactly what was expected of them…

Read more in Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Name: Jessica Lander ‘10
Age: 22
Major: Anthropology
Hometown: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Brown Co-op

Why are you so good at making snow sculptures?
An artist mother, some Swiss ancestry, and a lot of determination.

How long did each snow sculpture take to build?
Forty minutes to two hours. Having tons of friends helping makes them go much faster (even with the occasional snowball fight).

What was the best thing you did on Snow Day Wednesday?
Forget about class work, forget about thesis, and revel in being a kid again. Snowball fights, snow sculptures, sledding, hot chocolate, friends, getting completely soaked and not caring a bit – I can’t think of a better way to spend a Princeton day!

Who has better hot chocolate: Small World, Starbucks, Bent Spoon or Halo Pub?
Small World.

What is your best snow day memory?
Building an entire five-room snow hotel in Gilmanton New Hampshire with my brothers, complete with living room, large screen TV and Jacuzzi.

When’s the last time you made a snowman?
About two years ago, two friends and I spent the day making: a snow-professor, complete with sculpted butt cheeks and a podium, emblazoned with a Princeton crest, from which he orated; a “snowfinity” – a four foot tall infinity sign, and a seven-foot tall snow-pineapple.

What is your snowball fight strategy?
Stealth and ambush. (And then run fast.)

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
The Brown Co-op, any day of the week!

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Rereading fantasy novels.

What’s the last student performance you saw?
The opening and only performance of The Importance of being Ernest, performed in Emily Sung’s room in honor of Emily Rutherford’s Birthday.

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
Yep, learned on the bus back from freshman OA.

What do you hate most about Princeton?
A sense of entitlement.

What’s your favorite place on campus?
Prospect Garden on a sunny spring day. Also, Chancellor Green Rotunda and the Climbing Wall.

Where is the worst place on campus?
The Firestone thesis carrels. They look and feel like jail cells.

What’s your favorite medication?
Tea. There’s a variety of tea for every time of day, mood and illness.

What is the most dangerous thing you’ve done in the past year?
Explored a deep, dark, deserted monk’s cave in Northern Thailand with Denali Barron ’09!

Where do you do your best thinking?
Outside, preferably sitting in a tree or along a river.

What do you order on your pizza?
Caramelized onions, red peppers, basil, mozzarella and, of course, tomato sauce.

What song are you playing on repeat this week?
Tanzanian Bongo Flava

In 25 years, I will be…
Attempting to solve world education, riding a camel fifty-two days from Morocco to Timbuktu, running an Indonesian restaurant, and having at least one adventure a week.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Being involved in a hundred activities and still feeling inadequate.

(21 Questions inspired by NYMag’s Daily Intel)

Freshman Emi Nakamura constructed this giant igloo outside Community Hall with fellow classmates Hyunmoon Kim ‘13 and Flora Thomson-Deveaux ‘13, who both helped Emi out after she sent a message asking peers to join in on her project over the WhitmanWire, a listserv for Whitman residents. “i’m currently by myself… D: anyone who wants to help me build it is welcome!!!” the message read.

“I was thrilled with the end product, and had no regrets in not catching up on schoolwork whatsoever,” Emi said.

Standing at least 6 feet tall, the igloo took three hours to build. Step inside and you don’t have to bother bending over. It’s warm and extremely quiet; when I took the tour, I could hardly hear anything outside — despite the igloo’s two entrances.

The main complication? According to the architect, the ceiling wasn’t too easy to build. Using recycling bins and trash cans to pack the snow into large bricks, they soon made the walls bend inward, but at a certain point, they worried the ceiling was too high to pack together. “Our concern was [the ceiling's] stability which we maintained by one person holding up a block of snow in place while the others packed loose snow on the adjacent blocks for reinforcement,” Emi said.

Still, though, not too shabby — and a good place to post up if you’re proxless in 1963 Courtyard.

First of all, all classes are canceled. So you can toss that out the window.

Second, what dining facilities are open? All dining halls are, Frist is open, and basically all dining facilities are open besides the WWS Café and Witherspoon’s in Frist (in front of Viv). But Witherspoon’s might be open later today. Café Viv is going to be closed.

Dillon Gym is going to be open also, so you can get your sweat on.

How about non-University stuff?

Well, Panera didn’t respond to our calls, so we can assume they’re closed. Olive’s is open at the moment, but will be closing early (around 2:30). Labyrinth says they’re open right now until noon, but might close for the afternoon. (We recommend calling to make sure if you plan on going up to these places, anyway.)

Wawa said they’re open for business today at the time of this post, and said they’d remain open whatever happened. Troopers, we say, real troopers.

from prayingtodarwin.wordpress.com

“CLASSES CANCELED ENTIRE DAY.”

This is my first ever snow day. And it feels good.

From the University:

Due to the snow storm on Feb. 10, 2010, the Princeton University campus is closed for non-essential employees. Non-essential employees will not be required to report to work. All essential and critical employees must report to duty. All academic classes are canceled for the entire day.

Princeton students, staff and faculty members are advised to check the University home page for updates. Campus opening and closing information is also available on the University’s weather emergency hotline, (609) 258-SNOW.

This is only the fourth time Princeton has closed its campus in the past 15 years. Last year, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ‘96 told the Princeton Packet:

“Closing the campus is very rare and is done only under extreme, unsafe conditions,” Ms. Cliatt said. “This would take place usually only in a blizzard or other extreme weather situation, and we believe such closing has happened only three times in the past 15 years — in 1996 for a blizzard, in February of 2003 also because of heavy snow and in April of 2007 because of heavy flooding in the region.”

Back in my day, I had to walk through a mile of snow to get to the Street.

UPDATE (4:51 a.m.)

Forget the Winter Storm Warning. The National Weather Service just issued a BLIZZARD WARNING until midnight tonight, saying that the storm will “intensify explosively” today with total snow accumulation between 12 and 22 inches.

If the powers-that-be are awake right now, please read what the NWS is saying and cancel classes (emphasis ours)!

NEAR-BLIZZARD OR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE RARE FOR OUR AREA… SO IT IS LIKELY THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT REALIZE THE PERIL THAT EXISTS IN VENTURING OUT IN SUCH STORMS. LIFE-THREATENING CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE… AND DRIVING WILL BE HAZARDOUS AT BEST DURING THIS WINTER STORM TODAY AND EARLY TONIGHT. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT TRAVEL BE CURTAILED DUE TO THE DANGEROUS CONDITIONS… AND ONLY DRIVE IF IT IS TRULY AN EMERGENCY SITUATION.

A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS… MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL… HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED… STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.

“Life-threatening”? President Tilghman, we don’t want to die! Don’t let us die! Die, die, die!

UPDATE (12:51 a.m.)

So it looks like the chances of a snow day tomorrow are slimming rapidly. While New Jersey Governor Christie declared a state of emergency in the Southern counties of the state, nothing has been said about Mercer regarding that same announcement.

That said, a lot of classes have been canceled (check your inbox to see if you’re one of the lucky ones), but no school-wide announcement has been made through any channels.

And the way the weather’s looking (it stopped snowing a while ago), it doesn’t look like any more snow is going to accumulate. Estimates of snowfall are shrinking, too. Weather.com says,

HEAVY SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OCCUR IN TWO BURSTS ACROSS THE REGION. THE FIRST IS UNDERWAY TONIGHT WITH 3 TO 7 INCHES LIKELY TO ACCUMULATE BY THE MORNING COMMUTE WEDNESDAY. THE SECOND SHOT WILL BE AN EVEN MORE INTENSE BURST OF HEAVY SNOW WITH THE UPPER AIR DISTURBANCE ITSELF THAT SHOULD OCCUR IN MOST OF EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA… MARYLAND… AND DELAWARE DURING WEDNESDAY MORNING AND NEW JERSEY AND NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA DURING WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. THE SNOW WILL END BY MIDNIGHT WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

So, Thursday snow day? Maybe?

UPDATE (12:39 a.m.)

Don’t give up hope yet, Princeton. The state’s climatologist, David Robison, tells the Star-Ledger that while only three to eighth inches are projected to fall by tomorrow morning, there will be a “more intense session” in the afternoon. And he gives us the strongest argument for a snow day yet:

“It would behoove one to think twice before venturing out (Wednesday) out of fear of not getting back home,” he said. “This looks to be the most significant statewide event of the season.”

AW

UPDATE (10:30 p.m.)

Alright, we don’t want to rain on any parades that have kicked off since we posted this but… It now looks like the chances of a snow day are slimming.

University emails to faculty are now suggesting the weather won’t be bad enough to call classes off. Sorry guys!

Of course, this is a developing story, so we’ll keep you updated with anymore news we managed to pick up…

Stay tuned to Snow Day? 2010.

ORIGINAL POST:

We have it on good information (well, that’s open to interpretation) that tomorrow is going to be…

Get ready for it…

A SNOW DAY.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in seven years, Princeton will be closed due to heavy precipitation.*

Get your sleds out. Don your mittens. Warm up some spiked cider. It’s time to play.

Or sleep, whatever.

*Okay, technically we won’t be absolutely sure until around 4 A.M., but let’s all cross our fingers. And don’t blame us if we turn out wrong – we’re not controlling the weather machine!

(image source: blogs.princeton.edu/aspire)