By Ava Dunwoody | Arts & Life Editor
As snow days turn into a snow week, students are taking to the streets and coming up with creative ways to have fun on their days off. One of the newest trends has been sledding behind vehicles using household objects like couches and rope.
After popular Instagram accounts like @barstool_sicem, which has over 17,000 followers, and @oldrowbaylor began posting people’s submissions, more students went out to find their own method of snow play for a chance to be featured.
Philippines senior Auster Guab said he submitted a video that was posted by @barstool_sicem of his friends Thomas Rose and Tim Blackstad being pulled on a folding table behind a truck.
“What really inspired us was that we were super bored,” Guab said. “Our house was one of the ones that lost power for a couple of days, and there’s not much you can do when something like that happens … We met up with a bigger group to do some southern skiing.”
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., junior Sophia Ranni was also featured on @barstool_sicem after using folding tables and rope to trail behind cars with friends. She said they went to the parking lot of the Ferrell Center to try it out, and it was almost like water tubing behind a boat.
After seeing her feature on Instagram, Ranni said she watched all of the posted videos and thought they were hilarious.
“Watching everyone’s snow day activities has been one of the highlights of this lockdown,” Ranni said. “I think this has made the student body come together and honestly laugh at what we have all been up to with three days of no school.”
Guab said he is also enjoying the social media content coming out of the snow days.
“We might get a chance for other people to see the kind of fun we can have despite not having electricity in the midst of a winter storm and a worldwide pandemic,” Guab said.
In addition to “southern skiing,” students have been participating in other activities like snowball fights and photoshoots on campus.
Robinson sophomore Hope Caviness went with her friends to take pictures in the snow at Baylor and said she thinks people are doing that because the weather is so bizarre for Waco.
“I’ve lived here my entire life, and this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this,” Caviness said. “People are wanting to document this fun season with friends. Who knows if or when we will ever get days like this again.”
Another group of students including Fort Worth sophomore Lauren Wheeler went for a walk around campus to get out of their apartments and landed on Fountain Mall, which has become a popular photo spot because Rosenbalm fountain has frozen over.
“It was so beautiful that we had to take pictures,” Wheeler said. “What was going to be a 20-minute walk turned into a 45-minute photo shoot. I think people are doing this because everything else is closed and also because if they are from Texas or the South, it is very likely they haven’t seen snow or ice like this before.”
Other students like Houston sophomore Lauren Woodard are staying busy during their days off with movies, bonfires, sledding and catching up on homework.
“I think it’s so much fun to see how other people are getting creative and having such a fun time in the snow,” Woodard said.
Guab said seeing all of the ways people have been making the most of the snow reminds him to always be resilient and have fun no matter the circumstances.
“This is for sure one of those memories we’re going to look back on for the rest of our lives,” Guab said. “It’s just a fun way to boost morale during unprecedented times and to persuade other people to go out and have some fun even through tough times such as a winter storm.”
