Volume: 5 Issue: 19

Last week I had an extraordinary experience. There was no snow on the ground, but it was very cold. The ice on one of the ponds behind the School was like glass, very thick and clear. When I walked upon it, I was amazed to see right through to the bottom of the pond. The weeds and algae were green and lush. As I shuffled carefully across the smooth ice, I started to see fish darting about as well. It was a surprising and magical moment.

This week has been full of magical moments like this. Mother Nature certainly finds a way to make her presence felt on campus. The blizzard on Tuesday was an impressive show of ferocity, but somehow our students seem to thrive in this environment. Classes carried on, students went back and forth to class outside (no coats…of course!), and by the afternoon, there were students outside playing snow rugby, building forts, and shovelling Long Pond so that they could skate on its ice.

At minus fifteen degrees it was very cold this morning. A frosty fog bank settled onto the campus at sunrise. Rosy sunbeams fanned overtop. Underneath, the trees and bushes became coated in ice crystals which, when the cloud moved on, glinted majestically in the morning sun. Simply spectacular.

There are so many times when I wish I could “beam” parents and alumni onto campus to see some of these amazing sights. I have a few photos but they do not do justice to the moments. And alas, I did not have a camera with me when I was watching the fish through the ice. As Rutgar Hauer once proclaimed in the movie Bladerunner, "All these moments are lost in time, like teardrops in rain”.