I was very unpleasantly surprised when my flight into South Bend Regional Airport landed at 7:15 p.m. on Sunday night, Jan. 13, 2002, and I saw nothing but bare ground.

Let me reiterate: there was no snow on the ground in South Bend in JANUARY.

Does anyone else find this odd?

To make matters worse, students seemed lost on enrollment day, when temperatures `soared' to nearly 50 degrees, we wondered, if South Bend had moved itself to the deep south.

I might be a minority in saying this, but I miss snow. A lot.

I miss last year, when we had a day of finals rescheduled due to a nice, fresh, two-foot-deep blanket of snow on the ground.

I miss that day in second grade when only half the school showed up because of the heavy snow, and we then proceeded to do nothing the entire day.

I miss getting up super early at home each morning of a snowstorm, waiting to see if school was cancelled so I could get to go sledding on the hill down the street all day.

I miss just staring out any available window, entranced in watching this already picturesque campus turn into a scene not unlike a Currier & Ives tin.

I miss building snowmen from a measly dusting of snow, and having a snowball fight on the quad until the early morning hours.

I miss the neatly plowed-out paths around campus, and losing sight of people's feet under the deep snow.

And, until the very last day of break, I missed curling up on my couch at home, listening to whatever music my parents popped into the stereo, and gazing longingly out the window as snow was piling up.

Of course, I'm not crazy, there are some things I don't miss about snow:

I don't miss driving in the snow — I did that once over break, and succeeded, but quite precariously.

I don't miss skidding my car into a snowbank on the way to work, and proceeding to watch my bosses laugh at me as I tried to dig my car out.

I don't miss being pushed into the snow by my friends during a chilly 3 a.m. walk across campus (but I do miss being called a "[expletive] seal" for being able to escape the attempted shove).

But, all in all, snow is a wonderful thing. And Notre Dame has seen far too little of Jack Frost's dandruff this school year.

Wednesday's two inches of the white stuff will hopefully mark the beginning of a very snowy spring semester. I have my fingers crossed that there will be many a snowman and snowball fight on North Quad this January and February (and March?).

Of course, I will probably end up eating my words after a Buffalo-style blizzard dumps four feet of snow on the Bend.

But at least I'll be smiling.

• Let it snow