Making Snowflakes
Number of companions: one or more
Ingredients/gear: Paper, scissors and a computer playing "Charlie Brown Holiday" radio on Pandora
Cost: Free
Last Saturday, as everyone was putting on dresses, suits, ties and fancy shoes for an evening of dancing, our campus decided to join in on the dress-up party. First, it powdered its dead grass nose. Then it put on a white puff-sleeve gown over every bare tree shoulder. It painted its pavement fingernails with a layer of ice. By midnight, our surroundings had officially transformed into a wonderland. Snowmen were built; snowmen were annihilated. Snowball fights left some feeling similar to the snowmen. With more snow in the forecast, it is essential that we find ways to embrace the crystalline precipitation. Sitting in front of a Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp might be one solution—but why not take some advice from "Elf"? Make paper snowflakes! Yes—that old-fashioned craft of cutting shapes into white, folded pieces of paper.
Step one: Take a sheet of paper and fold one corner to a diagonal corner. Step two: Cut the remaining edge off so your paper is a perfect square. Step three: Fold your paper again, so that your right triangle becomes an equilateral triangle. Step four: Fold down the right side of the triangle, then the left. Step five: Cut off the triangles hanging off of the bottom. Step six: Cut out a design of your choice. Step seven: Take a deep breath and carefully unfold your snowflake.
To make the perfect snowflake, you must make sure that it cannot be replicated. Snowflakes consist of as many water molecules as there are meters in one hundred light years. These molecules are added to the core of the snowflake at different rates and in different patterns, according to the temperature and humidity that the snowflake encounters on its way to the ground. As a result, it is extremely difficult to find two identical snowflakes.
Use your snowflakes to decorate windows, walls, dangle from the ceiling or write notes to your friends on. While you are in this mindset, bake a batch of cookies, stir a fresh cup of hot chocolate with a candy cane, and take a break from thinking about finals. Learn how to ski (you can ask Coleman Hatton '10 or Maren Askins '12 for advice), go for a Friday afternoon skate, bundle up into your warmest fleeces, and make snow angels.
The winter season might be an excuse to go into hibernation mode and whine about the lack of sun, but it doesn't have to be. Our distinct winters help us to understand each other in a new context. With each season, we behave differently, and learn something new about ourselves in the process.
I would like to challenge you, Bowdoin students, to make paper snowflakes to usher in the snowy season that has descended upon us. Embrace the weather. You might impress your friends so much that they will drag you underneath the mistletoe!
Words of advice:
1. Use sharp scissors for clean, crisp cuts.
2. Wash your hands—unless you are going for the week-old-snowflake-that-has-been-peed-on-by-a-dog look.