What genre of music do you listen to on leap day? Hip-hop!
Today is leap day!
Leap day has a scientific purpose. It takes the Earth about 365 and a quarter days to completely revolve around the sun. Every four years, the extra quarters of a day add up to once full day. Hence, we have leap day and leap year. For those with a birthday on leap day...
Isabella Friedelli: Honestly, it kind of feels extra special when it finally does come around.
USC biochemistry sophomore Isabella Friedelli was born on leap day in 2004, so technically, she’s five years old.
Isabella Friedelli: “My parents have always done a really good job of making sure that every birthday feels special. Just making sure that I get a regular celebration like everybody else. But it’s definitely really fun to be here when the leap year does come around. Just because everybody’s low key more excited than I am.”
Low key? Not everybody... Some who wait four years to celebrate their birthday go all out when February 29th comes around, like a friend of computer science sophomore Emma Yu.
Emma Yu: “It was like a huge kind of festival because it’s so long. Usually, annually, he would celebrate a little bit like have a dinner on February the 28th. But then, every four years, he’s going to gather a lot of people and it was a big dinner and all those karaoke sort of things.”
For those who don’t have a birthday or friend’s birthday on leap day, there are other ways to enjoy the extra day.
Restaurants and bakeries are giving out leap day deals across the country. If you want to leap into some donuts... Krispy Kreme is offering a dozen donuts for $2.29 with a purchase of a regular priced dozen. For leap day birthdays like Friedelli’s, a dozen donuts is free at Krispy Kreme.
Also, you can get your crunch wrap on at Taco Bell for $2.29. Chipotle is offering free guac to rewards members, and Wendy’s offered free Cinnabon Pull-Aparts to customers during breakfast hours.
With the last leap year being 2020, and leap day occurring just weeks before the outbreak of the Coronavirus in the U.S., students like pre-med freshman Chichi Makasi are hopeful that this leap year brings good fortune along with it.
Chichi Makasi: “I feel like just an extra day in the year to do anything that you want to do is good luck.”
Here’s to this leap year bringing better tidings to us than the last!
For Annenberg Media, I’m Roman Marchetti.