What was going on when I was born?

AnAppraisal When officials of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in 1981 unveiled the first design for the skyscraper they hope to build beside their landmark church on Park Avenue, the tower of reflective glass by Edward Durell Stone Associates was so inappropriate that the question seemed not whether the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission would reject it, but when. Though both the church and the Landmarks Commission took their time in presenting the design and deliberating over it, the answer, when it finally came last June, was just what had been expected. The commission said no, and its members denounced the building so vehemently that another question soon arose - could any office tower at this site win the commission's approval? A Revised Design The coming year seems fairly certain to provide an answer, for St. Bartholomew's went before the Landmarks Commission last week to try again with a new, and substantially revised, design. The architect is the same - Peter Capone, president of the Edward Durell Stone firm - but the buildings could not be more different. Indeed, like a politician who runs against his own record, Mr. Capone's new design renounces every principle of his first one.

The winter's first snowfall blanketed the New York metropolitan region yesterday, baffling forecasters with its severity and tying up traffic on roads and rail lines and at airports. The accumulation - eight inches in some areas - surprised the National Weather Service, which had originally predicted little more than a dusting of snow overnight and was forced to revise its forecast several times during the day as the storm changed direction. ''We haven't the slightest idea why we busted it,'' said the service's chief meteorologist, Harold Gibson. ''If we had the same situation tonight, I don't think we would forecast it right.''

For anyone feeling threatened by the spread of little computers into businesses, schools and homes, there is still a sanctuary in the developed world where the abacus is king and floppy disks are badly manufactured phonograph records. No young Russians sit glued to video screens chasing invaders from outer space, and none of their older brothers are busy at their personal computers finding ways to break into private mainframes. The situation is one that may give comfort to the guardians of secrecy in the Kremlin. But it is one that is alarming members of the scientific and academic elite, who are saying that unless something is done to raise computer consciousness in the Soviet Union, the East-West gap in electronic technology will become unbridgeable.

''The right of a competent adult patient to refuse medical treatment constitutionally guaranteed right which must not be abridged.'' - The California Court of Appeal for the Second District (A1:1.)

With deregulation of the travel- agent industry taking effect Jan. 1, some of the nation's biggest companies are considering going into the airline-ticket sales business themselves, a change that could save them millions of dollars and even generate income, at the expense of the travel agencies. One possibility that companies are considering is to turn their corporate travel departments into full-service travel agencies, thereby gaining commissions on bookings. Others options include establishing joint ventures with existing travel agencies, selling tickets to employees for private travel and arranging for discounts from travel agencies and airlines. 1982 C.A.B. Decision These choices result from a 1982 decision by the Civil Aeronautics Board to deregulate the sale of airline tickets on the date the board goes out of existence, ending the 40-year-old system that allowed only airlines and travel agents accredited by an airline industry trade group to sell tickets.

Toys ''R'' Us Inc., the giant toy specialty retail chain, yesterday announced record sales for the Christmas selling season. But apparently because sales failed to meet its own sales plan, the company's stock plunged on the New York Stock Exchange, dragging down the stocks of other toy companies as well. Toys ''R'' Us was the most heavily traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, closing at $40.25, down $7.125, as 2,530,000 shares changed hands. The Tonka Corporation and Mattel Inc., also traded on the Big Board, dropped, respectively, $3, to $41.50, and 87.5 cents, to $10.50. On the American Stock Exchange, Hasbro Bradley Inc. fell $5.25, to $56. In addition, the Petrie Stores Corporation, which owns 25 percent of Toys ''R'' Us, fell $2.50, to $33.25, on the New York Stock Exchange.

Because of editing errors, an article in Sports Pages yesterday about the Holiday Festival basketball tournament misstated the poll ranking of the St. John's team and misidentified the tournament's organizer. St. John's is ranked fifth in the poll of writers but eighth in the coaches' poll, and the organizer is the Eastern College Athletic Conference.

The About New York column on Dec. 12 about single women's search for compatible men omitted the sponsorship of a survey of unmarried people. The survey, by Princeton University researchers, was initiated by Money magazine.

The United States said it was sending emergency aid by sea and air to the Sudan. Page A6. KASSALA, the Sudan - Refugees by the tens of thousands are streaming into this desert nation from neighboring Ethiopia, fleeing drought, famine and war. They walk for as many as eight weeks from their villages and cross the frontier to reach the wretched patch of hills and sand that is the refugee center of Tekl el Bab, outside this town in eastern Sudan. The bleakness of the place that to them is a balm eloquently underscores the degree of misery they escaped.

Ten years after a Federal judge ordered busing of public school students here to achieve racial integration, Boston's classrooms have changed dramatically in terms of what is being taught, who is being taught and who is doing the teaching. But whether the quality of education has improved remains in dispute. The biggest change is the racial composition of the student body. Change in Racial Balance The percentage of white students in the school system has dropped by more than half, while the percentage of black students has increased substantially. School officials say so many whites have abandoned the system that not enough are left to provide racial balance.

The number of fires in New York City's subways rose sharply during a recent Federal inspection, and Mayor Koch has asked the Fire Department to investigate the possibility of arson. The Mayor said that he had no evidence that the blazes had been set but that subway fires doubled during a weeklong Federal safety inspection conducted earlier this month. Mr. Koch said ''one conclusion'' that could be drawn from those statistics was that some ''firebrands'' were responsible for the blazes. 'A Lot of Sick People' ''Regrettably,'' he said in an interview, ''there are a lot of sick people in this country, in small proportion to the large numbers who are well, but nevertheless a lot of sick people, and it's not inconceivable that some such sick person or persons would have engaged in arson.''

Scovill Inc., which is now on center stage in Wall Street's latest takeover drama, was not always such a sought- after property. The company had humble beginnings as a maker of brass buttons for Civil War uniforms. It spent a century as a brass fabricator in Waterbury, Conn., and a decade ago was floundering with others in the brass industry. It was then that Malcolm Baldrige, who is now Secretary of Commerce, shook it out of its lethargy and redirected it as a diversified manufacturer.