More Stories from a Cold Place

More Stories from a Cold Place

Fridays are my good days - since we don't start class until 10, I set my alarm for 8:30 looking forward to the extra hour or two of sleep. Unfortunately, I woke up at 7 am - slightly panicked because the bright sunlight convinced me I was late for school. As I tried to fall back asleep I realized it was really warm in my room (and our heater is always on the same temp) so my first reaction was - yay, its a beautiful sunny day - temperatures must be in the 70's and 80's.

Of course, then I realized I'm not in SoCal and bright sunshine + a warm room does not mean warm weather. In fact, today is one of the coldest days of the year. (The "real feel" or "feels like" temps are in the negatives most of the day).

As I started to get dressed, my eyes refused to reconcile the idea of sun and cold. I kept wanting to reach for a cute tank or something but I was able to convince myself to layer a thin long sleeved shirt, a sweater, leggings and then the usual outerwears (scarf, gloves + mittens, beanie, jacket, boots - two pairs of socks). (On a side note, I now appreciate the fat on my thighs because it insulated my legs - apparently, thin leggings are really not sufficient for negative temperatures but luckily my thighs only felt numb on the surface level).

Finally, as I reached the front door, I felt the cold outside air. AH! The good thing about this cold is that your body is okay - the bad part is that your fingers feel like theyre going to fall off. I remeber my roomies telling me that sometimes its so cold your boogers freeze. Well, I was hoping today would be one of those days because with gloves AND mittens on, its quite difficult to wipe the boogers dripping down from your nose. But, no, my boogers haven't frozen yet so I guess that story will have to wait for the future.

On the bright side, I think the pond is finally frozen so maybe i can go ice skaing this weekend in the park. Oh ya and the snow from two days ago is still around. I kept asking people why such small amounts of snow in random places hadn't melted (i mean, you usually expect that a handful of snow on the sidewalk in one tiny spot will melt in the sun). People informed me that the snow hasn't melted because temperatures haven't been above freezing yet...

duh alina.