As this Missouri winter continues, each morning I dreadfully open the weather app on my phone to gauge how miserable I am going to be on my way to class. I find myself wearing the same big coat that I found at a thrift store and my Doc Martens because I own zero cold weather gear.
I dread trekking to the dinning hall that is a 2-minute walk from my residence hall because it is so frigid cold outside. My friends make fun of me for whining about the temperature any time it gets bellow 40 degrees Fahrenheit. You guessed it: I am a Southerner.
MU recruits students from many regions all around the country, and with this comes students who are surprised by the weather, especially during their first year of living in the Midwest. I’m originally from Texas, so like many other Southerners, I was not prepared to operate on a normall schedule despite icy and snowy conditions. In the South, when there is even a hint of snow or ice in the forecast, students start praying for school cancelations.
While we have had one snow day thus far in the semester, many students seem to be doubtful that we will have another. It seems like MU and the city of Columbia are ready for any type of bad winter weather with ample snowplows and ice-melting materials.
It’s not that Southerners are dumb when it comes to snow and ice; we just don’t know how to face real winter weather because we are not accustomed to it. When I tried to drive my car the day after the Feb. 16 Snowpocalypse, my tires spun and I had no idea what to do until my friend who’s from Kansas City (shout-out to Mackenzie) informed me that “flooring it” was completely necessary to move my Ford Focus a couple feet out of my parking space.
I have also learned that walking in heels — or any shoes for that matter — on ice is a skill that I will have to master soon if I ever want to dress in shoes that aren’t boots during this weather. So Midwesterners and fellow students from other cold regions, cut your warm weather-accustomed friends a little slack when we have to ask seemingly dumb questions about how to deal with this awful weather.
(Images from https://news.missouri.edu/2013/thundersnow/)