A Candid Review of the Negative Temperatures
Being from Washington D.C., I have experienced some cold temperatures. A cold winter morning could be as frigid as 15 degrees, and that would be a very chilly day for me. However, when I decided to go to Hamilton I knew I would be introduced to a whole different level of cold. Upon receiving my acceptance letter I immediately bought a big winter jacket that almost goes down to my knees, clunky snow boots that I can barely lift my feet in and some toasty thermals.
Up until last weekend, I thought these purchases were a waste of money. In a very Game of Thrones like way people kept reminding me, “Winter is coming”, but the 40 degree days made me think otherwise. I thought maybe winter was just skipping Hamilton this year, but finally, this past Valentine’s Day weekend, winter arrived. The weather on Saturday and Sunday didn’t reach above 0 and the wind chill made it feel like -30 degrees. Needless to say, I was terrified to leave my dorm room.
Unfortunately, I had a lot of work to do and work rarely gets done in a dorm room, so I decided to make the trek to the library for the sake of my GPA. In preparation for my journey I wore leggings, a thermal long sleeve, a sweat shirt, hat, gloves, scarf, winter jacket, wool socks and my chunky snow boots. Without the wind, I was totally fine, but as soon as the wind picked up and swirled snow in my face I started to really feel the chill. Sadly, this was only the first of many frosty walks that weekend.
Over the course of that bitterly cold weekend I learned a few things. The first is that believe it or not, hair can freeze. My slightly damp hair from my shower the night before froze into chunks that I had to thaw out at the library. The second is that covering everything except your eyes with your scarf to keep your face warm is the move. You might not be able to say hi to any of your friends because they won’t recognize you, but at least you can still feel your face by the time you reach your destination. The third is that you don’t need to put the temperature snap chat filter on every one of your snaps… we get it, its really freaking cold. Lastly, I learned that because I went out that weekend, I will probably never be able to use the excuse “but it’s too cold to go out” ever again.
Overall, I would say the negatives were a little lack luster. I must admit they were really cold, but I guess I just expected a little more out of them, more of a wow factor perhaps. I just went outside and thought, “damn, it’s cold out”, and then I carried on with my day. There was one positive outcome from this past freezing weekend though, it made me feel a little more confident in my decision to attend a college in the notoriously chilly upstate New York.