Monday, February 02, 2009

Groundhog

I would celebrate the idea of having only six more weeks of winter. CELEBRATE! PARTEEE!

I think we upper midwest folks ought to get a second day, say on April 1, which would predict whether winter would go on for another six weeks, or seven. Unfortunately, I'm not joking.

As it is, I have no hope for six weeks from now being other than miserably cold.

I tried to go out skiing after work, because it looked sort of clear and the campus web thing said it was about 8F. What I missed what how nasty the wind is. When I got home after falling on the ice (on my tush, ouch!), and sort of sliding around out there for a few minutes, I checked and it's minus 10 wind chill. Okay, so there are supposedly some problems with the way they figure "wind chill." Let me say, it was windy enough that my fingers started hurting right away and didn't stop until I was in the grocery store for five minutes rubbing them. And that was after "skiing" for about 10 minutes.

And stupidly, I had on my thin rather than my thick long johns. Yes, I have multiple long johns.

I hate being cold. We had a really nice day on Saturday, above 40 and everything, and I had all the hope of the moment, and now it's crushed again.

Between my sore tush and my cold hands, I seriously thought about getting something I shouldn't at the grocery store. It was tempting.

Do you ever just feel like winter will never end, and you'll never be warm? That's how I feel today. It's amazing how the cold can suck the happiness right out. And I had a good day teaching, too, but I walked back into the cold and it sucked the joy away and left me wanting to run away south, very far south, equatorial south, rain forest south!

Okay, enough whining. One of the things that's fun about teaching is that you get challenged to think on your feet all the time. Today, in my writing class, I needed a "you could write your essay about this" sample topic, and someone chose those square cheese crackers whose name you all know, and cooking with them. So then we brainstormed about writing an essay about that, and bubble-mapped it on the board by way of example. And it was fun to laugh at all the ways we could think of to use those crackers in food.

But then I went outside, and the cold sucked the silliness away. Stupid groundhog.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:54 PM

    I know totally what you mean. Up here, even though our state hosts one of the groundhogs, the whole day is a farce. Spring comes in June, dammit, and not a day sooner. Mid-March is never even close....

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  2. That brings back memories of living in Denmark. We left on April 26th, and I swear there was still no sign of winter ending anytime soon.

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  3. Oh, yes. I am so ready for spring, it's almost painful!

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  4. It's nearly fifty degrees here. I'm dreading summer already. Boy, do I hate the south.

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  5. I remember when we lived in Milwaukee. Our opinion was that there were only two seasons in Wisconsin -- winter and 4th of July. The first time I came to California, it was about 50 degrees the whole time, but that's shorts weather in Milwaukee. I immediately went and bought sandals and walked around without a jacket. The CA folk I encountered thought I was nuts -- they were all bundled up in scarves, jackets and boots. Ha!

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  6. Oh, I feel for you...unfortunately only in my memories! It's hard, living in SoCal, to "believe in" the cold elsewhere. Sorry...

    I love, LOVE the cheese cracker activity!

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  7. oh, i think the cheese cracker discussion sounds like it was EXCELLENT! too bad you are freezing to death, but at least the students thawed out enough to have some useful fun! or maybe that thawed them out. hard to judge from a distance.

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