“It’s getting hot in here so take off all your clothes.”
The above lyric is not only a line from rapper Nelly’s hit song “Hot in Herre,” but it also seems to be the Midd Kid’s anthem once the weather starts to warm up. Last Thursday, I noticed that it was unusually warm. My body had become accustomed to negative degrees and frostbitten hands. I figured in five minutes the warmth would pass, the clouds would again cover the sun and the bipolar snow/hail/sleet storms would continue. But an hour later it was even warmer! I could not believe it, so I checked my phone — low and behold, it was 45 degrees. The first thought that came to mind was, “thank you global warming” (sorry environmentalists).
My stroll through campus was all of sudden much jollier, and with a pep in my step, I hummed as the snow melted around me (not really). On my way to Atwater dining hall (totally forgetting that I had Language Tables), I saw something I just couldn’t fathom. A girl was casually walking in mid-thigh shorts and flats. It couldn’t be! Shorts! Being raised by a West-Indian woman who thought winter was the season of the devil (go figure), I could not even think about wearing shorts until it at least broke 65.
I was baffled by this girl’s courage to bare skin in weather that could change in literally five minutes. I myself had forgotten what my feet looked like without fuzzy socks and duck boots on. I can’t even remember the last day I didn’t have a scarf wrapped around my neck. I even forgot what it looked like to see the sun in the sky. I could not believe that this girl exposed her knees to the world in February!
After the initial shock from seeing shorts subsided, I asked myself “what is life anymore?” I go to a school where people think 45 degrees is summer. I heard the other day that apparently it snows sometimes in May. I wondered what the weather gods had against Middlebury. If only the state of Vermont was able to bribe them with Ben & Jerry’s for a day without snow that turns into ice.
Although I am only a first-year, I have the feeling that Midd students create a great tolerance for cold weather. What other school has kids that can walk around in single-digit weather with just a North Face fleece on? Well, probably any school in the coldest regions of the U.S. People from Minnesota never let you forget that they are from Minnesota and that 20 degrees for them is “so like no big deal.” And those poor Californians don’t let you forget that they are from Cali, and that this cold is “hella not cute.” However, I know that when I go home to the Big Apple and my friends complain about 30 degrees being “freezing,” I say “you don’t know freezing if you’ve never been to Vermont.”
Middlebury has made me appreciate the little things, like seeing the sun out on a regular basis. That heat wave we had last week made my day better, and I am sure that it did the same for some other folks. Seeing the snow melt put a smile on my face, and even when it comes back (give it two days) I will still have a reason to smile. Although spring seems to be ages away, spring break is only two weeks away. So smile. March 22 is only 15 days away from being yours and mine.
Written by DIKU ROGERS '16 of Brooklyn, N. Y.
