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Fighting the cold
Fighting the Cold It was Monday morning, 7 a.m. and barely 8 degrees outside. My class was a 20- minute walk away. For a few moments I considered skipping it. Missing the lecture notes seemed like fair trade for warmth. On the first day of school, my resident assistant sighed and said that walking around the sprawling campus was one of the hardest adjustments that she had to make from high school. It did not take long before I agreed with what she said. The various buildings are spread out across many, many acres and both semesters my earliest class has always been the farthest one away from my dorm. I had checked the weather the night before. The most it could possibly have been outside by now was 10 degrees, and that was the optimistic view. The day before the weather had read the same. I wore my heaviest coat, a sweatshirt, gloves, hat and boots. While I imagine they offered some protection, I still was freezing and red-faced by the time I reached the door of the geology building. My university forbids freshmen from having cars, but even if I had one, it would not have done any good. Like most universities, parking is scarce, and it would take more time to retrieve my car from the lot, drive through the insane human traffic on campus and fight for a space. Many upperclassmen, who live off-campus, walk to the university, and virtually all walk between classes. Buses and other public transportation are also available but not always helpful. Buses are warm but have ours have many stops en route. Most of the time it is considerably faster to walk somewhere than to take the bus. When I have to get up for an 8 a.m. class, it is always hard to decide which is worse: walking during the coldest part of the day or having to wake up early because the bus leaves 10 minutes earlier than walking.
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