Things Grad Students Love, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of Things Grad Students Love. This installation's title:

Distractions from Finals

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Aaaand I wish I had a fireplace so I could begin to finish that song.

So begins the first few days of intense (to me, that is) snow in New York City. I could say I was ready for it. I could say that I've been holed up in my room, typing away at my last paper on my last weekend on the East Coast for a few weeks. I could say that my feet have stayed dry, that I haven't been cold at all, that of course I've completely acclimated to below-freezing temperatures. But this would all be a lie.

Instead of slaving away on my final paper in my bedroom, I've decided to stage an ambush and throw snowballs at my neighbor's face. I've decided to attempt to "ice skate" on packed-down sidewalk snow (extremely hindered by the red wine in my system) while walking to Hi Fi on Avenue A, throwing snow at friends every two blocks. I've decided to draw obscene images in the snow on every car parked between A and B on 14th Street at 4 AM while threatening Sheng and Arthur with lethal chunks of ice. I've decided to destroy every patch of unadulterated snow with my footprints.

And it's been marvelous.

Despite the cold, COLD temperatures, the fact that I've grown a strict and impassioned aversion to pants lately (preferring, of course, leggings/tights and skirts/dresses) and the reality of the ONE pair of waterproof shoes I own (shoes, mind you, not boots), it's been marvelous.

So even though I don't have a fireplace, I'm making do with the cranked up heater that cannot be adjusted, the heater that causes me to wake up each morning with a sore throat and a bit of dried blood in my nose that somehow reminds me to be distracted and look out the window at a sight I've not yet seen in my adult life, a distraction I really wouldn't mind getting used to.