Countdown to Freedom

...t - 7 days until Vancouver!


Reading week is almost upon us, I've written my last midterm until March rolls around and life was looking pretty great, that is until I woke up this moring to bone chilling temperatures. It was -35C with the windchill making it feel like it was -45C, in a word, BRUTAL.


This weather wouldn't be so bad if it had been a normal winter, but no, I allowed myself to be fooled by the havoc that climate change has wreaked on Edmonton. When I first moved here (from Ontario 4 years ago) everyone told me that I should get prepared for the brutal weather that Edmontonians had to endure. I tried to remind them that even though Ottawa is further south, I knew what a 'real winter' was like.

Albertans shushed me; how could an 'easterner' like myself understand winter, as it was invented in the prairies they asked? I valiantly tried to explain that Ontario was a huge province but that we got a lot of different weather including tonnes of heavy snow. I explained that a couple of people (usually old ones) died every year shoveling snow, that our fire hydrants have yellow plastic arms on them so that they can still be found when the snow eventually covers them aroud mid winter.

We even have this little thing called Winterlude, you know world's longest skating rink, beavertails...? But to no avail.

Then I became complacent, I forgot what it was like to actually have to wear a jacket or even a long-sleeved shirt on my birthday, some might say I'd gone soft. Then it happened, as it usually does in Edmonton; the weather turned on a dime. Suddenly the windows in my room were steaming up when I came in from a shower, the cold air whipped against my face as I walked to my exam this morning. Winter hit and I was totally unprepared. I spent about 10 minutes getting all my winter stuff out of the closet again, had to locate gloves, a hat and leggings + 2 pairs of sweatpants. I hate you Edmonton, just when things are going well, you fuck it up!

Now I have to climb into a cold bed, although crying myself to sleep will be a little awkward tonight as the tears will be frozen before they hit the pillow.