The peril and persecution of a Hillsdale winter
Students' feelings mainly glacial toward onset of colder temperatures
Brandon Muri
Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: Focus
A lily-white snow now dusts our campus, serene and virginal.
With the grace and subtlety of a town drunk, Hillsdale's weather has completed her annual transition from "damp November of the soul," to "winter of discontent."
To those with experience, the innocent whiteness of winter belies its true nature in Hillsdale.
Senior Chris Duncan, from New Jersey, described the Hillsdale winter thus: "It is awful. The ice undulates in such fantastic and terrifying ways that the only possible way to maintain balance is while lying prone and bleeding."
For the 301 students living off-campus, the harsh realities of life are a bitter draught taken daily; these students are expected to venture outside and walk to class - exposing themselves to frequent instances of discomfort.
These treks are rife with danger: soul-destroying chill, murderously slick ice patches and the adamantine windshield frost that yields to scraping as readily as our Thatcher statue to pick-up lines from Galloway men bent on honing the skills to one day speak to an actual human woman.
It is understandable why many students stay indoors. It often starts with skipping a meal or two.
Senior Cara Goggins said she spent her first winter in Hillsdale safe inside, "living mostly on mac and cheese and ramen noodles."
Pretty soon students find themselves utterly cowed by the tyranny of frost, subsisting narrowly on cheap Wal-Mart food and their slowly fading memories of warmer times.
Homesick junior Victoria Harper harbors in her pale blue eyes an accusatory question: "Why do people live where there is no sun?"
The California native describes her feelings for Hillsdale's weather as "quiet, despairing hatred."
"This weather is the antithesis of everything I love," Harper said. "I haven't seen the sun in weeks. I just realized the other day that I couldn't remember the last time I saw it."
Harper said Hillsdale's climate interferes with her "general movement," with a note of quiet desperation, the kind one might expect if "The Cookie Monster" were forced into stringent observation of the Atkin's Diet.
"Life takes more time in the winter here," Harper said "For me to go outside, it takes extra-thick socks, boots, two pairs of long-johns and at least one pair of pants. Sometimes that's not even good enough. I wear at least two shirts and a sweater under my coat and I'm still cold under all that."
Harper said the chilling wind was the worst thing about Michigan winter.
"It steals your heat. In California there is enough to go around. There is not enough heat to go around here. The wind is not mean in California. It is mean here," she said, with the sigh of the persecuted.
With the grace and subtlety of a town drunk, Hillsdale's weather has completed her annual transition from "damp November of the soul," to "winter of discontent."
To those with experience, the innocent whiteness of winter belies its true nature in Hillsdale.
Senior Chris Duncan, from New Jersey, described the Hillsdale winter thus: "It is awful. The ice undulates in such fantastic and terrifying ways that the only possible way to maintain balance is while lying prone and bleeding."
For the 301 students living off-campus, the harsh realities of life are a bitter draught taken daily; these students are expected to venture outside and walk to class - exposing themselves to frequent instances of discomfort.
These treks are rife with danger: soul-destroying chill, murderously slick ice patches and the adamantine windshield frost that yields to scraping as readily as our Thatcher statue to pick-up lines from Galloway men bent on honing the skills to one day speak to an actual human woman.
It is understandable why many students stay indoors. It often starts with skipping a meal or two.
Senior Cara Goggins said she spent her first winter in Hillsdale safe inside, "living mostly on mac and cheese and ramen noodles."
Pretty soon students find themselves utterly cowed by the tyranny of frost, subsisting narrowly on cheap Wal-Mart food and their slowly fading memories of warmer times.
Homesick junior Victoria Harper harbors in her pale blue eyes an accusatory question: "Why do people live where there is no sun?"
The California native describes her feelings for Hillsdale's weather as "quiet, despairing hatred."
"This weather is the antithesis of everything I love," Harper said. "I haven't seen the sun in weeks. I just realized the other day that I couldn't remember the last time I saw it."
Harper said Hillsdale's climate interferes with her "general movement," with a note of quiet desperation, the kind one might expect if "The Cookie Monster" were forced into stringent observation of the Atkin's Diet.
"Life takes more time in the winter here," Harper said "For me to go outside, it takes extra-thick socks, boots, two pairs of long-johns and at least one pair of pants. Sometimes that's not even good enough. I wear at least two shirts and a sweater under my coat and I'm still cold under all that."
Harper said the chilling wind was the worst thing about Michigan winter.
"It steals your heat. In California there is enough to go around. There is not enough heat to go around here. The wind is not mean in California. It is mean here," she said, with the sigh of the persecuted.
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