Winter

In my head, as a child, winter had no connection with seasons. Winter was a time to get presents, tasty food, and time off from school. But more than anything winter has always been the best time to enjoy the beach, sure the water is a bit colder, but given that most people are frighten by the abundance of jellyfishes and the high waves you don’t have to worry about beaches being overcrowded. And then I decided to pursue grad school in Wisconsin…

Now you must think I’m crazy, if I wanted to achieve academic diversity there are plenty of other schools I could have gone to, but we are not going to talk about that now, there is something more crucial.

Lets concentrate of my change of perspective.

If you ask me now the first thing that flies into my head when I think of winter the answer would be static shock. Yes static shock. This is a cruel phenomenon. You want to protect yourself from the chilly wind so you layer up then as you walk to a building and open a door zaaap! You’re shoked, you think it’s weird, then you go to the lab bench to do some experiments and zaaap! your hit again.

There must be something terribly wrong, all day you’ve been shocked opening doors, turning on instruments even turning on the lights. There is nowhere to seek refuge from this horrible sensation. As it goes on, you wonder how to diminish this health hazard (mental health that is).

Then, after weeks of torture, somebody decides to be nice and tell you that fleece is one of the culprits. My mind wanders. Obviously fleece is an enemy, since, even in my extremely humid home (Puerto Rico) I could see static sparks when I moved my fleece throw.

The fleece jackets are thrown out the window, no more fluffy boots either. I embrace sneakers and frozen feet. I refuse to be constantly bested by the element of surprise.