Walking in a winter wonderland… more like rushing through a snowstorm.

Who needs cold plunges when you have weather like this? Since the semester has started back up, so has the frigid cold and stinging wind with nowhere to escape. It seems, through hours of scrolling through Sidechat, that many agree with me and are up in arms about the cold.

One user writes, “AM I GOING INSANE OR IS MY DORM ROOM FREEZING COLD WITH NO HEAT. WHAT IS HAPPENING.” I relate a little too much to this as I recently had to have my AC taped up by a maintenance worker so that air would stop flowing into my room and turning me and my roommate into ice cubes.

Another Sidechat comment that so wonderfully sums up my predicament reads: “It’s warmer in the public safety tents than it is in my room.” Perhaps I should get a public safety tent to go over my bed? Or maybe it’s just my dorm? …Well, no, because the residents from John Jay to Hartley have complained about their freezing dorms as well: “Is heat broken for everyone in John Jay? I’m frozen rn.”

It seems to me that these icy temperatures have become a new norm to Columbia students and don’t seem to be going anywhere. One Sidechat user mentioned that this was their new normal temperature: “Cannot believe I looked at the temp today and was like oh it’s -2 C it’s not that much…” I’m hoping that for Groundhog Day, the groundhog doesn’t predict another SIX weeks of this. But also, how much trust can we place into this animal? I digress.

One desperate Sidechat user begs the question, “Where can I exist on campus without shivering?”, and I fear that the answer is nowhere. Maybe the second floor reading room of Butler is the exception (why is it so unusually hot in there?). Although we shiver, we shiver together. Stay warm out there!

Image via Bwog Archives