Many conversations start with small talk, and the most clichéd small talk of them all is the weather. So, I guess it’s only appropriate that my first piece for Odyssey is about the weather — my own small talk if you will.
For the majority of seniors in high school the most commonly asked question is, “Where will you be going to college?” I was only looking at schools on the east coast, so I knew I would run into the cold. My first tour of Ithaca College featured snow in March, but on that snowy day I knew that my heart was stuck with IC.
When moving up to IC I attended a jump-start program with Hillel, and I got to move in a few days early. The days were hot and I found myself changing outfits twice, sometimes three times a day. The Hillel leaders warned us that it would get cold quick and to watch out because Ithaca is (apparently) a wind tunnel.
This past week I broke out my winter jacket, partially because it’s the only warm jacket I own, and partially because the “high” on Wednesday was 42 degrees and snow was predicted for Thursday and Friday. I've been at Ithaca for a total of 10 weeks, and I’m already pulling out my winter jacket. Now, I wouldn’t mind this except some of my best friends are down south for school, posting Instagrams in their bikinis — and no they aren't “throwback” pictures from the summer, that’s just the weather for them.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it here, but I didn’t expect a full week of rain and snow before Halloween. While the sun has left us for the time being, I can’t stop feeling as if the dark sky is bringing my mood down. I didn't come to college to let the weather be the defining factor for how I'm feeling, and here I am, letting it pull me down. Fear not, because I have made myself a fool-proof plan to wash these blues away.
While this plan does include attending all of my classes and getting all of my work done (which I am Mom, please stop worrying), it does not focus entirely on those things. Getting good grades and putting in hard work is very rewarding, but sometimes all you need is some chocolate, colored pencils and a coloring book to cheer you up. To break myself from this rut I can draw, doodle and color. And yes, I know it seems childish, but art therapy is a real thing and it has been proven that drawing helps relieve stress. As a first-year student in my first semester, over 100 miles away from my family, sometimes I need a little stress relief.
The rain may bring me down a bit, but at least I can color in pages of flowers, birds and other things that leave during the winter. Realistically, I could just call or text friends from home who I don’t get to see often, but as I said, most conversations start with small talk. And why would I want to talk about the weather if it’s bringing me down?
