It’s wintertime, the lovely month of January to be exact. You’re loving life because you’re on break. You get to see your friends you haven’t seen in ages – I mean ages. You get coffee. You work out because your body is a temple. #fit! You wake up late because you don’t have commitments. You spend money you don’t have on a lot of tacos with your galpals because who needs savings? (I do). You watch a full season of ‘Stranger Things’ and begin season two (really, Nancy?).

Life is good. No assignments, readings, or papers. No meetings you accidentally forgot about, not many emails you have to get back to. Life is angelic. You play with your dogs until they demand you take them on a walk. You take them on a walk because you feel bad but they’re stronger than you and pull you up a hill (yes, please).

Why is life even more angelic? You’re in California.

California!

For you East Coasters, it’s a land of sunshine. Suuuunshiiiiine. Produce. The fruit basket of America. LA. Hollywood. Tans (some fake some not). Blonde hair (some fake some not)! My favorite – San Francisco. Organic food is abundant. The gluten-free, chia-based, almond-milk obsessed city. #Google. #Facebook. #Apple. #IWillStopBragging.

#TechCapitol.

Sorry.

You wake up one day, blissful. It is 65 degrees outside. Clear sky. Wear my Birkenstocks? With or without socks? Without, because I’m feeling saucy.

Walk downstairs. Get coffee, because, obviously. Turn on ‘CBS This Morning’ so that I know what's going on in the world. Hear about Trump (sad!). Hear about Russia (scary!). Hear about North Korea (please God, no!). And then. The. Weather.

You see that the rest of the US is getting hit hard with some cold weather. Record-breaking lows. You see headlines that include things like ‘bomb cyclone’ and ‘polar vortex’ and ‘bombogenesis’ and you genuinely don’t know what that means but it sounds BAD.

You see that Florida is part of the massive chill. 50 miles of the highway closed due to ice on the roads by Tallahassee. *The world ends as we know it* because newsflash, it was warmer in Alaska than it was in parts of Florida yesterday.

Take. That. In.

You think ‘how do people still not believe in global warming? [Or climate change, whatever floats your boat really. It's real, it's happening, call it what you want. Watch this if you want to see the not-so-funny realities of global warming.] Literally, how?’

Then you think ‘I go to school on the East Coast’.

Drat.

You look at the sun (not directly folks) and you think, why! Follow me there! Help all of the other cold people! Make it so there isn't a friggin' BOMBOGENESIS!

Looking at your wardrobe, you think of all of the sweaters you want to bring. You think – wool blends! Yes! But then you realize that all airlines are snakes (objective truth), who will charge you $300 dollars in baggage fees. (Yes. This happened. No, I don’t want to talk about it.)

(But everyone who drives to school, count your blessings you weren’t on American Airlines freshman year. I cried, elegantly.)

And then, you accept your fate. You realize your blessings. You can’t flee the cold. The vast majority of Americans can’t. You chose to go to a school you love, it just happens to be on the East Coast. Where it’s cold. You make an action plan. Not really, but a plan in your head. You plan on sending yourself: one coat, multiple sweaters, an excessive bout of tea, and a really big blanket.

You recycle and don't eat red meat and try to reduce your carbon footprint so that another bombogenesis (seriously I need a meteorologist) doesn't happen as regularly.

Then you think 'I'm coming for you, Philly.'