47 degrees. That’s about how cold it feels in the College of Arts and Sciences building (and hence, the psychology department) where I spend my days on campus. They are doing some kind of maintenance to the heating system that I do not fully understand, but all I know is that whatever they are doing is causing the system to blow out frigid air. We all got emails warning us about this—saying that it might be “extra chilly” in the building and to bring a sweater—and letting us know that it will continue to be this way until mid-August.
Hooray.
Monday was the first day I had been in the department since the switch, and I was ill-prepared, so I spent the entire day in denial and wrapped in my fleece blanket and chattering, “It’s cold,” like every five seconds. By today though, I have learned. The winter clothes are back out, even though it is July. I wore pants and socks and my winter set of high heels, as well as two undershirts, a collared shirt, and a humungous sweatshirt that says “ARMY” on it. I brought this sweatshirt into my counseling sessions, even. It was that cold. I did not really care. I offered all of my clients my blanket but none of them wanted to accept this, even though they were all shivering too.
Everyone is drinking coffee like it is going out of style. Today during my 7 hours on campus I went to Starbucks. Twice.
Sheila, our incredibly beloved member of the 3rd floor cleaning staff, was carrying around a cup of hot chocolate.
It is sort of funny to see all of the faculty in sweatshirt-like jackets. Nobody seems to care. The only warm places are the innermost ones- like the black cave where we watch counseling tapes and the therapy rooms that have not been opened since the blizzard decided to strike. Ironically, normally these rooms are the coldest.
Touching metal—like desk legs, doorknobs, etc… is a bad idea. Your hand will end up feeling frozen. I told Amanda and Adrienne not to lick the metal office walls either, or they might end up with their tongue stuck to it like the little kid on Christmas Story. For fun, I took off my flip-flop on Monday and put my bare foot on the carpet. It was really, really freakin’ cold. Amanda did it too and she said she could feel the cold concrete right through the carpet.
So this, in addition to all of the relentless, relentless stress, has led me to develop a cold in July. Repulsive. It is the crappy kind too, where all the snot is just running down the back of my throat and irritating it to the point where it is also sore.
The only upside is that I can eat as many popsicles as I want and feel like I have an excuse. I have already eaten like half a box of these. When everything else seems to suck, I can always count on frozen delights!!
