So first let’s discuss the weather around early/mid-December. It’s hellacious– and not in the way that February is hellacious. See, in February, every day is grey and it snows and it’s fairly predictable and there’s lots of powder (and even Uggs can manage at least some traction on powder). But this time of year, it could snow one day, be sunny and 55 degrees the next, and then rain happens, and then Ithaca turns it down to 15 degrees that evening so all the rain freezes on the ground. And then it snows the next day, so all the snow hides the layer of ice underneath and then you’re walking down Buffalo Street in Collegetown and… YOU FALL AND DIE.

But you know, it sort of makes us all comrades because everyone at Cornell shares the same distaste for the freezing cold months. Everyone sort of adjusts to the winters there to the point where nobody laughs when people slip and fall on the street (because, hello, people are going to fall when you’re all walking up and down icy hills– get some better gossip). But everyone still straps on their heels and nice jeans and goes out to the bars at night and there is STILL an insane crowd on College Ave at 1:15am every Thursday, Friday and Saturday after all the College Ave bars empty out and people want, well, pizza. Even when it’s 25 degrees out, Cornellians are staying strong. The weather deters nobody. Recently, I’ve seen a group of girls wearing tiny little short dresses outside of Rulloffs on a freezing night, some dude running around Collegetown wearing a pair of boxers and a bunch of dollar bills taped to his chest, and a group of brave guys in drag for apparently no reason.

And because of the one thing we all have in common, pre-meds help each other up when they fall, and the finance kid offers another his extra pair of gloves– because we all know a winter campus walk without gloves SUCKS because the cold is so cold that it burns like hell’s fire. Even the most competitive classroom rivals are comrades when braving the harsh central New York winds.

Touching, right? Here’s another heartwarming story to get you into the holiday spirit: I was walking down Buffalo Street– which is pretty steep– fairly late at night a couple of Saturdays ago. As one might expect, I slipped on some ice and fell face down right in front of this house, right? (Well, more like wiped out, kind of like Carrie Bradshaw wiped out in Dior and all of her stuff went everywhere– everything in my purse went EVERYWHERE.) So I’m lying on the sidewalk with my feet uphill and my face sort of much further downhill, cursing my decision to forgo sensible footwear in favor of the pointy black heels. I’m surveying the damage (bleeding palms, scuffed purse, slightly damaged dignity) and beginning to map out my next course of action… when this young gentleman comes running out of the house I’m in lying front of! Evidently, he saw me totally eat it and was coming to my rescue. He’s wearing a disheveled suit and purple tie and is kind of hot, but– I can’t even make this up– he’s munching on this fairly thick two-foot-long stick of salami that he has in his left hand (or maybe it was pepperoni or sausage or some other meat that comes in stick form). Without so much as setting down the meatstick in question, he helps me up, assists me in collecting the contents of my purse, offers me a band-aid (which I politely decline because a girl really shouldn’t accept first aid from a dude munching on a stick of unidentifiable meat at 2:30 in the morning), and sends me on my way.

That’s Cornell for you. Even when a young man is busy eating his sausage, he will take time out of his evening to help a stranger who falls on the sidewalk in front of his house. Honestly, I think we had a moment. In between the time he was fetching my scattered tampons from the middle of the road and helping me figure out why my cell phone wasn’t turning on, we locked eyes and it was magical. I’ll let you guys know when we set a date for the wedding. Also, I’ll let you know when I find out what his name is.
Ah, such love in the icy air in Collegetown!