Adapting to Winter

I didn’t think I’d be able to adjust when it came to winter.

Living in southern Spain I never dreamed of winter and didn’t want to, it didn’t exist. You felt it in the houses though, because of their construction it was sometimes colder inside than outside. However, the temperature never dipped below 0 (celsius). The most winter I’ve experienced in the last four years was during my 2 week winter vacation home last year. This year Is my first year living through a full one since college.

I was worried coming to Korea, I don’t like being cold, my feet are usually the first to get cold and never seem to get warm (I think I have that poor circulation thing), people talked about winter in Korea like it was the coldest, longest winter in the world. It’s definitely cold and even worse in the schools, only the classrooms have heat making every trip to the bathroom or lunchroom (which is detached from the schools) feel like you’re going on an arctic expedition, but it’s not so bad. It’s how it is and if you try to fight it, you’d be a lot worse. I was also worried that I wouldn’t be able to continue my morning runs. I’ve never considered myself to be a morning person and I don’t like waking up in the morning. I never imagined I’d be someone to run/exercise before work, but I needed to adapt to my schedule. Coming home from teaching at 5:30-6 was new to me, I was too tired and knew that once it started getting darker I’d never run after school, so I started doing it before. At first it was awful, I hated getting up, but if you do something enough times you get used to it. I even started looking forward to it.

When winter started coming I didn’t think I could continue, it’d be too cold I thought, but thankfully to my parents sent me my winter toe shoes and a LL Bean athletic shirt; I bought a Uniqlo thermal, a hat, gloves and something to cover my mouth and nose and now I actually feel too warm once I start running. The cold no longer is the problem, I’ve gotten used to it, it’s the waking up part that still gets me.

I was hoping it would snow again and it has the last two days!  Snow changes the things around it, its adds a new layer to the world in which you can view everything differently. The area around Boseong (Snowseong, a word I’ve now coined) is beautiful and even more beautiful when it snows, people behave differently, well not the drivers they’re even worse, interactions are different, the sky is different, the landscape changes, sounds are muffled and the warm bus on the way to school feels like my own chauffeur showing me around the countryside. Except when it doesn’t come, like yesterday.

When it comes down to it, it’s about the mindset you have; how you react to and what your thoughts are at the time changes are happening around/to you. Also I’m going to Cambodia from February 10th-28th so it’s pretty much spring already!