Julia's a freshman from St. Louis, and this reflection from the beginning of the term helps explain why Minnesota winters are so awesome.  (Keep in mind - the temperature is going to skyrocket from the current -5F to 40F this weekend... heat wave!)

The most dreaded part of Carleton! THE INFAMOUS WINTER TERM! Where poor students freeze on their way to class and you can’t cry, your tears just crystallize!!! Everyone warned me. “It’s cold up there” they said. ”Ooh bring a good coat!” “Better buy a nice warm hat ha-ha-ha!” Well, thank you everybody for informing me of proper winter attire. Without such knowledge I could be stuck here right now with nothing but a hoodie. Dodged a bullet there.
But EVEN THOUGH those weather warners were actually RIGHT when they said “it’s cold up there” and EVEN THOUGH my nose hair froze on tuesday and my head-hair froze on sunday, and it was 4 degrees this morning when I walked to breakfast… winter term is actually FUN!!!!! I swear! Everything looks so cute with all of the snow, and it will probably never melt, like…ever.  And it keeps snowing, probably about every other day when you’re walking to class there are cute little flurries, and everyone’s cheeks and noses get all red, and they wear scarves and hats and sweaters and stuff. And people are always cross country skiing around campus, and today these people were building a sweeeet igloo.
But the best part about Winter Term has just got to be the ice rink. There are always figure skating and ice hockey P.E. classes out there skating around, and if you have your own skates LIKE ME you can go skating with all your friends whenever you want! Like we did tonight!
So yeah. I may have only experienced a week of this, and probably haven’t seen the worst of it. But for now, at least, I’m LOVING WINTER TERM! I’mma let the haters hate on Minnesota winters. They’re the bomb!