I was reading Daniel Webster's Seventh of March Speech today, and I decided that I needed a blog. It wasn't because of the speech so much as I was cold. Anyway, I decided that I had prolonged the inevitable long enough. Time to dive in. This will look pretty ugly until I decide that I'm seriously going to keep it up (which may be a few hours or a few weeks).

So, this morning I wake up and the temperature is about 10 and the wind is howling. The hot water heater broke again, so I can't take a warm shower. I get out of the shower blue and shivering and put on a T-shirt, among other things. I then remember that it isn't 50 degrees out like the day before. My winter coat is still at my cousin's house (because I left it there... why else?), and that makes me unhappy, but I still have to prepare for the worst. I put on my under armor and check the temperature again before I leave: now it's three degrees colder. I walk outside in the wind (the wind chill was about -10... I've had as bad as -50 over here, but it was about 50 last week, so this was a major shock).

I wipe the snow off my car and try to open the door. The handle is frozen and won't budge. I end yanking open the back and crawling through to the front of the car. I turn it on (it took about four revs of the engine to get going) and blast the heating fans. I break through the ice hold the driver's door shut, but the handle is still frozen. I go back inside to let the car warm up. I go back out and it's even windier. I scrape the windshield and windows of ice, crawl back in the car, and drive to school at 7:30 to get there early for the Morning Show (our school's daily news show that broadcasts across the school and county).

At 7:47, 20 minutes before school starts, the fire alarms go off. That wasn't fun. After my name was checked off, I dashed back to my car, crawled back in it, waited for my comrades to enter, locked the doors, and listened to music with a few of my friends until the alarms went off and they let us back in. Apparently, the intense cold and winds had knocked on something in the alarm system and the entire thing went off. I hate irony.

I am still wearing the under armor, and I am still shivering, but at least there won't be any school fire alarms tomorrow.