The first snow of the infamous Syracuse winter struck last week. Though most of us narrowly escaped its harrowing grace, we will all soon remember that living on the inside of a snow globe has a number of downsides — namely, frozen nostril hairs. No one will be spared.

For those of you who are new to the area, you might be thinking about how strong-willed you are. When over break an old friend or family member asked how you were handling Syracuse, you probably smiled. “It’s really not that bad,” you said. You could even potentially think that this might be the worst of it.

Those of us who have been around the 315 for a while and have experienced our fair share of frozen tundra are smirking at you. You will soon be quickly humbled. Those of us who know the emotional and physical bitter cold that is rapidly approaching are wearing long sleeve t-shirts right now. We are not afraid of rolling up our sleeves to feel a brief stroke of sunlight on our quickly-paling skin.

That being said, we have also blacked out every winter that came before this, because otherwise we would have transferred by now. For the good of the Orange, we had to block it out.

For new and old, the Syracuse winter is a season that needs serious preparation. Allow me, a girl from New Jersey who catches a cold every other week, to tell you how to properly bundle up in order to make it to May.

1. Undergarments. Wear them. Whenever possible, ensure that they are clean. It sounds self-explanatory but laundry gets hard when it’s cold outside because bed is so much warmer.

2. Leggings or long johns. Those who own leggings are lucky because saying you are wearing leggings under the rest of your clothes sounds a lot more normal than saying “long johns.” Honestly, let’s destigmatize the long john. This wild north gets cold and an extra layer is unspeakably helpful.

3. Another pair of pants. Trust me.

4. At least three pairs of socks. The first will get wet through your boots, which are probably not as good as they should be for the amount of wet mush you will be trekking through on a daily basis to get to class — whenever you decide to go. The second acts as an insulator between the top sock and the snuggest sock. The third pair is what saves you.

5. Sweater/sweatshirt. Save impressing people for when you move away from here after graduation. We are college students — who are we trying to impress anyway? You know what is impressive? Survival. There is a sense of Darwinism in all of us that values the ability to survive in a potential mate. So toss that crop top and cover up.

6. Long puffy jacket. The longer and puffier the better. While the campus looks like a gaggle of literal Canadian geese migrated here for the season, non-name brands will do just fine. A perk of opting to wear a non-name brand is that you will be able to differentiate your jacket when someone steals it and you won’t have to join the herds of people in the “Class of” Facebook groups asking if anyone who was at Harry’s last night took their completely non-unique, unrecognizable black jacket.

7. Beer jacket. An absolute necessity in the Syracuse winter is a bottle to finish to silence the internal and external questioning of why you chose to go here. An added bonus is that it will warm you up too.

 

Patty Terhune is a senior policy studies and television, radio and film dual major. Freshman year she got caught in a complete white-out snowstorm and just sat on the quad and cried. Follow her on Twitter @pattyterhune or reach her at paterhun@syr.edu. 

Published on November 30, 2016 at 8:21 pm