It's downright pervasive

Leaving Ichinohe for a few weeks gave me a little bit of perspective about how friggin cold it really is here.

When I say cold, don't let me confuse you into thinking that the term "cold" merely applies to lower temperature. Sure, Ichinohe's temperature is lower than Tennessee's, the conversion between Centigrade and Fahrenheit can get a little confusing, but it is lower.

Before I came here, I never really realized how little the temperature outside your house matters.
The reason I know now is that our home in Ichinohe is not centrally heated, and has no insulation whatsoever. If it's below freezing outside it's below freezing in my living room. Our main source of heat comes from a portable kerosene heater and if we leave it on for more than 3 hours we suffocate and die. fun! While the heater is on, we're toasty warm. When it's off we are... less than toasty warm.

The cold gets under your skin. You chase your tail in circles trying to stay warm.It drives you a little crazy. As a person who has been spoiled her entire life with central heating, I must admit that one feels a little... indignant at being cold all the time.

No joke. The biggest emotion I feel about the cold is irritation. When the room cools back down to freezing within ten minutes of the heater being turned off the first thought in my head is " Ugh is it cold AGAIN? This is just uncalled for."

Spring is finally starting to come to Ichinohe. While it is snowing at the moment, the temperature is slowly rising. Soon I wont have episodes like this on a nightly basis:Fun fact: did you know that blogger is terrible for uploading large images? Sorry if you can't read the text. Maybe I'll just have to put these up elsewhere and publish links... :(