It's no secret that I hated living up north. It was a Great Opportunity and I had wonderful friends, but overall, it was just miserable. Nonetheless, there were some useful skills and pieces of information I learned as a result of braving the 8-month winters, the snobby people, and the general unpleasantness of it all. Among those were:1. That spring does not start in March in places where it snows a lot. You should've seen Allison's and my faces when Lindsey told us that. It was still snowing on April 15.
2. How to block sweaters. I didn't even know what blocking sweaters meant, much less that you're not supposed to dry them in the dryer.
3. The meanings of several obscure words and phrases, among them: epiphenomenal, discourse, grad-student unionization, power-elite, Ivy League football, and venture
capitalist.4. How to tie a scarf and wear a fetching little hat in a matching print.
5. How to skim 2000 pages of reading each week and still manage to make comments like, "the author's take on the politics of militant vegetarians in 14th century west African kingdoms is unique, but I really question the validity of his work given that he completely ignores the question of gender politics in matrilineal societies. How could he ignore the Hausa archives in Arabic script that are just sitting in Abuja, waiting for someone to translate them into Yoruba?" Yeah. I still don't know what most of that means, but that's how it works in the Ivies.
5. How to drive in very unpleasant weather.
This last one came in handy this week. It would have been even better if the rest of Austin would either learn how to drive on ice or stay at home. UT was closed again today, as was most of Austin due to the general panic from the 1/2 inch of freezing rain that arrived yesterday evening. I
was out last night and it was just sad. If you hit a patch of ice, you do NOT slam on the brakes. That is the worst possible thing you can do, both for yourself and for everyone else on south MoPac.That said, the ice was really beautiful, especially out here on the ranch. Here are some pictures of the ice, including the 8-point buck that wandered through my yard this morning. Winter's not so bad in small doses.