Tropical Girl vs The Cold

If I were to list down my stressors among the top notchers would have to be: The Cold.

For a tropical girl, it was already a major stressor for me in our offices and buildings in the Philippines. I really do have a very low tolerance level for the cold. I would set the air-conditioning at 22 or 23 (Celsius), anything lower than that was not only cold, but REALLY COLD for me. Now, in a country with four seasons and global warming wreaking havoc all around, the cold does not get to be funny at all. But in times when you feel that you have hit rock bottom, it can be comforting to know that you can bank on love to keep you warm (haha—cheesy! But true… ;)


A funny anecdote on warmth and cultural differences:

I remember the first time I came to visit BE. It was during the summer and the first thing we did was to leave my things in our hotel in Amsterdam, which was were my plane landed. Amsterdam: where legal weed, space cakes and prostitutes are so commercialized BUT still worth a try--the latter one I wasn’t able to try though. Hehe (just kidding!)

In the hotel lobby, I saw a nice painting mounted on the wall and below it was a wide-white metal object that I had also seen in photos of K’s room prior to my visit. I exclaimed my admiration for the painting and then touched the big metal bars and uttered, “This is nice. It’s like the one you have in your room noh… what is it??”

While trying to keep a straight face, K replied, “It’s a heater.”

For a split second I looked at him and then spat out a laugh which turned out to be a succession of giggles (like I am always prone to doing). It would have been embarrassing for me but really, I cannot imagine a house in my country having a heater (Baguio maybe??)…just like I cannot imagine a house in Belgium having air-conditioning. In the movies they don’t really say: “Oh, what a lovely heater you have.” or “This is our heater. Don’t you think it’s just lovely?” Hence, I never knew what a heater looked like…until that day.

For sure, I will never mistake a heater for anything else ever again and I will always have one funny heater incident tucked under my belt.

--End of Anecdote.


On a serious note, I am faced with the reality that the cold will always be a part of my life from now on. More often than not, it is something the sun cannot even beat into submission. I will have to constantly battle it and struggle with it. They say keep your friends close; your enemies closer.

The cold is my enemy. The cold is my friend.