Cold Snap

The problem with this unusually cold weather we’ve been experiencing in Metro Manila is that I have discovered that I do not like the cold. I am a warm weather person. I like basking in the sunlight. I like swimming under the sun. I love soaking up rays.

In short, the cold has been terrible to me. I’ve been feeling it in my knees and my knuckles, and that’s saying a lot since I’ve just recently turned thirty! I am, however, apparently old enough to feel the cold seep into my bones.

Another way the cold has been terrible for me is mainly because of my asthma. I don’t have weak lungs, but I do have allergies and the aforementioned asthma, and the occasional ear infection producing a lot of snot in my right ear doesn’t really help much.

It’s really weird how the cold is affecting everybody I know. Suddenly, everybody’s carrying around a sweater. Everybody’s suffering from a cold. And some friends are even resorting to using the heater option of their vehicles (something unheard of in the Philippines, unless you were living in Baguio)! It’s pretty amazing, in a weird sort of way. We’re so used to the heat that suddenly, the cold (15.7 degrees Celcius, just a couple of tenths away from the record of 15.1.

A couple of days ago, the cold got so bad that I couldn’t believe that it was just 18 degrees. The average temperature over at Baguio’s been idling at around seven. And that’s not even winter weather.

The only difference being that I like this place. Taken from Lakbay Pilipinas.

Luckily, the weather’s taken a turn for the (somewhat) warmer, and I can now safely abandon my jacket on the wayside (or the back of my chair), and saunter around the world in a single t-shirt and sensible shorts.

But some time ago, Matt Yglesias posted something on Slate about how he’d take cold weather over warm weather any day, since it was easier to deal with the cold than with the warmth. His point was that it was a lot easier to put on layers of clothing than it was to remove them. Which made sense. The only way we can deal with extreme heat is by constant rehydration, and air conditioning. Meanwhile, when it’s cold, we could just put on a jacket, an extra shirt, and an extra pair of pants. Or more than just one extra pair of both, in colder temperatures.

I believe that I represent most Pinoys when it comes to dealing with cold weather, in that I like it until it starts bothering my joints. Or, in a friend’s case, his ankles (don’t ask me how). I have a dislike for putting on more than one layer of clothing since it’s bloody mental to do that in a country as tropical as the Philippines. But with the way things have been for the past few months, maybe this is changing? Climate change or not, maybe it’s time we get used to piling on more clothing than we normally do during certain times of the year.

I’ll tell you this, though. I prefer the cold to all the rain we’ve been getting.