The return to campus for spring quarter also brings along great expectations of beautiful weather. As PhD Comics notes, it isn’t all radiant warmth and blooming flowers, though I can’t complain too much about the allergies. The primary culprit is the rain and chilliness, just barely enough to keep reactions tepid.
I thought about it last night, and I think we tend to overstate Stanford’s case for perfect weather. I find that I often make excuses to visitors for the weather, from the rainy season during the winter to some hot days in the summer. On the whole, the weather certainly is nice, and it beats just about everywhere else I can think of. I’m just impressed by how well we’ve managed to average weather conditions in our minds into a perfect, constant climate.
Not to say that we don’t react to the weather changes. Campus never necessarily feels down about the weather, but spirit picks up when the sun comes out after the rain. It took 2 days at the end of last quarter to trade all of their hoodies and rain boots for sundresses and denim shorts. One day, only the most die-hard graduate students would head out for soccer, yet the next, the Oval was filled with toddlers running wild, ultimate frisbee, and sunbathing.
Among my friends, the new quarter and new season has brought about sand volleyball, a triumphant statement that we’re going to take any chance to enjoy the outdoors, regardless of how wet the sand is, how windy it is, and how untalented we are. We spend just as much time retrieving the ball when it lands outside of the court, but we’re slowly improving. I’m looking forward to being able to set up a bump-set-spike.
So until problem sets give us an excuse to find other ways to procrastinate, we’ll be trying to stay active for as long as possible. By then, hopefully the beautiful Stanford weather we know will shame us into heading back outside.