In today’s blog – the latest in my series of melodramatic, bellyaching articles on low-level campus problems – I’m turning up the heat on a new, but nonetheless bone-chilling issue.
I like Carleton, I really do (you can thank Margaret Wente for that line). But there’s one thing I can’t stand about this place.
Carleton either has no chill, or it has way too much of it.
You know what I’m talking about. You get to class, take off your jacket, and open your laptop. But by the time your prof gets their PowerPoint going, you feel cryogenically frozen. You couldn’t be colder if your tongue was stuck to a goalpost at MNP Park.
Even in rooms that don’t have windows, you find yourself wondering—where’s that breeze coming from?
Other times, it seems like campus is designed to make you sweat through your clothes. (Style tip for first-years: NEVER wear grey!) No, you’re not Sisyphus. You’re just trudging up the hill to Tory.
Speaking of Carleton’s underground—where the tunnels alternate from polar vortex to swampland—taking a walk from Steacie to St. Pat’s often feels like a journey from the ninth ring of hell to the surface of Pluto, and back again. Moving from building to building is like participating in a giant, never-ending science experiment where, unbeknownst to anyone, a monkey in a mirrored room is playing with the university’s temperature settings while scientists take notes.
Ever had your glasses fog up in class? Broken into a sweat and had your pencil slip out of your hand during an intense exam? Me neither! But I know a guy!
I’m from Newfoundland. I totally get having four seasons in one day—blizzard in the morning, then rain and slush, then blinding sunshine, then enough wind to blow the roof off the house. It just usually doesn’t happen inside.
But here’s the worst part of it. Ever tried using your most poorly heated classroom’s climate controls? They are hope-inducing dream-killers. I’ve pressed those up and down arrows over and over, my fingers aching from cold or drained from heat exhaustion.
Enough is enough. My temperature is rising on this issue. This is a HOT topic on campus that needs to be addressed—(thermo)STAT!
