Pages of Mariskova

Yup, right! I got that confirmed by this year's winter, and it's not even snowing yet :(
Whenever I look out of the window, the view is always deceiving: Bright and Sunny, even the sunray looks like it's still summer. The trees stand still, no wind blows. No snow. And the most deceiving view in our every day's life is the sight of senior high school students (whose school is just across the dorm) still wearing light jacket, and that's all! BUT, like I said before, it's all deceiving! When I actually set my feet out, it's FREEZING! So freezing enough for some wild cats living around the dorm and forest that all of them died last week!

Yesterday, thinking (after peeping out of the window) that the weather was warm and sunny enough to go out, I decided to attend my Japanese class in Honjo cultural center. Besides, yesterday was the last session of this year. I've learned from the past experience, though, never to trust the appearance of the weather 'that' much, so I wore a thick shirt (long-sleeved), a thick sweater (long-sleeved too), and a winter jacket. Plus, I also wore wool scarf, wool cap, gloves, thick socks, and thick sport shoes.
Did they work?
No!
While I rode the bike down the hill, the wind blew very hard. That wind was so cold, it made my ears hurt! (those ears were hidden in my wool cap!). That wind was also so hard that some bikers just stopped to wait for it to cool down, including me. When I arrived at the place, I was shaking, freezing, and red! I couldn't even make my mouth say Ohayo to my Sensei(s).
Trembling like hell and frozen like ice, I entered the class.
One of my Sensei said, "Today (Sunday) is the coldest day of the month. There is this freezing wind coming from Siberia!"
"How do you know?"
"Oh, it's everywhere. TVs, radios, newspapers."
Yea, right. And I missed any of them.
Today, I didn't even dare to go out. Well, except for the morning routine of waiting for Hikari's school bus in front of the dorm. While I'm typing this thing, the wind is blowing so hard outside. How do I know? Well, the window is just some centimeters away from my right side. Then I received this email from a friend in Fukaya, a city next to Honjo. He said 'Put on your thickest jacket! There is cold wind from Siberia!'
Now, I've got this familiar feeling that everybody knows everything, but me.
I remember what happened last year. Being Jakartans, we didn't care much about weather report. We ended up ice-like whenever we went out...
So, I've determined it's NOT going to happen again this year! No way! We have prepared all of the equipment necessary for the winter! We have sworn to always wear quadruple clothes! We have bought Salonpas-kind-of-thing to be put on our body as body warmer! We have done everything we can think of to avoid being beaten by this winter!

We forgot one thing, though.
We don't have the necessary language skills to understand what the news says about the weather.

picture: image.com