So far I haven’t exactly been a fan of the oncoming winter here, and it’s not just from coinciding with the low point of the culture shock curve.

For the past two months or so the sun has been setting annoyingly earlier and earlier. There’s no daylight saving time, and even if there was it still seems that the sun sets earlier than I’m used to. By the time I leave school at four the sun is already on the horizon, and by the time I get home it’s usually dark.

That’s not conducive to really doing much of anything. It makes me want to go home and, well, just stay at home. Then you have the cold. It’s not that it’s too terribly cold here, with it only dipping below freezing a few times so far in the season, it’s just that it’s all-pervasive.

Nothing seems to be insulated, so I end up holing up in the one room in my apartment that’s heated. I don’t like going to the bathroom, nor the kitchen, nor the other room that I’m no longer using. It’s just… cold.

So what do I do to counteract this? I’ve come up with a system.

I heat my current living/bedroom with a kerosene heater that has an automatic three-hour cutoff. If you don’t push the button every three hours it shuts itself off. You know, safety mechanism and all.

My best friend

This wondeful button is actually what makes me stop being so lazy and actually go outside.

This is because once I become too lazy to get up, walk the few steps to the heater, and push the button, it means that I have passed the point of extreme laziness. Result? My heater turns off, my sole room of heat quickly becomes cold (remember: no insulation), and I figure that if I’m already this cold inside, I might as well get off my ass and go outside.

It works.

I’m cold right now. Time to go outside.

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