A 'Snow Belt' girl experiencing winter for the first time

For the first time in my life, I have finally encountered winter. I have seen snow before and made snowmen and snow angels in the fluffy but wet substance. My father had trained me in the fine art of shoveling snow and ice since I was a young child. I've driven through blizzards so thick that no driver dares to make use of their gas pedal while on the highway. In fact, I hail from one of the Snow Belt states, but I've never actually experienced winter like rugged northern college students do.

In the past, I associated winter with the warmth and cheer the holiday season brings. Snow days, hot cocoa, elaborately decorated storefront windows are all integral to this cold season. Popping in roasted nuts and smelling the warmth of baking goods coming from the oven everyday can't help but make a person enjoy winter.

Princeton, however, has forced me to see the other side of winter. In fact, winter can no longer be defined as watching the glittering flakes swirl softly outside your window. Running to and from your car in your beautiful unbuttoned red wool coat without a hat in the snow does not qualify as experiencing winter either. Winter is when you swallow your pride, toss on the down winter coat that makes a starving, malnourished child look obese, pull on the mismatched and dirt-stained gloves, don on the scratchy wool hat that your mother wore when it was style . . . in the 1980s, and step outside for the world to laugh. You then must trudge through snow and slush for at least an hour a day, and constantly splash salt and wood dust onto your freshly laundered clothing. "Warm" and "dry" are foreign terms to your socks and shoes.

That is the kind of winter I have been experiencing of late.

My kind of winter is one spent mostly indoors, comfortably warm and dry, staring out into the familiar unknown of winter. I would have minimal contact with the snow, and what encounters I did have would always be relatively brief and unreal with the knowledge of inevitably returning back to my warm comfort after a wet day in the snow. I wouldn't really be experiencing winter.

Too often do we live this kind of lifestyle where we sit well within the confines of our defined comfort zone and view the world from afar. We claim that we really do understand and see certain parts of the world but without really experiencing what certain people must go through day after day without any hope of "going back home for Winter Break," we don't even come close to comprehending what they live and deal with. We see only the cheery parts and miss the other essential not-so-happy areas. Otherwise, we try not to think about such things.

When charities and other organizations call and solicit us for donations, we usually sign off a check without considering what other options are available to us. Donating money is often an easy and effective way of helping others, but doling out the change from your pocket does not teach you why the funding is needed and how it will be used. Donations of that type are too easy to hide behind. Yet, offerings of your time and energy can prove to be just as valuable or even more precious because when you become involved with any group activity, you inevitably link your life to another. Moreover, truly giving up part of your comfort for something unknown and foreign will offer you insight to a world beyond what you've known.

Although actively volunteering at a soup kitchen or animal shelter on a regular basis is not always a feasible idea, try donating part of your time by making a friend at an assisted living home or helping someone clean their old home. This holiday season, try to give a gift that can't be measured or calculated using exact numbers. Although no one can change the world in one day, and even changing a tiny part of the world often takes more than a single person's lifetime, don't ever be discouraged. No one should suffer through a guilt trip during the holiday season or any part of their life simply because the world is not right. But, at some point in our lives, we should all stop and consider how we can help others because it is only by chance that we are where we are, sitting comfortably in the warm inside looking out into the snowy winter.