In defense of: Jersey weather

We all heard it when we announced to our friends and family where we’d be spending our next four years: “Ew! Why Jersey?!” New Jersey is, to outsiders, the armpit of America, the place where Italy came to lose its dignity and die and the home of the worst weather in the Northeast. But as an overeager Tiger, I didn’t want to believe any of it.

Much to my chagrin, they were right. Although Princeton has what is arguably the prettiest campus this side of Oxford, our weather just flat out sucks sometimes. But I’m here to defend it. Why? Because us spoiled Ivy League brats whining about our less-than-perfect weather is pretty absurd if you ask me. So, listen up.

Look on the bright side. Consistently crippling amounts of rain, sleet and snow throughout the school year make our Gothic campus much prettier. Gargoyles just aren’t meant to be sun-baked. It’s the same logic that explains why Paris and London are still attractive destinations, despite the equally horrid weather. Put simply, Gothic stuff looks damn fine in crappy weather.

And think about it, if our weather weren’t as awful as it is, we would never be able to make the consistently awful and apocryphal joke that Shirley Tilghman has a weather machine to lure unsuspecting prefrosh into attending Princeton. Let’s face it: The weather sucked for much of last weekend. And the weekend before. And last year, when I was a prefrosh, it sucked too. If Tilghman does indeed have a weather machine, she’s putting it to use to end droughts in Africa and stall global warming. You go, Shirley!

Also, Jersey is in the tristate Area. So, it still sort of qualifies as New England by association with the glorious state of Connecticut. In the fall, Princeton’s foliage certainly seems to compete with the best of that of New England. I know I’m going to get a lot of flack from Southern California’s granola-loving Barbie dolls for this, but no tree was as beautiful as last this autumn’s Day-Glo-orange one near Mr. Witherspoon’s statue outside East Pyne. Your Californian sequoias don’t compare. Princeton’s fall foliage and spring blooms are unparalleled, and we can thank the weather for that.

Lastly, I’d say that we Princetonians ought to appreciate our weather simply for the delayed gratification it provides us. I would indeed agree that it sucks to walk from the Engineering Quadrangle to Forbes in the onslaught of pouring rain that has seemed to bless us for the past two months. But think about last Monday, April 11. Yeah, you remember it. Though it rained for days prior (and the prefrosh unfortunately got the brunt of it), one of my best memories of the year was sitting on a blanket outside Blair-Joline courtyard, feigning interest in my assigned reading, and instead ogling with vehement hatred those peculiarly attractive Princetonians who pranced in undergarments around the quad. It was a long time coming, but now that the nice weather is here, there is nothing better.

P.S. We don’t get tornadoes here. Or hurricanes. So we should be pretty grateful for that too.