Cold stress response

When I first moved to the province of Saskatchewan 6 years ago, I made the following observations (which at the time I found quite amusing) on how people managed the cold winters here:
1) Wearing sweat pants to work/school;
2) walking to school (from home or the parking lot) wearing full ski gear or insulated overalls with big bulky sorrel boots;
3) running from building to building or from a warm car to a building;
4) discussing at length the cold weather, especially with people who are experiencing a SK winter for the first time.
As I have adapted to life on the prairies, I have avoided the first (although own quite the assortment of long underwear), but have lost all qualms about doing the others. While in Portugal, I caught myself doing #4 with a couple of Germans then realized they had a really bored look on their face. A SK winter must be something you need to experience to find interesting.

Blue Monday

Apparently yesterday was suppose to be the most depressing day of the year. I fared quite well with the only downside being my 2 left feet on the soccer court. Today (Tuesday) on the other hand has been a little bleak. After only 4 hours of sleep I have managed to set off an alarm system, almost miss the bus and loose my keys (found later) and have been dragging myself through today with what feels like clouds in front my eyes. Let's hope I can make it through the next 3 hours!