There is nothing like a 25-hour plane ride to make you hate sitting down forever. That was exactly what I endured when my Delta flight took me all the way via multiple transits from Malaysia to this great country.

I was optimistic, excited, thrilled to the extent of sheer jubilee and cold. Oh boy, was I cold. You can take the boy out of the tropics but you can’t take the tropics out of the boy. And just my luck, it was the start of a blistering cold winter in the west side of Michigan.

“Welcome to the icebox, my friend,” someone once said to me and I knew I should’ve gone to California instead. I could be laying down on my towel in Venice Beach, soaking up the lovely Californian lifestyle I wish I had. I wouldn’t say that I hate the winter; it’s just that I prefer not to curl up like a baby when I’m sleeping with the comforter all over me.

I guess it’s just in my nature of liking the heat more considering that I hail from a country where it’s either hot or damp, and if it’s neither, then you’re probably somewhere else. I mean, isn’t that the reason why some birds migrate to the South for winter? I bet they’re not too fond of shoveling snow off of their branches as well.

Sure, you can tell me that the snow is beautiful and it matches well with a cup of hot cocoa in one hand and a Jane Eyre book in the other, but if it means that I have to put on more clothes when I’m in my own home, which I’m not a big fan of, then I’ll pass.

The only situation that I would approve in this particular season is Christmas in the Big Apple. I find it to be romantic, even breathless at times, when I see pictures of the city covered in the same white flakes that hit every other snow-covered state. Somehow, it just looks way better in New York.

So, within the first week of arriving, I had already begun questioning my premise here. Maybe I should’ve gone south or west instead. Maybe I should’ve stayed back home. But it was too late to change my mind after traveling all that distance. So I decided to stay and a year and a half later, here I am writing to you whilst embracing the last hot week we have before another round of winter conundrum starts to hit us.

Well, at least I have my hot cocoa this time.

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