Temperatures met a universal high this summer with July as the hottest month in recorded history, as well for the University of Rochester; students are still struggling with the deadly heat. Naive freshmen who brought only one fan along with their laundry hampers, flat screen TVs and cheap fridges are now paying the price.
As fan wars break out over the meager supply of cooling machinery, this reporter has seen a peaceful campus turned into a sweaty nightmare.
Fearful students cram themselves into their own fridges for some relief, professors suspend classes in any room above the third floor, and, of course, everyone is stealing fans.
Airconditioning units are not easily snatched away, but here at the UR, the student body possesses the mental and physical fortitude to sneak into their suitemate’s room at 2 a.m., unplug their fan and whisk it away to enjoy a slightly more comfortable snooze until retaliation hits.
Luckily, the bright young minds that fill this University are not only capable of theft and deception. In fact, the most creative and ingenious methods of warding off this heat wave are being implemented all over campus.
Students have taken to replacing their mattresses with ice packs. Athletes fake simple injuries before their seasons begin in order to use the fabled ice bath. The bravest have been known to congregate in the air conditioned halls of the Staybridge Suites until their unavoidable removal. Off campus residents seem above the fray for now, but they forget that their car’s airconditioning unit will make them targets as well.
There have been silver linings amidst this mayhem. New types of idiotic challenges have arisen in the form of “Sweat Lodges,” as one student referred to them, where students brave the hottest zones of the Stacks, Hill Court and even buildings in the Quad in a competition for who can survive the longest before high-tailing it back to a freezing cold shower.
Even better than these challenges is the recognition that this heat helps us forget the eight months of frozen winter we’re headed for. For soon enough, the heat stroke will end and the ice age will begin.
Mistler-Ferguson is a member of the class of 2018.
