Have you noticed that as soon as we have a few days of nice weather, we are bound to have the next few days accompanied by terrible weather. The sun can be shining, and the weather can be warm enough to only wear a sweatshirt to class. Then you wake up the next day with snow on the ground needing your 100-pound jacket to keep you warm, or you wake up to the sound of rain storming down making it almost impossible to leave your bed.
When talking to SUNY Cortland students, I have realized that the moods that are portrayed by students are dependent on the weather. You can tell by the looks on everyone’s faces when the sun’s out, that they are happy to be there. The campus fills with students and seems to become more alive. The town is full of laughter and happiness showing the love for where they are.
Then comes the snow and the campus becomes a ghost town. The students that once filled the campus hide away in their houses or dorms until the good weather makes its way back to town. When it’s cold out students have no desire to get out of their warm bed and walk their long walk to campus for an hour or so just to walk back in the cold back to their room. You don’t see many smiles on the students faces that do attend class, to them there’s no excitement involved in their day. They go to class then head back and are forced to stay inside hiding from this weather that engulfs their positive mood.
Weather in upstate has a mind of its own. It seems to choose the days it wants society to be out and about and the days it wants society to be locked up. It’s crazy to experience these changes and it doesn’t seem possible to anyone on campus how fast a nice weather day can be taken away. SUNY Cortland really is a whole differently place based on these changes in the weather. “You walk around campus and town on a nice weather day and the streets are full of laughing and happy students. You walk around campus and town on a bad weather day and it’s like no one exists within this town.
These students are a great representation of how weather can affect a human’s mood. Something about the sun represents happiness in a society that is known for the snow. Sun can sometimes be viewed as rare here since it can be gone so quickly and it’s interesting to see the reactions of the students when the sun finally does decide to shine.