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I tried 3 times.

It was snowing heavily [for me], and I thought it would be great to make a snowman.  My first attempt was christened by a huge golden labrador.  The second one was in the balcony, which I had to abort because there was not enough snow there [I had initially planned on making a miniature snowman but I became ambitious and ran out of snow].  The third attempt I wasn't able to finish although it look very promising because it was getting dark [at 3 pm].

So no snowman.

I thought the fates were playing with me.  It first started snowing November 24.  It was just some tiny flakes, hardly visible, like dandruff falling off the sky, more like swirling down from the sky.  They swirl.  Unlike raindrops.  And just when I was starting to think I scared the snow away [I had just heard it was snowing heavily everywhere else], it had started to snow.  The next thing I know I was plowing through several inches of freezing snow.  And here's the prize:  it's the coldest winter recorded in 79 years.  Even before the 2 world wars.  And they thought last year was a record.  This year topped that.  This negative temperature range is driving me out of my mind.  Where I come from the temperature is 32 degrees Celsius PLUS.  I was telling the girls at the Integration Class that in the Philippines we never need pullovers that we walked around in shirts and shorts and slippers and their jaws dropped.  I told them during the rainy season kids bathe in the rain and people often did that because we don't freeze there and catch our deaths when we did it. They jaws dropped again.  A few centimeters more and they'd have been licking the floor.  I said all those in my broken German so I may have said something entirely different.

My colds is letting up.  My nose has started to bleed.

Have you seen my feet?  I haven't.

I attempted to use my bare hands to make the first snowman.  Bad idea.  That was funny.  Very stupid.

Leia and I went out for a walk.  Correct that.  I went out for a walk [she sat in a stroller].

Nils once said that the dangerous part is when you start to feel pins and needles after getting exposed to the cold, and I said no, the dangerous part is when you don't feel anything at all anymore.  He insisted.  Fine.  He grew up in this place.  Who am I to argue?  Anyway, I felt pins and needles on my hands yesterday and I thought I was losing some of my fingers.

I had once thought my thick hair could protect my brain from freezing and found out that I hadn't counted in the wind. It works like this:  the wind blows and parts the hair exposing the scalp and thus chilling the calcium box encasing the brain.