Today, being January 25th, should have been a typical winter day. By “typical”, I mean it should have been maybe in the 20s or 30s throughout the day, maybe even snowing. However, Mother Nature threw us a curveball and gave us a 55-degree day in the heart of winter. It felt like spring, and with all the rain, it reminded me of Manila.

Rains are a big part of life in Manila. Growing up in the Philippines, you learn to live with rainy weather at an early age. As kids, we would go outside to play when it rained very hard. I remember me and my brothers would play with mud and create makeshift dams on the side of the roads where the water flowed (the culverts). These were way before the so-called acid rains, of course.

Along with the rains come also the floods. The Philippines being a tropical country gets about 30 typhoons a year. That meant that as a student, you were assured of at least a few days of no classes because of typhoons. It was good if they declared schools closed in the morning, because you wouldn’t have to get up early. But sometimes the storms would hit in the middle of the day and you would already be in school. One time my brother picked me up from school and we had to wade through knee-high water in the streets. You weren’t a full-fledged graduate until you experienced this at least once in your student life.

“Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy”
- John Denver, Sunshine on my Shoulders

“I’m gonna soak up the sun”
- Sheryl Crow, Soak up the Sun

“I’m walking on sunshine, and don’t it feel good”
- Katrina and the Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”

I’m not really sure if John Denver, Sheryl Crow or Katrina and the Waves have ever been to the Philippines, but I’ll bet that they weren’t talking about the Philippine sun when they wrote/sang the songs above. Maybe California, even Florida sunshine, but definitely not Philippine sunshine.

I’ll tell you why. If you’re in the Philippines:

1. Sunshine on your shoulders makes you sweaty, not happy;
2. You take pains to not soak up any sun;
3. Walking on sunshine feels good—for about two seconds

Now let me backtrack here for a second and admit that I may be exaggerating a bit. After all, the Philippines is renowned worldwide for its sun, sands and surf. Definitely no arguments here: if I were in Boracay right now, sipping on a pineapple juice by the beach while being attended to by a masseuse, all that sunshine that I soak will definitely make me feel good and happy.

The sunshine that I was referring to—the sweaty, non-soakable, two-second-good kind—is the kind that you get while walking on the streets of Metropolitan Manila, trying in vain to get a taxi cab. It’s the kind that blinds you with its brightness, burns through your skin, and, coupled with the humidity and pollution, renders your shirt unfit to wear.

Which is the reason why I find it mildly amusing that people in Upstate New York (and maybe in the other colder states too) actually look forward to getting sunshine. When the sun’s out, so are the people. They take pains to get out of the office at lunchtime just to get a little sunshine. People actually move away from the shade to stay in the sun. And people will be driving with their sunroofs open.

A friend of mine who stayed in Amsterdam told me that they get so few sunny days there that companies actually let their employees take the rest of the day off when the sun is out. They must be praying for more sunny days in a year

In the Philippines, planning for the weather really only boils down to one question: Is it going to rain today? And if it did, will the roads be flooded the next day (so I can sleep late and not worry about coming to work)? We don’t really care about the temperature, because aside from the fact that it’s always hot, the temperature doesn’t vary too much within the day. So most of the time you’d dress light, and if was going to rain, you just bring an umbrella or a raincoat.

In Upstate New York though, it’s pretty different. Indeed, keeping track of the weather is a full-time activity here. I still find it funny that I actually pay attention to what the weatherman says and that the most visited website on my computer is weather.com.

For the most part, it’s the seasons that drive the weather patterns. Throughout the year the weather runs the gamut of temperature-humidity combinations from hot and humid to cold and dry. In spring you have rain. In summer you have pollen. In autumn you have leaves. And of course in winter you have snow, hail, freezing rain, sleet and all the other permutations of water that man has yet to discover (or give a name for). It doesn’t matter what time of the year it is—there is always bound to be something falling from trees or the sky.

This naturally has an effect on what you’re going to wear for the day, because you always want to dress just so that you’re not too warm or too cold. Weirdly enough, it’s actually easiest during the winter when, even though you have to bundle up, you at least don’t have to think if you’re dressing too warm—believe me, that rarely happens. It’s the same case with summer, when most of the time you can dress light except that you have to know if it’s going to rain or not. And there’s always those one or two cold summer days that manage to sneak up on you.

Hardest are the transitional seasons: spring and autumn. This is because the temperature’s changing on a daily basis, and the fluctuations can really get out of whack (one spring day comes to mind when the day started out cold—35 degrees F—then proceeded to warm up to the upper 70s).

So many questions need to be asked: What’s the temperature tomorrow? In the morning? In the afternoon? Are we going to have snow? Rain? Freezing rain? Hail?

The weather can change drastically within the same day that you might find yourself wearing a coat, hat and gloves in the morning and by day’s end be down to your shirt.

While the title might connote a political meaning given that 2008 is a presidential election year, this post in fact has nothing to do with bridges to nowhere and links to terrorists.

Growing up in a warm, tropical country like the Philippines fries your brain and makes you wonder about a lot of stuff. Take the car thermostat for example. I remember thinking, for the longest time, why anyone in their right frame of mind would bother putting a “warm” setting. What, air outside not hot enough for you? I remember staring at that knob that goes from blue on the left to red on the right, and saying to myself, ‘why even put a red side when nobody will ever use it?’ In fact, nobody will even move the knob from the leftmost setting; if it were up to me I’d just superglue it in place. Can’t they just change it to blue on the right and dark blue (or even black) on the left? You know, “cold” to “frigid” (if that’s even possible in the Philippines).

Of course, this was all before I realized there are some places in this planet where they actually value heat more than cold air, and inasmuch as car manufacturers would like to tailor their car models to the local market, customizing the car thermostat apparently isn’t high on their list. But come to think of it, I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be prepared just in case of a global shift and the Philippines suddenly finds itself on the north pole (and then we can finally stop dreaming of a White Christmas).

And so, upon migrating to Upstate New York and experiencing winter for the first time, what an awakening it was for me to discover that yes, Virginia, there is indeed a use for that red side of the car thermostat.