Tradition

It's a sunny Saturday morning around 8am. The air is crisp, the sun is shining brightly and the thermometer reads 5 degrees. Someone is unraveling a stiff garden hose, making his way to a big, empty tank. He turns on the water and begins filling the it, then gets this great idea to shovel 5 or 6 scoops of snow into the tank. The fire in the wood stove has been going for hours, making the warm house almost unbearable. Preparations are underway....

It's now 11am and the temperature has steadily risen to a balmy 10 degrees. A crowd has gathered around the water tank, which is still being continuously fed with scoops of snow. The crowd is getting anxious...and then....finally, the announcement is made and one by one, people begin to emerge from the warm house wearing everything from bathing suits to full costumes...the crowd goes wild.



That's right, today is the annual "Polar Bear Plunge", where students *willingly* jump into a freezing tank of water in the dead of winter. Most learned from their blunder and only did it once, for some it took another try before the cold sank in, and a few even dared to take the plunge three times in a row!



Most of them didn't have to say anything, their facial expressions said it all!



We even had a few brave representatives from the US!



And then...there are the faces: