The Princess and the Soybean

Sometimes I feel like that girl in the fairy tale who slept with piles and piles of blankets.  Granted, she needed them to not feel the pesky pea on her mattress, and I sleep under them to feel warm!! Also, though, because Chinese mattresses are notoriously hard, I also have one blanket folded in half whose sole purpose is to cushion the mattress.  It’s been in the low 40s and high 30s for some time now.  In order to fall asleep, I wear two pairs of socks, pajama pants, three shirts, and my sweatshirt, and then I have a cotton sheet, a fleece blanket, an electric blanket, an open sleeping bag, a felt blanket, and now the new thick fleece blanket that my school gave me for Christmas.  I also wear a beanie pulled down to my nose to keep my face warm.  I hope you’re enjoying the mental image, because sometimes I chuckle to myself at the absurdity of it!  I have an air conditioner in my room that supposedly doubles as a heater but I haven’t figured out how to use it.  Of course my windows are closed, but like all the windows in my apartment, they are poorly designed so even when closed there is an infinitesimal chink between the two panes and that’s enough to let all the cold night air in.  Instead of two panes meeting at the edge, they overlap but like I said not very well.  I guess in America there’s like a rubber piece between the two so they suction together or something.