RAAAAAAAWR

goes the polar bear.

The polar bear who did the Polar Bear Plunge. AKA: me.

That's right. We jumped into our pool last night at midnight after school had cancelled classes that day and declared an Ice Day.

Ice Day=jumping into your pool? Too dangerous to go to school=safe enough to go swimming? Yep. Ohh...yeahh....and it was 16 degrees outside. And we went in our swimsuits. I'm pretty sure it was the adrenaline pumping that kept us warm but YES we got all the way in.

There were four of us brave ones. My roommate took pictures and uploaded them to facebook last night. I awoke this morning to reactions such as, "I hope you're not sick today missy..." "NO YOU DID NOT." "That's so badass!!" "Dude, this is made up." "I can't believe you--I couldn't be outside for 5 seconds!" and lastly, my favorite: "You inspired us. Brad and I are doing it tonight. We feel like we need to match your insanity. And we're gonna one-up you."

I responded with: "You will never one-up me."

Because they won't.

Regardless, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt AND help the boys out. We took some good measures to ensure a "safe" and "warm" plunge and I gave them the tips. Since I know all you people who read this are as hardcore as me, I'll give you the same advice so you too can have a successful plunge.

Oh, and as always, I will post pictures.

1) Wear a swimsuit. getting out of a pool into 16 degree weather wearing wet clothes is just stupid whereas wearing a swimsuit is brilliant. You can dry your skin with a towel much better than trying to dry clothes--they'll just freeze to your body.
2) Bring lots of towels. If you think you have enough towels while you're heading out the door, grab another one.
3) Put a towel down on the ground to step on when you get out of the pool. Freezing your feet to the ground would be horrible (insert A Christmas Story reference here about the tongue-frozen-to-the-pole thing.) No fun.
4) Wear Uggs (or similarly warm shoes) to put on immediately after. Your feet will thank you. NO FLIP-FLOPS.
5) If you have a robe, wear it. Put it on after you dry yourself with the towel and your vastly dropping body temperature will thank you and quite possibly recover.
Any questions? You know where to find the master of Tha Polar Bear.

AHHHHHH!

You're only young once! Live it up!

Picture captions (in order):
1) BEFORE THE MADNESS!!!!

2) Ice covering everything. We ice skated there, no joke.

3) Fountain look familiar? This is the same fountain that my roommate and I washed our blue avatar-selves off in back in August. Frozen solid now.
4) THA POOOOOL

5) THA Roommate.

6) Friend.

7) Friend.

8) MEEEEE

9) Me in the red robe helping my roommate get dried off while friend is freezing.
10) Roommate running back to the warmth!

11) FRIEND IN SHOCK