Student Blogger from the Philippines Enamored with America's Four Seasons, Explores Spring in Nevada

All my life in the Philippines I’ve lived only in two rotational seasons. We call them El Niño and La Niña, which translates to the “warm” season and the “cold” one. During summer time, late March to early June, the sun would be out more than you’d like, heating the country up to 40 degrees Celsius. Whereas the rest of the year, it would be rainy. 

Oh, you love the rain? Of course you do, but don’t forget, it’s still humid and heavy all throughout. Because of this, we have a lot of typhoons. A lot. It’s one of the reasons why our infrastructures always revert back to square one, but that’s another story for another time. With that said, we get a lot of floods in different areas of the country, as if we didn’t have enough water already as an archipelagic nation.

Climate in the U.S.

After starting my journey here in the United States, it was a huge shock to me that there are actually four seasons. I used to think they were just children’s rhymes to sing along to. Uh huh, we sang it in the Philippines despite having only two seasons, which do not correlate to the actual varying seasons much of the world experiences. The biggest shocks to me were fall and winter. Gosh, who knew trees could be so colorful? Some of them turn pink! PINK! And don’t even get me started on snow — I’ve said it a couple thousand times and I’ll say it again, it is so magical. 

Spring…?

There is one season I’m fairly confused about though, which is spring. This coming March will be my second spring in America. The first one was a blur: it was winter for a good 3 months, then a really bad heat wave started that felt like summer in April. Hopefully, this time I will feel it more. I mean, especially with the hundreds of inches of snow around me, right? 

For some people, it’s not quite like that. Spring is more than just a season — it’s a rebirth. Kind of like the renaissance but yearly. In Hungary, they have a tradition tied closely to Easter about girls being approached by boys, having recited a poem to them about watering a flower, then dumping a bucket of water on the girls afterwards (yay, free shower!).

It all makes sense though, because spring is a regrowth. The grass turns greener. The trees get their leaves back. People come out of their shells after hibernation. And what more of a symbolic life-giver than a woman?

Learning in the United States and working for Truckee Meadows’ International Student Services while being in a completely different environment has taught me a lot and given me experiences I would not have had in my home country — especially the wonders of changing seasons throughout a whole year. Nonetheless, my adventures haven’t stopped, and I am ecstatic to rejoice the upcoming spring this 2023.

Alaine Obra from the Philippines is studying for an associate’s degree in computer science at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.