dear internet,

it is a running joke that i always miss a hailstorm—on the rare occasion that one occurred in chennai i'd be in a faraway neighbourhood or travelling. the first time i experienced hail i was chaperoning students in the hague. i remember it battering my face as i stood there in my uniqlo heat-tech and oversized h&m sweater—i'm startled at how baby-faced i look in photos of that trip, a twenty-four year old child who had to be responsible for literal children. there was hail in delhi, unprecedented, one day that went viral on whatsapp, but the whole time i was on the train, probably reading a book on my phone. 

my third day here in münster i got stuck in a hailstorm sans umbrella, wearing a light pastel-green parka without a hood that i bought from one of the upper floors in bugis village. the lady at the store said the style was 'very popular in korea right now'. today we had about five minutes of hail, illuminated in the streetlight as unending diagonal lines and in passing cars' headlights like a dusting of icing sugar. once my grandmother saved some hailstones for me in her freezer and i can still smell the memory of it: stale ice, dark kitchen, long childhood summer.

love,
t