How to Overcome a Fear of Hypothermia

2011 Coney Island Polar Dip

The only advice I can give: Run in as fast as you can, and get out quicker.  When I reached the shore and felt the icy, January surf wash up on my toes, I instantly pulled back on my boyfriend's hand.  There was just no way I was doing it.  But I did.  Twice.  It was one of the proudest, most exciting and exhilarating activities I have done in my life.  I can’t wait to do it again in 2012!

The Coney Island Polar Dip is an annual event that takes place on January 1st.  Other Polar Dips are scheduled all along the East Coast from Maine to Virginia.  The purpose of these events is to raise money and awareness for Camp Sunshine.  The donations and pledges go to children with life threatening illnesses and their families. 

Thrill seekers like my boyfriend, Chris and I joined the Coney Island Polar Bear Club Saturday, January 1, 2011 in the brisk Atlantic Ocean and helped raise over $46,000.00 for Camp Sunshine. 

2011 is going to be a great year. 

How to Start Fresh

A New Yorker is what I wanted to be when I grew up.  It still is. 

Acquiring citizenship status is an unclear and never ending debate between those born here and transplants.   There are many guidelines, expectations, and prejudices that stipulate when you are, in fact, a New Yorker.  What does it take?  Some people argue it takes five or ten years before you earn the right to be from the greatest city in the world.  I believe you are from a place when you have lived there longer than the place you were raised. 

I am from Hope, Kansas, a town of nearly 300 people.  I went to a school that was an elementary, junior high and high school in one three-story, brick building in the middle of the town, a town that didn’t have a stop light or even a Starbucks.  I spent six years in Hope, and I haven’t looked back. 

I arrived in Brooklyn in January 2005 with my luggage and a small list of Things To See including Chinatown, Little Italy, Times Square on New Year’s Eve and more nauseating tourist traps. Needless to say, the list was completed and thrown away.  Since then I have seen and done more activities that I could have ever imagined existed. 

Hello.  My name is Tiffany Lynch (Hi, Tiffany Lynch), and I am a New York transplant.  I have been living in citizenship limbo for six years.  This year in New York City marks my first official year as a local.