I grew up in a snowy part of the country. Maybe snow creates a love it or leave it (escape it) situation. I loved it and as a junior high school student, I collected and preserved snowflakes. Although my interests wandered here and there, they were pretty consistently ice related. It started with snowflakes, moved to lake ice, then sea ice, back to snowflakes, and finally glaciers. The latter are less ephemeral than snowflakes or lake ice, and certainly closer to home than sea ice. And I've been lucky enough to study ice for much of my life. Now that I am retired, I have kept my interest and for the foreseeable future will continue my ice studies, hopefully with good colleagues and interested students.