Children, cover your ears. Fuck the metric system.

A month before I got over here, I tried to convince myself that I should try to better understand the metric system. Said effort miserably failed. I was too busy with other things that it just didn't happen. So now I’m in France. Which isn't the United States. Which means they use the metric system for everything, as opposed to selectively like they do back home. I think large soda bottles and science are the only things that use this “strange” system. I say “strange” because it really does make more sense, but that doesn't mean I understand it.

The only conversions I understand is that 1 kilo is 2.3lbs and 5 kilometers is 3.1 miles. Neither of those is really helping me. When shopping for produce and whatnot, I can guestimate what one pound feels like, but 2.3 is a bit of a stretch. As far as distance goes, I’m totally lost. I was looking up some directions on GoogleMaps and the final distance was 800 meters. What does that even mean? Sure, I was a swimmer for a long time, and for part of the season my events were in meters. I remember 50 meters of backstroke seeming like forever. So, if it’s 800 meters from A to B, and I walk backwards and multiply 16 times forever, that should be something I understand right?

This is starting to make cooking difficult. I have found comfort in rice. I can handle that. Take a juice glass, fill it up to the line with water twice, and then once with rice. 2:1. I can handle simple ratios. Aside from that, I think I’m going to have to add measuring spoons and cups to my next care package. Mother—if you’re reading this, please add it to my running list. Thanks.

I made an ass of myself in class the other day. My comparative law professor was talking about how the same laws were different in all sorts of countries, like speed limits for example. He went around the room naming off major countries, asking their speed limits. With Sciences Po being international people pretty much replied to their home state. Once he asked about the United States, I said 70 because I was the only American in the room. After that, the prof replies, “That’s pretty slow…”And of course I couldn’t think fast enough to say “I don’t understand the metric system. Please convert 70 to kilometers per hour” so he just moved on. I’ll survive.

Temperature hasn’t been a problem. I still use weather.com for all of my forecast needs, which is in Fahrenheit. Time has posed a slight issue. What is metric time you ask? The 24 hour clock. In the states it’s only used for science, for the most part…just like meters and whatnot. I recently found how to change the clock on my cell phone to include am and pm. It’s wonderful.

I’ll have to revisit this post at the end of my stay and see if I actually understand this any better…

But I will resist.
USA! USA! USA!