Your Pound is not My Kilo
Kilos, pounds, grams, liters, gallons, feet, kilometers, miles, centimeters. It sounds like a primary math class. One of those confusing classes in which we had to figure out how many miles are 7,200 yards, or how many pints fit into a 5 gallon container. Though now, I suppose tender children also have to learn how many grams 5 ounces are. Most likely as a sop to those who push the metric system's implantation in the United States, which has stubbornly hung on to its version of the British Imperial system long after Britain itself joined the metric community of the world.
That difference in systems created a confusion in my brain when I first moved here. Going with my mother down to Boston's Haymarket on Saturday mornings, she would look for the best offers in pounds. Four pounds of oranges for a dollar, five pounds in the good ol' days, three pounds in latter days of inflation. (Now I believe it's four oranges for a dollar, if the buyer is lucky!) Since I had to carry part of the bags on the days we visited on the Orange Line subway, I knew how much a pound weighed. When we first went shopping for fruit here, I was confused. Kilos were enormous. One kilo was double a pound. Now, I have become accustomed to buying in grams and kilos, but it has taken years of practice and too much fruit being thrown out.
Miles and kilometers are different. Whereas I was conscious that a mile was a long distance to walk while living in Boston, I wasn't a driver in my own right until a few days before moving here. Learning to keep the car at 30 miles per hour was simple in Boston. Learning that 60 kilometers per hour was not such a great speed was easier. I have quickly grown accustomed to kilometers, though I sometimes find myself calculating the miles. I read a long time ago that to convert kilometers to miles, take half the kilometers, add ten percent, and you get the miles. For example, our maximum speed limit is 120kph. Half is 60. Add ten percent of 120, which is 12, and you get 72. 120kph = 72mph. But I only do that out of curiosity. I adjust to the speeds feeling which gears my car tells me to go in. The problem is 30kph, which is the maximum limit in some cities. It's an awkward speed. In third gear, my car is telling me to speed up. In second gear it's telling me to slow down. Eighteen miles per hour is a little too strange.
One metric measurement I will never get used to, is centigrade. For some reason, my brain still balks when the forecast says we'll have temperatures of 25º. Despite twenty-five years of experiencing the same feelings at the same temperature, I'm still not sure how much 25º is. Or 15º. Or 32º. That is the only conversion I still keep in my head. Centigrade x 9 / 5 + 32 = Fahrenheit. So, 32ºC x 9 = 288. 288 / 5 = 57.6. 57.6 + 32 = 89.6ºF. Now I know how warm it is. And it's warm enough to go buy an ice cream and find a nice shade to eat it in.
That difference in systems created a confusion in my brain when I first moved here. Going with my mother down to Boston's Haymarket on Saturday mornings, she would look for the best offers in pounds. Four pounds of oranges for a dollar, five pounds in the good ol' days, three pounds in latter days of inflation. (Now I believe it's four oranges for a dollar, if the buyer is lucky!) Since I had to carry part of the bags on the days we visited on the Orange Line subway, I knew how much a pound weighed. When we first went shopping for fruit here, I was confused. Kilos were enormous. One kilo was double a pound. Now, I have become accustomed to buying in grams and kilos, but it has taken years of practice and too much fruit being thrown out.
Miles and kilometers are different. Whereas I was conscious that a mile was a long distance to walk while living in Boston, I wasn't a driver in my own right until a few days before moving here. Learning to keep the car at 30 miles per hour was simple in Boston. Learning that 60 kilometers per hour was not such a great speed was easier. I have quickly grown accustomed to kilometers, though I sometimes find myself calculating the miles. I read a long time ago that to convert kilometers to miles, take half the kilometers, add ten percent, and you get the miles. For example, our maximum speed limit is 120kph. Half is 60. Add ten percent of 120, which is 12, and you get 72. 120kph = 72mph. But I only do that out of curiosity. I adjust to the speeds feeling which gears my car tells me to go in. The problem is 30kph, which is the maximum limit in some cities. It's an awkward speed. In third gear, my car is telling me to speed up. In second gear it's telling me to slow down. Eighteen miles per hour is a little too strange.
One metric measurement I will never get used to, is centigrade. For some reason, my brain still balks when the forecast says we'll have temperatures of 25º. Despite twenty-five years of experiencing the same feelings at the same temperature, I'm still not sure how much 25º is. Or 15º. Or 32º. That is the only conversion I still keep in my head. Centigrade x 9 / 5 + 32 = Fahrenheit. So, 32ºC x 9 = 288. 288 / 5 = 57.6. 57.6 + 32 = 89.6ºF. Now I know how warm it is. And it's warm enough to go buy an ice cream and find a nice shade to eat it in.
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