el unico pais que...

So I know that we're Americans. People talk about going to America the same way that I would talk about going to Disney World. Or like, heaven, maybe, someday. If I make some changes in my life, if you know what I mean. The fact is, a lot of people are very amazed by the very idea of the United States. They want to visit, live, just SEE the United States. I'm pretty sure people from Nebraska should visit Europe- sure, they might still have to say they're from Nebraska, but if you add in that that's part of America, well I'm sure it would still be quite the self esteem boost. 'Cause let's face it, people from real states would not be impressed.

Here I am, living in Europe, teaching English. And there are people from ALL over the world that are doing the same- teaching or learning English. Even my ginger haired friend was able to find employment in South Korea as an English teacher (hahahahahhahaha). So I guess we are kind of trendsetters in that regard.

My question is- why the f&@! aren't we using the metric system?

This is a map of the world. The gray represents the people using the metric system. The red is the people who are being different. (What is that little speck on the coast of Africa??? No idea, but let's go there and weigh ourselves in pounds and talk about gallons of milk.)

I mean, we have to learn the metric system in science classes anyways. I'm not all that committed to inches and feet. And its downright inconvenient when someone tells me its 22 degrees out and I put on my Northface ski coat and hat and gloves, then multiply by 5/9 and add 17 and realize that it's 71 degrees fahrenheit. I used to try to pretend that our way makes more sense- just because we're Americans and that's how we do it and everyone should fall in line behind us (like Germany in the 40s- talk about leadership skills!). But I mean, they base their Celsius nonsense on the temperature at which water freezes, 0 degrees, and the temperature at which it boils, 100 degrees.

Now, I am all for Americans being the only superpower in the world. If you come to my country, speak English or at least broken English because that's kind of cute. And this whole bilingual school situation makes a lot of sense. But no, we should not be teaching the world to adapt to 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet per yard, or 5,280 feet in a mile. I checked. That's a lot of feet, but miles aren't actually that long. It's confusing. Because, above all else, I would HATE if I started having to teach the American system of measurement to the kids.

PS: This entire post is a segue from my thought about how Americans are the only people in the world who don't use MSN Messenger. I'm like, "No... gmail chat? AIM? Skype? facebook chat? Wait- you LITERALLY just use Messenger? I don't have that... I'm American." Joder.
Check it outttt... there's no clever little graphic for these stats, sadly. Yeah, I'm a visual person too. Sucks.