Metric System

America, as we all know, is very stubborn in it's cling to the standard system. Everybody knows here in Israel that the Americans are not used to kilometers per hour, and the like. Some of the people here are very surprised that we even learned the metric system in school.

So anyway, I can handle most of the conversions in my head. One foot is thirty centimeters. If a girl is 160 cm, then, that's five and a third feet, so, that's 5'4". One yard is nine decimeters, almost a meter. That's pretty easy. Kilometers are a little harder. It's still a kick to see "120" on a highway sign. A kilometer is almost 60% of a mile. That multiplying by three, and then two in you head. It's not that hard, though. Miles to kilometers are a little harder it's about a 1.75:1 ratio. That's a 4 to 7 ratio. On a good day that can be done in the head.

Time is really easy, but yes it's different. First, I have to think that it's now seven hours between my home and the states, (it was six hours for a while) but the other difference is that they almost always use twenty-four hour time. Whatever. That's a nobrainer. So's liters. Two liters is a soda bottle.

Money is a little harder. The exchange rate fluctuates very close to 3.5 NIS for every dollar. That's a bit hard in the head. To remain safe with money, in my mind, every dollar will get three shekels, but every shekel will get me 25 cents.

But it's a little more complicated than that. A dollar in America can buy more than three and a half NIS in Israel. A double CD here goes on average here for 150 shekels. A discman, used, is around 700 NIS. Normal bikes can cost around 600. Developing a roll of film is 30. There's no definitive pattern. You have to get used to it. And you do.

There are only two things that I can't get. Temperature is a pain the neck. Above thirty is warm, below is cold. That's about as far as I can get. The conversion factor, as you may know, is 9/5C+32=F. That's a bit hard to get. My uncle gave me a tip that helps me a little bit. 10 degrees C is 50 degrees F. That's easy. Then instead of 5/9, use 10/18. So, for every ten degrees above or below 10, add or subtract 18. It's still difficult.

The one I really don't get, is vision. I have almost twenty-twenty vision. Twenty-twenty makes sense. At what I can see from nineteen units, the average person can see at twenty units. Easy. So, I'm talking to this girl, and I'm playing with her glasses. "Oh, these aren't so bad," I say, trying them on.

"No my vision is only negative two." Does anybody else know this system? Everybody goes by it here, and throughout Europe, apparently, but nobody can tell me what it means. They can see negative five? Huh? Five units behind them?

(Oh, incidentally, these people who know the metric system as a way of life, don't know the smaller parts of it. They have no clue what a decimeter is, and when you joke that the weather should be announced in Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin, they think you just named a philosopher.)

Get me outa here!!!

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Michael Kadish
"Those whose lives are given up entirely to the making of money are the first to cast in public a stone at the calf of their not-so-secret worship." - Gore Vidal, 1876

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