ultas

this is a compilation of the 'ulta's in this land

1. light switches
2. how u put a key into a key hole. here they are put upside down
3. driving - keep right, left hand driving, ...
4. if u want to push a (latch on a door) we turn a lever on the upper half of an imaginary circle clockwise; here we have to turn a lever on the lower half of the circle anticlockwise. both comes to pushing the latch in the same direction.
5. electricity is 110V
6. all measurements - distance in miles, weight in pounds & volume in gallons
7. month / date instead of date / month. i normally start of with date and realise the mistake and put month in alphabets

these are some other intersting things

1. it seems u get tickets for any thing - for not growing grass on lawns and for grass growing above a particular height.
2. fire engines - they howl like anything, and dogs howl too when they pass by. All fire detectors in all buildings are connected to fire station. When the alarm goes in a building, fire engines come. And they take money if the alarm is false.
3. driving test - the info booklet on driving test says 'you will not be asked to do anything against rules'
4. birds - no crows but lot of small birds tweeting around. my apartment happens to be blessed by tweeting heavily during the twilights.
5. There are no 'ye jo hai jzindagi' type indecisions (u go - i go - u go - and both collide after all) while u r walking around. u always keep right
6. if u tell thank you or something like that people say 'uhmmm', and you wonder what this is. once or twice in the beginning this happened
me - thank you
other person - uhmmm ...
me - i told thank you
other person - uhmmm ...
me - :-|
7. there is no concept of common tea cups in office. every body has their own 'coffee mugs'

continuation of 'ulta's list

1. how cud i forget that? thank you sandeep for reminding. yes i am speaking of the fountain. it is an art to be able to drink water from public taps here, which jettison the water up into ur face. i feel it is worth while spending a dollar for mineral water.

2. found in the driving rules book: Bicyclists may ride on shoulders :-)))))) and a sign for motorists says - no riding on shoulders :-)))))) and another - soft shoulders. (for the uninitiated - here roads have shoulders - that is the unpaved part on the side of the road - i hope i am right :-)

3. another sign: it would have been put like this in India: Please don't pluck flowers. and here: Flowers are to be seen, not plucked.

4. i bought a Lipton Green Tea. I was thinking of the Lipton Green Label available in India. And I am stuck drinking GREEN tea for 48 tea bags (and that was $3). But believe me, it is OK.

5. and of the zero - don't ever use naught! Naught is not used in the US. To be safe use ZERO, and is u want to be fashionable (like using 'naught' in india) use the alphabet O (OH :-)

6. Waste baskets - can you believe it? There are none of these over here. There are only Trash Cans. That is OK. But what is not OK is that people donot understand what waste baskets are!

7. All ceiling fans have atleast four leaves and most, five; and they have a light with atleast three bulbs at the bottom; AND if you want to turn it on - look for a thread hanging around from the fan and try pulling at it - most ceiling fan switches are like this. (warning: sometimes the string may be quite high, be prepared for a jump).

8. and talking of lights - there is no concept of fixed lights in most rooms. The first thing you may want to do after moving into an apartment is to go hunting for table lamps. (thank god, normally there are ceiling lights in the kitchen - just think of having a table lamp on the stove!) And again, if you want to turn the table lamp on - you have to go hunting for the switch, which will be ABSOLUTELY SURELY hidden away in a place at which it cannot be seen unless you take the pain and bend and look inside the lamp shade.

9. Want to know the savings bank interest rate? - 1.1% (annual :-) Don't worry; you get car loans for 3% interest. And speaking of car prices - u have to always bargain when you buy a new car - and people say it is a pain. u may get around $2000 less. and normal bargaining period can run upto a month.

10. And now the inevitable - the television. a typical ABC program runs like this

There is this teenage girl and her younger sister. Their parents are divorced. The father is bringing another woman home daily night. The mother is planning to marry another guy. And the mother's sister is seeing another guy - who, not surprisingly (by now), is married too. And the girl, obviously, is not at ease. This is the conversation she has with her aunt one day: "I don't want to get married in life (seeing what her father is upto). Atleast i don't want to walk down the aisle with him (her father). And it is even more sad when i remember that since i was a kid i have been dreaming of the day when i would walk down the aisle with him ..."

But I have to mention explicitly here that obscenity as such is almost absent in the television here; whatever I mentioned above are real life issues.

11. Happy news for girls :-) The minimum number of bulbs on the top of the mirror is SIX. And each of them is atleast 200W. Given the scarcity of lights in the other rooms, i am thinking of moving my reading room ...

12. Cereal - over here cereal is not rice or wheat as we know it, or as the dictionary defines it. Cereal is the cornflakes and that sort of breakfast stuff. And, do you know what WORD defines it as? What do you expect? Look it up.

13. Staples are not just staples. They are paper too, and envelopes, etc. STAPLES is a office supplies brand name. I was looking for envelopes one day, and didn't look inside a box named STAPLES - which box, without saying, had what i wanted.

14. This should be surprising, especially for bangaloreans. There is not a single Citibank branch here in Richardson (and I have not seen any in Dallas too)!

15. this one is really important. if u have some doubts u must never say that u have some doubts. u have a few questions. or if u don't want to disturb the recepient of the question, u have a quick question. if u say that u have some doubts about ALTERA 7000AE, for ex., the sales representative will probably black out.