Now, to my first topic-the Metric System. One thing I have not really talked about is that I am having to completely change my way of thinking when it comes to weight, height, temperature and distance. As most of you I'm sure know, we use the metric system over here. America needs to get on board with this. It would make things so much simpler since most of the world uses this system of measurement.
Thanksgiving is this coming week, something that is not well known or even cared about in Moldova(for obvious reasons!) For example, I teach all week-school is not cancelled Wednesday through Friday like in America. Because of this, Peace Corps volunteers will be celebrating this food festival on Saturday. I will be leading one of three cooking teams. Me and 3 other volunteers will be preparing 1 turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing at the home of our Country Director-Jeffery. After our food is prepared, we will meet everyone at the Peace Corps office for lots of food and fun! My friends and I have already booked an apartment for the whole weekend so that we can relax and enjoy the good company and holiday festivities without trying to rush off to catch the last bus to our villages. While I am going to miss spending the holiday with my family and friends at home, I am glad that I will get to have a little piece of home here in Moldova with my new family and friends! Hope you all have a good Thanksgiving.
I decided not to tackle all of the metric system at once. I have opted for the two areas I use most: temperature and weight.
Temperature, because well basically I want to be able to understand weather reports and not be scared when it says that today will be 10 degrees (which is 50 degrees Fahrenheit). Knowing that 10 degrees Celsius is equal to 50 degrees Fahrenheit is not so scary. What is scary is when my host family says typical winter tempertures are around -10 degrees Celsius. (Note: see Becca frantically pull out calculator and compute -10C x 9/5 + 32!) It also helps when needing to convert American baking recipes to Moldovan stoves!
Weight, because my family and school colleagues are obsessed by me losing weight since thin is mai frumos (more beautiful). And my host mom is very happy to tell all the neighbors how many kilograms I have lost since coming to Moldova. (The formula is lbs/2.2)
Having both of those down now and having a decent reference point so that I don't always have to do a mental calculation I have decided next to tackle distance. This is going to prove a little more difficult since I never had a good judge of distance in American measurements. Having a point of reference will not help me like it did with temperature and weight haha.
I am assuming that I will have the metric system down by the time I leave, just in time to come back to America and lose it all!
Happy measuring!
As I posted previously, N1H1 (the Swine Flu) has come to Moldova. But they have the cure or at least the way of prevention-garlic, onions, vodka, alcohol soaked fabric wrapped around door handles and masks! Also, we had an additional week off from school after the Autumn break which was great. But the downside of that extra week is that we need to make up the lost time.
Some schools are making up the time by holding classes on Saturdays (5 Saturdays, one for each day missed). Other's are adding a zero period to the daily schedule. My school decided to add an extra 5 days to the end of the semester. What this means for me: The last day of the semester is Thursday, December 24. The make-up week will begin the next day-Friday, December 25 and will go straight through the weekend until Tuesday, December 29. But it is worth it, because as soon as that last day is done I am on a bus to Chisinau! December 29 is the day we leave for BARCELONA, SPAIN!! (Please note: the picture above of the child is just something I found online, I didn't actually see a child licking a pig-although if I had and was able to get a picture of that, I would have been happy I carried my camera that day. I just found the picture humorous!)
