Lost in Translation

No, not about words, but about weather. Specifically, cold weather. It's one thing to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, it's quite another to explain what 10F feels like to a city of people who do not know temperatures below 40F (-12C and 5C, roughly). They get the general idea - that it's COLD - but don't have anything to attach that to, or any experience with it. (Speaking of cold, my office is FREEZING. This is not new - I'm always cold - and at least I'm not sitting under a cold vent in the middle of winter like I was at one place... but still! Brr. Sort of feels like it's actually winter!)

What's weird about the date is not actually that day and month are switched (so December 5 becomes 5/12/07), but that when they read it out loud, they say "the fifth of the twelfth" as in the twelfth month, instead of "fifth of December."

Book fun

Last night I went to the first meeting of the book group I joined! It sounded like a perfect way to meet new people, and this is a good group. I enjoyed our conversation - which flowed from the book to various tangents, and back again, and was just the right amount of intellectualism and socializing. The only problem was the choice of location. We met at a pretty swanky bar in the city, where even in my nice work clothes I did not feel sleek enough to be there, and where I way way overpaid for a small bowl of veggie curry. It was also pretty loud and I had trouble hearing everyone, even though I was in the middle of the table! But that aside, it was a very nice evening. We read The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, which I had read this summer and which was perfect because I didn't have my library card yet when it was decided! At the end we decided on the next book and somehow got to talking about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I said I loved it and someone said we should make it our next book, but really I would rather read new books, not ones I've read dozens of times! Anyway, the next book turns out to be A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which I've also had my eye on for quite a while, so I'm happy as a nerdy little clam :)