A Word On Conversions

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Here’s the thing about the metric system. I know that it makes more sense. I understand that everything can fold up nicely into its next logical unit. I get the beauty and simplicity of things divisible by powers of 10. But what no one tells you is that all the logic in the world can’t override what you feel. I can pretty much accurately tell you when I’ve walked a mile. I can just feel it. Likewise I can eyeball a glass of water and come close to telling you how many ounces are in it.

This is because my ordinary life revolves around the English system. You know approximately how many ounces are in a glass because you know how many ounces are in a can of Diet Coke. A pint is obviously the size of the standard Ben & Jerry’s container of ice cream. Eight Ben & Jerry’s add up to one thing of milk - so that must be a gallon. Inches equate to a couple finger widths, and a quarter mile is one loop around any normal high school track. Pounds - well, they are the enemy of Ben & Jerry’s. Abby weighs 25 of them as my biceps can attest to.

It’s all very simple.

Down here I can almost tell what a measurement is but I never really get it. To start with, the metric system has really nothing in common with our system. I thought the yard was equal to the meter. But it’s not. Close, but only in an annoying way that is impossibly hard to use when attempting math in your head. One of our yards equals .91 of their meters. Fine to equate to the yard if you are say, describing where your towel is on the beach, but not if you are piloting a plane.

The close-to-an-easily-divisible-number-but-not-close-enough continues. 2 kilometers equal 1.6 miles and the .6 just does me in. For short distances you can pretend that it’s just 1.5 but over time that .1, like the missing .9 in the yard, adds up.

It’s all very well to just ignore the entire system altogether until you find yourself trying to buy diapers. Exactly how many kilograms does Abby weigh?? Too tight or too loose and you'll wish you'd factored in the point whatever of whatever. Or when you are trying to dole out medicine to a fevered child at 3am. How many milliliters do two droppers full of baby Tylenol equal?

And then there is the money conversion - which happily for me is about the same as distances. That is, just as 2 kilometers equals approximately 1.5 miles, so also 2 Australian dollars equal approximately $1.50 US. While my brain can’t really think about missing .1s strewn about, it can think about 25 cents, or a quarter. So since $1.50 equals 6 quarters I’ve started doing all my math in my own Esther-unit or the ‘6 quarter unit’.

Clinging to clarity wherever I can find it, I’ve translated my money conversions into distances, inventing, perhaps for the first time, the ‘6 quarterometer’. Would it be easier to just know I’ve gone 2 kilometers? I think not. I think knowing I’ve walked 6 quarters which means I’ve walked $1.50 which means I’ve walked a mile and a half is much easier.

Finally there is temperature. There is no handy money translation for temperature. There is simply no rhyme or reason. I don’t even know where to begin. Some days the weather sign at the life guarding station says that 25 Celsius equals 75.8 Fahrenheit and other days it equals 73. 30 is likely going to be hot, but no guarantee that 28 will be. Returning to the fevered child at 3am - what is 103 Fahrenheit in Celsius? And who can tell you that at 3am?

Les, I’m sure, would have many amendments to this as he is one of those people whose brain naturally gravitates to a simple system based on 10. But he’s not here right now, he’s commuting about $3.75 home.

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Comments

[Rach]

celebrating metrics
To add insult to injury, Dave is having a Metric System party on Saturday. It's ok if you don't want to like him anymore because of it. :)

[travelingbee]

I feel your .1 pain...
Just so you know you're not alone, I still have nightmares about the metric system in the UK. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that 2 of the fixed items in my kitchen while I was there was a conversion sheet put together by the Junior League and a calculator. I've never used a calculator so much in my life... Where it got even more confusing was in cooking b/c not only was I dealing with liters, but even the British "cup" wasn't the same as ours. As most everyone knows, an American cup is equal to 8oz. However, the British cup is approx 10oz. Well, you can just imagine how the first few things I made using British recipes with my American measuring cups turned out...