From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sun May 19 2002 - 16:17:27 MDT
Dossy:
>Amara:
>> Curiosity about how the world works is fun,
>When you watch a one year old open and close a door, fascinated
>by a hinge,
Hey, this is me when I moved to Germany! Not fascinated, however,
but perplexed. I pushed on doors, when I should have pulled, and I
pulled on doors when I should have pushed. Screw drivers were flat
and didn't work like I thought. I didn't recognize the lightswitches
on walls or on lamps. I couldn't open doors with keys. I couldn't
lock doors with or without keys. I couldn't put the lid on coffee
makers. I mixed up bus stops with ruftaxi stops and I mixed up post
office signs with public parking signs. I blew up the power supply
in my printer. I paid a Siemens washing machine repair technician an
unreal amount of money to fix my machine, when actually it worked
fine; it was the operator that was broken. This is
Amara-in-idiot-mode.
And lest you think that one goes through this experience rarely in
one's life, I am back in Amara-in-Idiot-mode every time I visit another
country. A size 8 UK shoe is not the same as size 8 US shoe, the two
prongs on an Italian electrical plug is not the same as the two
prongs on a German electrical plug. The handle in the shower
controls the water flow to the bathroom, not the water flow to the
shower. The left knob is not always the hot water, and "C" stands
for caldo (hot) not cold.
Thank you, Dossy, the next time I go through this (and I will), I
will call this Amara-in-Toddler-mode, instead.
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -- Richard Feynman
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