Sunday, August 7, 2011

Conversions List for South Africa.

24-Hour Clock (source)
In previous posts, I’ve mentioned some of the conversions that I have to do while living here in South Africa. I thought I’d post the entire list and the websites I use to quickly get the conversions. The web sites are not special; they’re just the ones that came up when I went to Google. 


To me, conversions = adjustments. All the time. Its quite tough to change how you've thought about basic concepts your entire life!



 
1.   Kilojoules to Calories: converter here. The food packaging here often tell you the energy units in klojoules, not Calories/kilocalories.
Seepdometer (source)

2.   Pounds to Kilograms: converter here. All the scales and the gym machines use kilos.

3.   Miles Per Hour to Kilometers Per Hour: converter here. I use this when Driving and using gym machines.

4.   U.S. Dollar to S.A. Rand: converter here. I have to mentally do this every time I spend money!

5.   Fahrenheit to Celsius: converter here: Every time I want to know the weather temperature or bake an American recipe.
These are the coins I use every day (source)

6.   12 hour clock to 24 hour clock: converter here. Many of the television/radio shows and public clocks run on a 24 hour clock.

7.  Cups to Milliliters: converter here. Used in cooking.

8.   Gallons to Liters: converter here. Used when filling up a vehicle. 

9.   Inches to Centimeters: converter here.




Since I haven’t memorized the precise conversions, my life is very “rounded.” I’ve given up precise measurement for convenient heuristics like $1 = 7R (It doesn’t, but its close enough), and I drive the speed limit that is posted, but I don’t always know what it is in miles per hour. 



Do you live a “rounded” life in a certain sense?




Song of the Post: 
Waiting for the World to Change by John Mayer.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

well, I live exactly like you but in the opposite way! being Italian, I think in : kilos, milliliters, litres, kilometers/hours, Celsius, and 24 h/day... and Euros. moved to the US 8 years ago and i'm still pretty much rounded. but gets easier :)

Cami said...

Very interesting!! Loved reading this :) Thank you for sharing - and teaching me!!

ox

Sami said...

Isn´t it strange how whenever we move to another country we try and convert our shopping expenses into our original currency? I did it for about 1 year when I moved to Australia, then I thought "Life is more expensive here, but I earn in Australian dollars, not in Euros, so forget about conversions"!! Lovely conversion lists, will come in handy for sure.

Naturally Me Creations said...

Wow, you're not (or were not) that familiar with the 24 hour clock?!?! How weird, i thought that was a universal thing, hehe. ;)