For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 12, 2009

perspective is everything. when you pay for it directly, rather than through taxes, you don’t want to miss any of it - even if you should.

YYGUY When I realized the number of hours I worked for tuition, I never missed one class.

I’m taking a free class right now, only a few sessions. No kids, but instead there are adults (!) there and we discuss things and chat and learn a lot. Last week when my daughter got sick and I missed class, I cried.

Elly really enjoys her class. It’s endearing. I suspect she and I both share a combined love of occasionally learning something in a class (rather than the constant education-of-sorts provided by the kids) plus a chance to be by ourselves in the adult world. I’ve never met a kid who appreciated school like that before at least college (I know they exist, but in this society, not so common as where kids know they’re lucky to have school)

Wow! 104! How is she even moving, I’d feel super crummy..

I’m betting it was the raccoon stew.

I’m not sure the Metric system was invented back then. And it’s definitely not H1N1. Probably the Spanish flu.

AssOfDoom for some reason, we still have stoves, ovens, and thermometers that read the dumb “F” … it makes NO SENSE to me, why they even invented that! starting at 0 is the smartest thing …

BUT when you get a temp that high, you always need to lie down, even if you miss a class or work.

I’ve been in Canada a year now and I’m still working on learning the metric system. I had to laugh last weekend, it was pretty warm and nice out and someone said it was 17 degrees. Yeah right. I’m used to 17 being pretty cold.

As for missing class I don’t blame her. When you choose your own subject to learn rather than learning what THEY tell you, you do enjoy it. Now she’s stuck at home and just because she’s there (though sick) she will have to put the kids to bed.

Uh Oh. Now the rest of the family will get it, one by one, and Ellie will have to take care of them even tho she’s sick too.

Nice of Elly to pass the germs around.

A lot of Canadians still use Fahrenheit for temperatures, and feet and inches for height, and pounds for weight. Everything’s metric, but we still use non-metric measurements for a lot of things!

not long after i moved to michigan, and still hadn’t figured out which radio stations were which, i heard a weather report with a forecast in the 30s. this was july, so i was thinking “wow, I had no idea it got that cold further north in Michigan in the summer!” i eventually figured out it was a canadian radio station, with a forecast in celcius…

FYI…

Lynn did say that she and her brother boiled a raccoon (fur on) for a science project, in real life. They wanted the skeleton. The tail was missing. And they did get in trouble from mom, who was at work when they did it in one of her good pots.

Many within the provinces still use alternate measures simply because they do not like the metric system. Many people I know still refer to their weight in pounds, their speed in miles per hour and the temperature in Fareinheit degrees.

The latter especially makes sense, especially when a weather report on The National in July says we’re enjoying a balmy 24 degrees in New Brunswick today….

many of those night school classes, if you miss a certain number of sessions, they drop you and you loose that tuition you paid, that’s why elly wants to go to school

temperatures and distances in metric don’t phaze me any more, but somehow my height and weight haven’t made the transition. 6 feet is just easier to say, though my weight sure looks a lot lower when expressed in metric. quick note. if you measure distances in hours, you might be a Canadian. (old joke, along the lines of Canada’s seasons being almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.)

It’s part of the American influence. Most Canadians can slip effortlessly from metric to imperial measurements or Fahrenheit to Celsius. Cookbooks, for example, usually have both sets of measurements.

That said, I have a bit of a culture shock travelling on American highways where the speed limit is only 65 instead of 110.

104? I agree with everyone else who’s surprised she’s on her feet. I’d be curled up in a shivering wad on the sofa.

That said, my husband practically had to tie me down last spring when I had to miss my writing class, thanks to H1N1 in fact. Finally he got the point across that nobody else wanted my plague. ;)

‘Yeah, I also want to know how shes on her feet.

I prefer the American system, over metric.

She is tough to be ready to go with a 104 fever.

My husband is European, and my ideal system would be metric for measuring weight, volume, size, but Fahrenheit for temperature. It seems more precise to me and makes a big difference when I am looking at the tempurature outside for what I need to wear.

Did you hear about the fellow who complained that he couldn’t double the recipe that he was cooking from, because his oven would not go to 700º?

@Allan Claus - “starting at 0 is the smartest thing … ”

So, you prefer the Kelvin scale?