Everything's bigger in America

Except the brains ;-D


This is the 16th concept I'm writing :-D
That's sick and ridiculous and not good at all.

But at least I completed one of them. That's a good start.

Now let's move to the usual stuff. Noticing, commenting and hating people for who they are.

"People are (only) socialized animals"

This will be my famous quote so remember that ;)

It was based on a thing my friend (Cody) said. He said that kids are cruel. I agreed to him and responded by saying that it's true, because they're just animals and it's parents' job to make them human.
Just to give you a little bit of context.
Which I give you for only one reason. To make the chance you will remember this quote more likely and maybe (and I know this is a long shot) to think about it.

Anyway, I've been in NY for three weeks, so it's already past the first impression time, but nevermind. It might actually be better this way, since my view might be more objective...

Wait! Hold on! I don't want my view to be objective! I want my views to be subjective, weird, radical and mathematical (that's a new one, but there will me more of that ;- ).
Anyway, first view on USA.

Americans are idiots!

No wait! I didn't want to do that.
Sorry, bad habit :-D

Let's try again!

Everything's bigger in America!

That's better! And kind of true. Drinks, houses, roads, forests, parks, but what's most noticeable for me are the cars. In Czech (any anywhere else I've been) people don't have big cars. In here it's a standard. Half of the cars you'll see will be huge monsters. Why is that? No idea!
How come it works? Two reasons I assume. They're not that expensive I think, but mostly their maintenance is not that high. If you've guessed it's because of the gas, you're most likely right. One gallon of gas costs less than 4 dollars and one gallon is almost 4 liters, so you get one liter for 1 dollar (ish). That's about the half of price in Czech, so it makes a bit more sense.
I see no point in such big cars except they are safer, because the impacts on your wallet and the environment are quite big, but Americans use them and they love it.

I have two pages of small notes, so I'll just post them as they go. Most of it won't be interesting at all.
As usual...

Americans waste a lot. And I mean a lot. For example in the shop you not only get 4 grocery bags when there is needed only one or two, but you also get two of them at the same time, so when you go to a shop and buy milk, bread, yogurts, cold cuts (cheese and ham) and one bag of cereal you'd receive in some shops  about 6 plastic bags. I have absolutely no idea why, but they just do it. They will always give you more bags than needed and sometimes they double all your bags just to make sure we waste more.
Another thing is that sometimes they're required to give you the bag even if you say you don't need it. I was buying goggles for example. One pair of goggles and the lady started taking out a plastic bag. I said I don't need it and she said she has to give it to me. Not only that she also taped it. This is for security reasons and it's funny, but at least I know why they do it. Why I need two bags for a box of cereal I still don't know.
Funny story about that. I went to a shop close to us where they always double your bags and there was a "differently abled" or "mentally challenged"  (I'm turning american now with the correctness and stuff :-D) person packing our bags. The fun part is that he was the only person so far who put my groceries in the bags correctly. He filled them, but not too much so they didn't tear, and he didn't use two for the same items.
Differently abled indeed! :-D

Tables! Chairs!  Small tables! Small chairs and tables! Chairs and small tables connected! Small chairs and small tables with no writing space connected!
That's exactly how it works in my school.  The chair is connected to the table, which sucks because you can't move it to a better place, you can't sit comfortably and you can't sleep on the tables. Not mentioning the fact that you can't do any funny stuff with it like building tables on top of each other or throwing them over the room like we used to.
Now that I think of it's starting to make more sense...
 But it's still stupid anyway. Also you can't even lean, because there's almost no back rest. It's as big as the ones you most likely had in elementary school. But in elementary school you were tiny, you were half of a human. Now when you have 6 foot (more and more american :- ) it sucks and it sucks a lot.
Strange thing is that no one seems to be bothered by this. Maybe it's my hyperactivity/inattentiveness, so that I'm the only who can't stay still but  I mean come on. I know I can't, but don't tell me that listening four hours of chemistry with one 15 minutes break won't make you fidget no matter who you are. Another silly thing is the size of the table itself. It's usually just a bit bigger than your notebook, which obviously isn't enough.
I hope you have a picture in mind how it looks, but if not I want to make sure you imagine my pain correctly, so here's a picture. Some tables in my school have even smaller writing space.

Good question would be "why all this?", but asking why is dangerous in this world, because you might not find any answer that would make any sense and then you might start thinking why is all this happening and for that there's even smaller chance you'd find a relevant answer. Well... you might, but the answer wouldn't make you any happier, because you'd realize that people can't think and people don't know what they're doing, which might lead to depression, anger, sadness or maybe resignation, aloofness and apathy. And that all might lead to suicide or mass killing.  I mean, I would never do such a thing. I wouldn't even ask why, but we all know there all sorts of crazy people who would do such a thing and we all know where it might lead, so for the safety of all please do not ask why. You'll never know anyway :)

Moving on.
People love rules in here! And with some rules there's absolutely no way past them. Especially the least important ones. When the rules starts affecting something real there are more and more ways to get around them.
For example imagine a door with an office. On the left side leading to the door is tape where the line should be. So far so good. There were only two people waiting and they were standing in front of the door. The person in front me was just on the spot where you can choose if you'll stand in the proper line behind the tape or in the typical line leading from the door. I simply stood behind the person and waited for a while. Then office lady came out and said "you need to stand in line". There was no one around, no one behind me, I wasn't blocking anything, one person was actually already inside the office because the line has moved, yet I just had to move the two steps behind the tape. Why you ask? No flipping idea!
The are plenty of rules similar to that. The bags are one of the examples.

On the other hand, they don't really care about the driving rules. For example americans don't use indicator. You drive and suddenly you see a car coming into your lane withour any prior notice. Not cool bro, not cool at all.
Americans are obsessed with traffic lights. They have traffic lights even on the roundabouts (!). What's even more ridiculous is that they treat the roundabout as several crossroads, so you get into the roundabout only when you get a green light. Then you move for about one fifth of the circle and you get to another traffic lights. More cars come in, then you move one fifth again and so on until you get to a traffic light that will lead you out of the roundabout.
Why? Because in the US, the greatest, the biggest and the best (start singing if you know ;- ) country in the whole universe (why stop at Earth, right? The United States are simply the best) they don't use simple solutions, they use something that has rules, which roundabouts don't.
I am exaggerating of course- The truth is I don't remember many traffic circles in here, but the one I described is real and it's a pain! Not only for me when I'm driving, but it hurts my brain.


Let's move to the rules that matter. I wanted to skip chemistry 900, because it would be a waste of time and even though I know nothing about chemistry I knew I could learn enough to pass the exemption test and enough to take the chem 1100. So I went to physical sciences department and asked if I could take the exemption test. I couldn't. Not only there were no test dates, but the test is also meant for transfer students or for people who already took some higher chemistry. Not just for high school students. I said fair enough and went home.
The physics class I wanted to attend was closed and there was no way to enroll.
How I solved it and took both classes without a problem?
I wrote an email to the phys department and asked if I can enroll in both of the classes. The email returned back, so I decided to contact the chairman of the phys dept. I emailed him and he said that I can enroll in chem 11 and I can "overtally" the physics class. So the next day I went to the same office as before. Before there was one guy and two ladies. One lady was the one who told me I can't take the test and I can't enroll in chem 11. This time there was only the guy. I told him what the chairman said and he said ok. He told me I can enroll in the chemistry without taking the test and he changed some settings on my profile, so I could enroll in physics as well even though it was closed.
America in practice ladies and gentleman! :)

Which reminds me a book called Freakonomics (interesting and worth the read btw), where in one chapter was a quote of some research which showed that rich people cheat more. It was proven on bagels by the way. One guy was bringing bagels into his firm everyday and when he was fired (or he left, I don't remember exactly) he decided he'll do the same in other companies. He brought bagels into the companies everyday with a money-box, so that people could put money for every bagel. On top of that he also kept an extensive and rigorous book-keeping, so for every day he knew exactly how many bagels were stolen and from where. Impressive and very useful considering he was doing it for several years. Anyway, his results showed some quite predictable stats: Big offices steal more, in big cities people steal more and people who like their work and bosses steal less. It also showed some not so much predictable stats: weather affects the honesty same as holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving,Valentine's day), during which people steal more. But there are some good holiday like the fourth of july and Columbus day. Also after the 9/11 people started stealing less.
Digressing, but it's too interesting to leave it out. Anyway, I go back to breaking the rules, because his data also show that the people who are higher on the corporate ladder cheat more. He was providing bagels to a company with three floors and on the top floor (where the bosses were)  people stole more.
The bagel provider thought that they might be stealing because of "overdeveloped sense of entitlement", but the authour of the book suggests that maybe the got to the top of the company by cheating.
Which is exactly what I think of America. There are rules for everything and anything. This is on of the reasons why the US is so great.
But the people who are on the top are the people who cheat. I have no way to prove this, but I'm pretty sure it's true.
People say that in America if you work hard, you'll get rewarded. That's bulls*it and it doesn't work anywhere. You can't work only hard, what is more important is working smart. Why the hell should you work four jobs on minimum wage and then die because you're too tired (true story) when the only thing you need is one or maybe two jobs you are qualified for and which are always there for you to apply.
And the people who say the situation is hard, there are no jobs and for the few good jobs you need to know someone I say it makes no sense. If you're willing to take minimum wage job then I highly doubt that for every other job that pays more you need to know someone in charge.

Digressing again, but the idea is that the succesful people in US are either lucky, hardworking and lucky or just smart. And by smart I mean people who are not afraid to break the rules when needed.

I'm sure you knew that US uses different voltage that no one else in the world uses, right? I'm also sure you knew they're the only country that doesn't use the SI units. But did you know they also use different sizes of papers? And once again there is international format, but North America (Mexico and Canada as well) uses different one.

One thing that boggles my mind are the cock a doodle doos. In uk they have cock a doodle doos with two streams, one with hot and one with cold water and there is usually no way to have warm in one stream. Stupid and fascinating, but there is a reason for that. Apparently most buildings are old and they don't have enough pressure for one stream (which is odd, because showers work fine). Or something like that, you can look it up, but it's not very interesting otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten.
What is interesting though are the cock a doodle doos in my school. I completely understand the need for cock a doodle doos to turn themselves off after a while. Great idea! What's not a great idea are cock a doodle doos that you need to hold to wash your hands. That's a real thing. You want to clean your hands, you turn the cock a doodle doo on with one hand and clean the other and then you hold the cock a doodle doo with clean hand and clean the dirty one. But obviously the cock a doodle doo is dirty, so you need to clean your other hand again. Or maybe the cock a doodle doo is from soap, because you had soapy hands, so you still need to wash one of your hands twice.
If that doesn't make any sense because the only thing you could focus on was why the hell am I using the word cock a doodle doo, then be assured that

One day I was walking to the subway clad in my green t-shirt that says "Yolo? Prove it!". I was going up the stairs when some girl screamed "YOLO!" and touched my boob. And... yeah, that's about it. I don't even know why I wrote that.
Nevermind. Moving on.

Before school we had an orientation. The start for international students was at 8am, so I went to school and I arrived at 8. I walked in and in the hallway a uniformed guy asked if I'm here for the audition. I said yes without thinking and he told me to sit down with other maybe 20 people already siting and waiting. I sat down, but after a few seconds I realized I have no idea if I'm on the right spot, so I came to the guy again and told him that I'm here for international orientation. Once again he told me yes and I should sit down. So I did. I've been waiting for a few minutes when some guy tried to walk up the stairs and the officer stopped him and asked where is he going. He said he's an international student and he should go to room on the second floor. The officer said ok and the guy went on. But I overheard the conversation, I stood up and followed the guy to the second floor. I wasn't the only one. About ten other people heard the same conversation and they also went up the stairs. The officer came with us and when we came into the right room (with people already waiting for us), some of our advisors asked him where were we and the officer replied: "They were just waiting downstairs. I don't know why."
What? You definitely told me and possibly few others to wait downstairs. I specifically asked about the orientation and you told me to wait, so fuck you man fuck you very much.

Another funny story. It was about 3am and I was going home from Savant. I was holding a plastic bag in which I had a cookie and something to drink. I was walking around subway station, trying to find the right platform when I saw a homeless guy. There was no one around, so he asked me if I can give him something. I ignored him, but he continued and because I didn't hear (train going above us) I stopped and asked what did he want. He said he needs money, so I said I don't have any. He said that I have a breakfast and I replied that yes and that I spent the last money for that. He said that maybe I could at least give him something to eat. I said I have a cookie and I can give him half of it. He agreed and I gave him about a third of a cookie (half of what was left). He complained that it's not half, so I showed him that it's the half of what's left. He complained again and I left.
What's wrong? Everything!
He asked for money and when I said I don't have any he looked like it's required to give him something. He mentioned my bag like it was a reason to give him something, because I had food. When I offered him a cookie  he made that clear that it's not enough and I should give him more.
I didn't have anything else, I gave him half of the cookie and once again he complained it's not even half.
He complained because I gave him something to eat.
Well fuck you! You're spoiled, arrogant and ungrateful beggar. That's one of the worst kinds of people in the world. And I mean it!
I should have taken the cookie out of his hands when he complained...

So yeah, that's about it. Some notes and assorted stories from the past month. There should be more coming. Hope you enjoyed it and if you did, feel free to share with your friends and family. If you didn't enjoy, feel free to share with the people you don't like or even hate.
Good morning, evening, night or whatever it is right now in your timezone :)