First day in office, it was "Thanksgiving Potluck". What a nice way to start my assignment here! At the end of the treat, my client managers were left with a question mark on their face: "Praveen eats so much, then how come he is not fat?". I convinced them that they'll come to know the answer in the coming days :)

2 Project Parties, 2 birthday treats, 2 Fungama celebrations, 3 movies: Rocket Singh, Avataar, 3 Idiots.

Never before this in my life have I watched any movie within the first week of its release. And look, here I am watching movies back-to-back every weekend. Am I turning into a spoilt kid?

Apart from the parties, treats, celebrations and fun I am having, life has really been topsy-turvy since I have landed here. I have changed from an Indian to a "conversion machine".

Here in US, right is actually "right" while on road or anywhere else walking. If I am walking in office, being an Indian I always have a tendency to restrict myself to the left side, so as to give way to the person coming from front. After getting too many gazes in the first week, I realized that I have to be on the RIGHT to give way to the person coming in front. So, I started practising. I started telling myself "Be on Right", "Be on Right". My mind used to shift on right but my body still on the left and I again bump into the person coming from the front. "Oops! I am so sorry" is what I am left with. After this happened many times, should I practise "How to stay on the right?" or "How to say SORRY?" Anyways, I am getting comfortable to the US ways of walking. They say "Old habits die hard", so how can they expect me to starting walking on the "right" one fine morning when I have been on the "left" all these 25 years?

It is a general tendency to start calculating the conversions into "units" that we are comfortable with when we are put into a completely different metric system. It's hard to come out of the comfort zone, you see.

What's the temperature today?

Around 42.

It is Fahrenheit dear.

Ah! couldn't you tell earlier?

Convert to centigrades!

I got onto a weighing machine. It displayed 171. What?

"Aye, this machine is crap, इससे अच्छी machines तो हमारे यहाँ railway station पर लगी होती हैं| एक तो आपका वजन बताती हैं और ऊपर से आपका भविष्य भी, मुफ्त! Do I look like 170 from any angle? Hunh!".

Its in pounds buddy.

Convert to kg!

So, I am put to test every now and then that reminds me of "Kya aap paanchvi paas se tez hain?" I realized that I am not :(

Ha! I am revising the basic mathematics now ...

Converting Fahrenheit to Celcius: C = (F - 32) X 5 / 9

Converting miles to kilometeres: 1 mile = 1.6 km (approx)

Converting feet and inches to metres and centimetres: 1m = 3.3 ft (approx)

Converting pounds and ounces to kilograms and grams: 1 kg = 2.2 lb (approx)

Converting gallons into litres: 1 gallon = 1.8 litres (approx)

And above all, Dollars (USD) to Rupees (INR) :)

Grr... can't they use SI units everywhere?

The dates are written in "MM/DD/YYYY" format as against our Indian format "DD/MM/YYYY". To avoid the confusions, I prefer "DD-Mon-YYYY".

Not to forget, before calling home, I need to convert the local time according to the time zone to make sure I am not waking up someone sleeping. But this one is simplest. Straight addition/subtraction because it is quite strange that people here tell time in terms of hours:minutes:seconds only.

Strange are the ways of life!