It's 6 degrees below 0 in Seoul . . . Celsius

My goal of the week has been to wrap my mind around the metric temperature scale. Sometime back in junior high science class I was taught (although I probably wasn't listening) how to convert Fahrenheit temperatures to Celsius, as well as the history behind the development of each system. I'm sure I figured it out, but as with anything I don't really need to know, I promptly forgot the equation and went on happily and comfortably thinking of temperature solely within the realm of the U.S. standard. The same goes for measurements for length, weight, and capacity. To this day when someone mentions "liter" or "hectare" I immediately go into deer-in-the-headlights mode, my palms get sweaty, and I realize maybe I should have been paying attention in that junior high science class instead of reading Teen Magazine under my desk. This week I discovered a handy little tool right on my computer desktop at work. I've always had a little window in the corner that tells me what the current Seoul temperature is, as well as the three-day forecast. It was installed on my desktop when I started working at KBS, and was already set to forecast in Fahrenheit. During another mind-is-a-blank-slate moment this week, as I was staring unproductively at my computer screen, I noticed the "F" next to the temperature reading was clickable. Since not touching or messing with things has never been my strong point, I clicked on it and all the readings turned to Celsius. Now, we're talkin'! So, for the rest of the week I periodically clicked back and forth to get a rough idea of what the conversion would be. I started to test myself by the end of the week . . . "Okay, 29 degrees Fahrenheit . . . if it's -1 or -2 Celsius, I'll allow myself a cookie from the coffee shop this afternoon," (every accomplishment should come with some kind of reward). So, for the sole reason of being tired of feeling like an idiot, I'm taking proactive measures to understand a concept it seems the rest of the world has mastered. The rest of the world and its ultra logical system for measurement . . . that's a blog for another day.