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Deprived European difficult child is back from States - with cereal and stories to tell (long)
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<blockquote data-quote="flutterby" data-source="post: 548813" data-attributes="member: 7083"><p>We would say a quart and a half gallon. Although, most of our liquids come in a half gallon or gallon, except for soda which comes in 2 liter bottles (besides 12 oz cans), and half and half comes in quart sizes I think (I don't drink coffee, so I'm not 100% sure). Most people would have to look up that 1 quart is 4 cups. </p><p></p><p>There is a joke around here that a manual car comes with a built in theft guard because so few know how to drive them. I don't know how to, but my son and his wife will only drive manuals. My mom stopped driving a manual when we lived in Atlanta and she was riding the clutch in traffic all the time. I drove 4 hours a day for work when I lived in Atlanta - 2 hours each way. More if there was a really bad accident.</p><p></p><p>Food portions in restaurant are huge, and I usually order off of the appetizer menu - and that's still too much for me. They do this to draw people in as food costs are the lowest expense for restaurants. Wait staff in restaurants have a minimum wage of $3-something an hour because they are tipped employees. </p><p></p><p>The only federal law about benefits is that anything worked over 40 hours in a week is overtime (paid at time and a half). According to federal law, 40 hours is full time. There are no federal laws pertaining to sick leave, vacation, or employer provided health benefits. Some states have laws requiring paid sick days, although my state isn't one of them. Companies add those benefits to attract the better employees. However, in this economy with 8.3% unemployment, they start cutting those benefits back. Some companies have policies where 30 or 35 hours is considered full time. At the firm I worked for before I became disabled, you could get employer provided health insurance if you worked 25 hours a week. However, only full time (40 hours plus) employees got paid sick days (5 per year) and paid vacation (2 weeks per year). We don't have free university, tech or vocational schools, and even before the recession I was seeing jobs requiring a 4 year college degree that were paying $10/hour. A 4 year degree can cost anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000 (or more) and it is generally required that you start paying school loans back (with interest) starting 6 months after you finish school. I guess they figure you're going to live with your parents or with roommates because you can't really live on your own on $10/hour here with school loans to pay back.</p><p></p><p>Busywork homework and little to no recess have been huge complaints since my son started school (he is now 21). It is very different from when I was in school even, and I had my son when I turned 18. I credit the little to no recess to the huge uptick in ADHD diagnosis's. If the kids can't sit still because they aren't getting enough exercise, they need medication - or that seems to be the mindset of a lot of people. How well a child "stays on task" is now part of a report card in elementary school. As far as homework, schools teach to proficiency tests here that grade the schools and teachers based on how well the kids test on a test given once a year. Repetition and rote memorization are drilled into the kids, and there is also a lot of drilling on how to take a test. It's a huge flaw in our educational system. AP Calculus is the hardest math class in high school here, in general (AP stands for Advanced Placement so a student generally has to test into the class, or have received a certain grade or higher in the AP math class preceding that one.) </p><p></p><p>Obesity is a huge problem and there is more than one cause. Food portions have gotten larger. "Junk" food is quite a bit cheaper than healthy food. And a couple of decades ago the government or the American Medical Association, or whoever it was, decided - based on one flawed study - that saturated fat was the really bad thing responsible for heart disease. So the low fat trend started, and food was altered to have less fat, which meant that they added sugar and carbs to replace the flavor. Too much saturated fat isn't good, of course, but too many carbs is worse. (Speaking of food, GMO (genetically modified) food isn't labeled here like it is in the EU, so if you were eating Kellogg's cereal chances are you had some GMO food. Most of our corn and almost all of our soybeans are genetically modified. Not sure if that is a concern of yours or not.) As far as portion sizes in the nutrition information - no, we generally don't measure it out and eat it as it says, and we don't share a can of soda. Often people are fooled by portion sizes in product labeling. They don't read the part where it says, Number of servings: 2. It is often just assumed that it is a single serving, and assumed that the nutritional information listed is for a single serving instead of doubling it. I personally would have a hard time eating 3/4 cup of cereal plus milk. </p><p></p><p>People being so busy makes me tired. Everyone is always in such a hurry. On the other hand, we don't get as much time off from work as people in Europe and we try to fit in the fun stuff when we can. Personally, I require downtime or I am just not pleasant at all to be around. Also, when two people meet for the first time, often the first question is, "What do you do?", meaning - what is your job or profession. I've heard that's not necessarily the case in other countries, though I don't have any personal experience with that. Here your job position or profession seems to define you, and people are definitely preoccupied with that. </p><p></p><p>My son and I were talking last week about our cars being bigger than cars in Europe, and I think just about every other country. He was telling me that North America is the only continent where the Honda Accord is sold (the Accord is basically a larger version of the Honda Civic). We seem to have some weird preoccupation with size. I have a Mazda3 that is small and easy to parallel park, gets good gas mileage, and can only comfortably seat people in the back if they don't have legs. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="flutterby, post: 548813, member: 7083"] We would say a quart and a half gallon. Although, most of our liquids come in a half gallon or gallon, except for soda which comes in 2 liter bottles (besides 12 oz cans), and half and half comes in quart sizes I think (I don't drink coffee, so I'm not 100% sure). Most people would have to look up that 1 quart is 4 cups. There is a joke around here that a manual car comes with a built in theft guard because so few know how to drive them. I don't know how to, but my son and his wife will only drive manuals. My mom stopped driving a manual when we lived in Atlanta and she was riding the clutch in traffic all the time. I drove 4 hours a day for work when I lived in Atlanta - 2 hours each way. More if there was a really bad accident. Food portions in restaurant are huge, and I usually order off of the appetizer menu - and that's still too much for me. They do this to draw people in as food costs are the lowest expense for restaurants. Wait staff in restaurants have a minimum wage of $3-something an hour because they are tipped employees. The only federal law about benefits is that anything worked over 40 hours in a week is overtime (paid at time and a half). According to federal law, 40 hours is full time. There are no federal laws pertaining to sick leave, vacation, or employer provided health benefits. Some states have laws requiring paid sick days, although my state isn't one of them. Companies add those benefits to attract the better employees. However, in this economy with 8.3% unemployment, they start cutting those benefits back. Some companies have policies where 30 or 35 hours is considered full time. At the firm I worked for before I became disabled, you could get employer provided health insurance if you worked 25 hours a week. However, only full time (40 hours plus) employees got paid sick days (5 per year) and paid vacation (2 weeks per year). We don't have free university, tech or vocational schools, and even before the recession I was seeing jobs requiring a 4 year college degree that were paying $10/hour. A 4 year degree can cost anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000 (or more) and it is generally required that you start paying school loans back (with interest) starting 6 months after you finish school. I guess they figure you're going to live with your parents or with roommates because you can't really live on your own on $10/hour here with school loans to pay back. Busywork homework and little to no recess have been huge complaints since my son started school (he is now 21). It is very different from when I was in school even, and I had my son when I turned 18. I credit the little to no recess to the huge uptick in ADHD diagnosis's. If the kids can't sit still because they aren't getting enough exercise, they need medication - or that seems to be the mindset of a lot of people. How well a child "stays on task" is now part of a report card in elementary school. As far as homework, schools teach to proficiency tests here that grade the schools and teachers based on how well the kids test on a test given once a year. Repetition and rote memorization are drilled into the kids, and there is also a lot of drilling on how to take a test. It's a huge flaw in our educational system. AP Calculus is the hardest math class in high school here, in general (AP stands for Advanced Placement so a student generally has to test into the class, or have received a certain grade or higher in the AP math class preceding that one.) Obesity is a huge problem and there is more than one cause. Food portions have gotten larger. "Junk" food is quite a bit cheaper than healthy food. And a couple of decades ago the government or the American Medical Association, or whoever it was, decided - based on one flawed study - that saturated fat was the really bad thing responsible for heart disease. So the low fat trend started, and food was altered to have less fat, which meant that they added sugar and carbs to replace the flavor. Too much saturated fat isn't good, of course, but too many carbs is worse. (Speaking of food, GMO (genetically modified) food isn't labeled here like it is in the EU, so if you were eating Kellogg's cereal chances are you had some GMO food. Most of our corn and almost all of our soybeans are genetically modified. Not sure if that is a concern of yours or not.) As far as portion sizes in the nutrition information - no, we generally don't measure it out and eat it as it says, and we don't share a can of soda. Often people are fooled by portion sizes in product labeling. They don't read the part where it says, Number of servings: 2. It is often just assumed that it is a single serving, and assumed that the nutritional information listed is for a single serving instead of doubling it. I personally would have a hard time eating 3/4 cup of cereal plus milk. People being so busy makes me tired. Everyone is always in such a hurry. On the other hand, we don't get as much time off from work as people in Europe and we try to fit in the fun stuff when we can. Personally, I require downtime or I am just not pleasant at all to be around. Also, when two people meet for the first time, often the first question is, "What do you do?", meaning - what is your job or profession. I've heard that's not necessarily the case in other countries, though I don't have any personal experience with that. Here your job position or profession seems to define you, and people are definitely preoccupied with that. My son and I were talking last week about our cars being bigger than cars in Europe, and I think just about every other country. He was telling me that North America is the only continent where the Honda Accord is sold (the Accord is basically a larger version of the Honda Civic). We seem to have some weird preoccupation with size. I have a Mazda3 that is small and easy to parallel park, gets good gas mileage, and can only comfortably seat people in the back if they don't have legs. :) [/QUOTE]
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Deprived European difficult child is back from States - with cereal and stories to tell (long)
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