Passports

Hello,

Our passports expire in September. Even though we have not planned any out of country trips at the moment, we, especially Leroy, like to have it ready perhaps so we can leave at a moment’s notice? Leroy picked up two forms at the post office. I filled out one, half way, only to realize that I had made a mistake in putting in the date. I used the dd/mm/yy form that I have adopted since we have lived in Slovakia. The form was asking for the USA method. I thought if a person were reading this form I might get by with it, but a computer is perhaps only programmed one way. Leroy will now have to stop and get more forms for himself. He did say, “I thought about getting extras so we could make some mistakes and still get it done.”

In my defense, it makes such sense to me to go from the smallest date unit to the largest unit. The way people in this country use the mm/dd/yy system is not truly logical. Who set it up that way in the first place?

There are other illogical ways of doing things in this country. I do not know how we got such a cumbersome linear measuring method rather than using the easy to learn metric system that is based on tens which is understood so readily. It means more time is spent teaching such things in school.

I also learned, while in Slovakia, that our money system is also not as easy as other systems to know how many coins equal a dollar, etc. again money comparisons is almost not taught because it is so clear and easy to understand. After all, what relationship is a dime to quarter? Size does not help because a nickel is larger than a dime, but worth less. Why do we not write on our coins, using a numeral, the number of cents it represents? One of the Slovaks told me about how difficult it was to know what coins to use when visiting the USA.

We certainly have no national or cultural philosophy that feels visitors should be helped with any of this. Instead we expect them to buckle down and learn our ways as well as our language.

Paula