Wednesday's lessons

There are two:
1) People are so great! (as if I didn't know)
2) Women and Men are different when fighting... but seems like girls are smarter with their strategy

In details:
1) I went to Cheatham's Garage today to change my fan belt. Those are very nice people. Seems like it's family business. They've checked my belts and tighten them... and not only the one I wanted, but few more and did some other really nice things. I would need to return there to change boots and repair oil leak. The thing is - they didn't charge for anything today. They said I can pay everything on Friday. Wonderful! These people trust other people and they seem to build relations, real relations. They probably do not send reminders about oil change, but they talk to their customers and are listening to whatever they have to say. While I was there several people came and in addition to talking about cars they've asked them about their families and other things. They knew more about their customers then just info on their car and car related habits. Very personal approach - works well. Too bad big corporation struggling with CRM cannot reach that level of privacy.
Isn't that great? building relations and trust provides you with loyal customers, and benefits both sides emotionally. Actually, I'm so excited about the place that I would suggest only this company if anyone would ever need a piece of advice.

2) I went to self-defense class. I loved it. Punching - is something I love. And they said use all possible methods to escape, even biting. Biting!!! That's exactly what I do all the time. Don't even remind me about this strategy - I'll use my teeth right away if I ever feel the danger.
Anyway, coming back to the lesson. He said that guys usually fight till there is a winner. Girls, when have to fight, do all possible to escape/run away. If they can discourage the other side, they do not keep fighting till the winning end, but run away!
I think it's smart. Why put yourself in bigger danger that you already are?
And the same principle is in climbing and while water rafting. If there is a chance to avoid danger - just do it. All the climbing trails avoid the most dangerous things if possible. In rafting the ability to avoid danger - that's what is count when you judge about people's ability to rule the boat. Although, when river's category is 3 or below - you may go through all the dangerous spots just for fun.

My day was great!
Now I want to figure out, where and with whom can I master all the punches they've tough us today.

peanut butter jelly sandwich or PBJ

I've tried it today!
I've heard about it so many times, but never could imagine that someone really would put grape jelly on top of peanut butter. I always thought that maybe peanut butter is kinda like jelly in texture and that is why it is called PBJ. Well... they really put jelly on top of PB.

And it tastes very good! But still it is like "can I, please, have a sandwich with sugar and sugar?" Too sweet.

And now I understand why people have grape jelly at their fridges... I never buy this one, because it does not work for me. I usually mix jelly with hot water and drink it... (sounds weird for this country and for home country too,,, this is our family thing)

I'm so happy I don't have peanut butter at home. PBJ does not sound to be very healthy.

greeting people

When I got back after my first visit of the US, people though I was way too polite - I would smile a lot and say "hi" even to clerks in the bank or somewhere else (and we do not greet those we do not know). Partly based on this politeness I became very good friends with a girl who got back from UK. She became more polite too. We were known as the most polite people in our department.
Greeting is a norm as well as "how are you" question. Although people usually do not expect any negative answer here, and I'm totally fine with any answer as long if it's true. If greeting is a norm, does that mean that I'm in trouble when someone does not say "Hi" at the beginning of the letter to me?
Personally, I try to put "hi" or some kind of a greeting in any message, unless it is not one out of several messages in conversation. And when I do not get greeting from a person I feel that maybe I've done something bad.

Or is that a form of a conversation where greeting can be omitted? What about SMS? is it polite not to say "Hi" there?

bed time story: experiencing american mattresses

Have you ever try to sleep with someone on the same bed here in the US? I'm not asking about any bed activity, just sleeping. Let's say you are visiting a friend and he/she does not have spare bed so you share and let's say the size of bed is either full or queen.
I have experience sleeping on several mattresses - cheap and expensive, big and small, nice and not so nice - and all the time I would have the same thing. If you share it with someone, or someone would just sit on the side of the bed while you are lying in there - you would feel like you are on the ship in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. These mattresses do not suppress any movements, but the opposite - they make them to resonate. It feels like someone is jumping on the bed while you are sleeping.
It is fun at the beginning, but what if you are just fell asleep and the other person decided to turn from the right to the left side - get ready for shaking experience! These mattresses may result in motion-sickness.
Is that the way to promote privacy and individual sleeping? :))

but local mattresses are so good for jumping!!!

my school is my prison

For me any building, where people spend significant amount of time, should have walls, a roof, at least one door and windows to make sure that during the day the insides of the building are lighted.
But there are exceptions! For example a warehouse. Some people do work in them and they do not see a lot of day light. Another example is a prison. I've never been to one, but for some reason I believe they might not have windows... Lamp light has some suppressing effect on people and when people do not see enough of day light they get depressed (and feel punished). Also absence of (day) light make the space look smaller and does not give any feeling of a freedom. And again, view from the window kinda "extends" the room and make it look bigger.
Imagine my condition when I went to my college for the first time. Building looks really nice but it has windows only on the third and second floors out of five floors. More over, for the person who spend a lot of time outside there was not enough air on the first floor (which is almost under the ground).
Modern architecture is a wonderful thing, you can create whatever looking good, but don't forget about people who will be working/living in that building. Don't forget about functionality of the building. It is not about attracting people's attention, not in case of a school.
Actually the more you pay attention to that the more building with very little on no windows you see. It seems to be ok for the US. Even the place where I live... really small windows...
But what at least about energy saving and not turning the lights on during the day?

"my job is to make my professor happy"

I had a wonderful discussion today with a friend of mine. He is TA (teaching assistant) for some professor in the school. TAs are responsible for administering tests, check tests, take attendance and etc. So basically they are responsible for the less interesting part of the teaching process.
So we've been talking about situation that he had with one of his students and he said at some point that his job is to make his professor happy.
Well isn't that a very hard job to make someone happy? People are so unpredictable. On the other side - isn't it the easiest job ever? All you need is to make your boss to smile and treat t as his happiness.
The funny thing about it was that it can be translated to my language also as satisfied. And we often use this expression "my only responsibility is to satisfy my boss" referring to our jobs. But this expression has 2 meanings one of which includes sexual context. People use this expression as a joke all the time. If only my friend knew what I had in my mind when he said about making his professor happy... I'm sure he would not say something like this again... :)

shopping for tomatoes

Have you ever seen people who smell each tomato before they put it in their basket??
Know what??? Those are internationals. And know why?? We want TOMATOES - red vegetables with distinct tomato smell.
For some reason tomatoes here do not taste like real tomatoes and do not smell. But those that do smell taste so much better then others.

I wonder if those who shop for vegetables in stores as opposed to farmers markets (and even in Earth Fare tomatoes are not good) ever tried good tomatoes? But maybe people just do not care? I know already several people who do not like veggies and fruits - which seems to be almost like impossible to me. Aren't fruits and some of veggies the most tasty things in the world?