Friday, August 20, 2010

so..Connecticut

DH & his team did such an awesome job this summer down at Ft AP Hill that they have job prospects doing the same installation/moderation thing at the NY State Fair and somewhere in Connecticut later this year.

Imagine the joy I feel at the prospect of DH spending days, nay weeks, at a time in upstate NY and in Connecticut.

And I don’t even know where Connecticut is.

Somewhere in the north eastern part of the country.

Nowhere within daily driving distance.

Yes I just admitted my geographical ignorance to the internet at large.

Yes, Americans…bad at geography…stereotypes… etc.

Look, once upon a time I knew where Connecticut was. I still can pick it out on the map if you give me a couple seconds. If you give me a full minute I probably can recall the name of the capitol city.

OK, maybe two minutes and a lifeline.

Sorry.

The parts of my brain that used to hold that state info from 4th grade geography have been taken over by the names of every single Pokemon, where it comes from & what it evolves into. Or possibly all those dinosaur stats & muffin recipes. Or the random Star Wars stuff that has been cluttering my brain & competing with the geography info for space literally since the 4th grade (1976-77).

Only jumbled bits of it remain.

Ask me what state is near Connecticut and I will confidently and correctly answer Rhode Island! Leading you think I know where Connecticut is, but if you then ask me what state is near Rhode Island and is not Connecticut, there will be a long pause and I will say “um…Massachusetts?” and I will be correct, but only by coincidence, not because of prior knowledge.

Ask me to name a state near Iowa and I will say Kansas.

After checking with Google maps it turns out I am only wrong by a small part of Missouri.

Obviously a generality of geography still exists.

I know Sri Lanka is in Asia, but mentally I put it closer to Vietnam than India.

But seriously, when was the last time I needed, really NEEDED, to know where Sri Lanka was, or Iowa?

Basically not ever in the past 15 years

How many plates a Stegosaurs has though? Or the name of the Clone Trooper who works with Obi Wan Kenobi? Or what Admiral Akbar’s native language is? Those I needed to know just this past week alone.

I do now need to know where Connecticut is. And thanks to google maps I now know it is 7-8 hours, give or take, from where I live.

Which is about what I thought it would be, despite not knowing where it was. So I suppose I retain at least some geographic knowledge, subconsciously.

DH will be gone for days at a time if they end up in Connecticut.

I would register my unhappiness about that but I’m not sure if it would matter from a job requirement perspective.

He better be home in November & December.

5 comments:

Darcy said...

I'm not big on capital, either. I'm happy that the boys know where the state is (or country or region), but to name capitals..I'm not so vigilant.

Lori's LOLz said...

It's so good to know that others know geography like I do. I never learned much in school, it was the way it was taught more than me not remembering. Now my children are enrolled in a public online school and we school at home. SO...huge benefit for me is that I'm getting my education now, becuase I sure didn't get it back then.

Mel said...

Just catching up after my holiday! Not good to hear to hear about jobs in Connecticut (but I have no clue where it is either. And I can hardly cite my Englishness as an excuse, because I have no clue where most English counties are either...) Love the look of the recipe you shared the other day, thanks for that xx

Suzette Mahoney said...

we share a common bond in the geography issue! And those crackers look YUMMY!

The Style Sisters said...

Just hopped on over from Blog Frog...Nice to meet you.