Job Discussion Forums

[hmbaba]

Hi
I think I'm with scot47 on this...
There are lots of postings on the eslcafe about life in any country you might want to go to... go back thru some old messages.
How much baggage - ask the airline - find out the conversion of lb to kg. (And are you talking physical or mental baggage - sorry, couldn't resist that.)
Sure I can tell you that my daughter once had 5 encyclopaedias in her backpack and we didn't pay a cent, and others can come up with anecdotes.... US it's 2 bags - ask the airline the max per bag.
Shipping costs - well, you could phone airlines and shipping places to get some ideas...
You can call me a sanctimonious beep or anything you like, but there IS info you can get yourself. The eslcafe should be one of several resources you use, not the only one, and maybe use it after you have expired ones within anyone's reasonable capability and capacity as a thinking adult - or use it to verify info - 'I have heard that 2.2 lb = 1kg, is this true?'
You have accepted the job WITHOUT checking up on the lifestyle and feelings towards Americans and what's available? And NOW you are asking these questions?
Good luck to you in whatever you do in life.
Maybe now I understand your handle.
Feel free to attack me and insult me.
Heather

[menace2society32]

Whoever said this is the first tool I have utilized to gather info on life in the UAE? It doesn't hurt to get more does it so that you have a varied view which makes it easier to come to a general conclusion. Like someone said, there are other sources besides this site. As for the weight of the luggage sometimes it varies by airline and I have yet to receive a ticket (which I will get in a couple of days). Therefore I can't get an exact weight limit yet as some airlines do differ on their limits. So I am sorry for trying to once again get a general estimate. The way some of you act on this site your lives must be very pitiful and sad along with a lot of loneliness and isolation. All of you attackers seem like the type who are so miserable in life that you have to belittle everyone who is a stranger because that makes you feel better. I was once like that......AT THE AGE OF 10 or 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Grow up people!!!! Especially in times such as these, EFL and ESL teachers should he helping each other not attacking. Thank goodness I am not European (no offense to the individuals who have assisted me greatly) because I can walk past you low lifes in the UAE and you won't try to spark up a conversation with me!!!!!!!! A little enlightenment for those of you who think you are global-minded. Knowing the conversion of pounds to kilos, or knowing how to use chopsticks (if in Asia), or being able to communicate in another language does not mean you are global-minded. It simply means you can adapt or function better in another country as far as day to day living is concerned. I have encountered individuals such as yourselves throughout my life throughout this world who have traveled all over but are still some of the most ignorant and nationalistic people on the face of this planet. I think you people have not used your global experience in a positive manner, one that leads to understanding of other people and other cultures. Your experience has only enlarged your egos and your arrogant ethnocentric attitude which (maybe unknowingly to you) only worsens international relationships between all people and all nations across this world and in the end creates a negative future not only for future language instructors but the world in general. None of you have even thought that maybe my parents were born and raised in the ME and moved to the U.S. before I was born. Just something to think about. BUt yet I have so many ignorant minds telling me I won't be able to adapt to a culture that I have lived with my entire life while simultaneously experiencing Western culture in general. I feel sorry for EFL and ESL students across this globe who actually have to depend on ignorant minds such as the ones expressing themselves on this thread to learn English. You are all so global but you seem to forget that the impression (from a social standpoint) that you make on the future leaders of this world (the students who you teach) have so much more of an affect on them then your ability to be articulate and speak perfect English. Yet you claim to be so global.

[Cleopatra]

Menace to society,
I agree that some of the replies have got way out of hand and descended into the gratuitous. I think what some people - incl myself - were struck by was your insistence in your original post that weights absolutely must be quoted to you in pounds. It just gave the impression - false though it may well be - that you were not prepared to make the mental adjustment to using a system the rest of the world came around to long ago. it might be only a little thing, but little things count.

[menace2society32]

I didn't insist on pounds. I simply asked. Don't put words in my mouth. And I no where utilized the word absolutely or a word with a similar meaning when requesting pounds. Besides the system of measurements differing, there may be different absolute weights when comparing America to Europe in terms of how much they can take with them. So all I did was ask for pounds just because if I received a whole bunch of different figures from different replies, I wouldn't have to keep converting. And most importantly my comment about pounds was meant to be humorous in the first place as a means to acknowledge America's tendency to not fall in line sometimes with the rest of the world. But just the fact that you along with everyone else chose to personally attack me, my character, and in general my so-called lack of "global intelligence" over something as minute as a simple conversion simply proves everything mentioned in my previous long reply. And pounds to kilos is minute. It also proves that I myself have wasted too much time replying to small-minded people. I do what to send a sincere thank you however to those who provided useful info without feeling the need to attack and choosing to simply not comment on something if you could only think of negative things to say. That is all it takes for people to avoid conflict. I sincerely thank you guys for demonstrating a true neccesity of "global intelligence" and being "worldly." Your comrads have a long way to go. And one more thing to the attackers. Just because an individual is from America or wherever they were raised does not neccesarily mean they are patriotic. So the fact that you think you can judge someone simply because of where they were born or raised does nothing but further prove your lack of global understanding. I have said enough. I will not debate anymore. Hopefully we will learn to use sites such as these to help not attack. I

[Stephen Jones]

Menace, there is no way you can easily find out what you are allowed to carry. Ask the airline and they will alwaya tell you what is on the ticket. 20kg.

However, every airline actually has a higher figure, which is the one they apply. However they pretend this doesn't exist, and change it at their will. And you get nice anomalies, such as the fact that for Gulf to South Asia flights at present the cartel seems to have decided on 40kg going out from the Gulf, but only 30kg coming back, so you get stung at the airport, even if you have exactly the same weight you came out with. It's called entrapment marketing. Also the excess charges are entirely arbitrary. Incidentally they normally ask you to weigh the hand baggage and allow you 7kg.

If you're sending a load of other stuff, then play safe and keep near the official limit. I'd send the stuff air-freight. Costs $2-4 a kilo and there is probably a minimum of 120-200kg. If you use shipping you'll have to rent part of a container, and the price will be equivalent. Worth it if you are taking everything including the kitchen sink, but not otherwise.

[MindTraveller]

With a name like "menace2society" etc..... the name says it all.

Too much raging, without paragraphs, for my reading enjoyment.

[scot47]

Paragraphs ? You expect people to write in Paragraphs ? What do you think I am ? An English teacher ?

[Belmont]

MindTraveller...good comment about the rantings of the above mentioned person. It's people like him/her that give us EFL'ers a bad name!

[scot47]

People who cannot think in kilos, meters and in degrees celsius should not be allowed to practice this noble profession.

When I am running the show there will be a test in this - as well as in Latin Grammar - to weed out unsuitable candidates.

Check out the post on another forum where some New Yorker refuses to deal in Celsius and insists on Fahrenheit. ("What To Pack For Beijing")

[Albulbul]

The insistence on pounds, gallons and miles reminds me of a conference I was invited to.

In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it was hosted by an "International" School.

"Multiculural Emphasis in the Modern Classroom"
to be held at............
on 06/07/02

The organiser had so little exposure to "Multiculturalism" that she did not realise that this style of giving the date has two distinct meanings, depending on wheteher your cultural world focusses on London, England, or Washington DC. It could be the 6th of July or the 7th of June.

When people make booboos like this it reinforces the stereotype of the American who wants everthing done HER way ! ( well sometimes its a "he" not a "she".)

[Cleopatra]

I had an American friend in KSA - a very kind, intelligent woman, I should add - who had lived there for several years. yet she insisted in going around talking aobut pounds, inches and other measurements which no-one outside the US uses anymore, and which KSA never used at all.

It's only a small point, I know, but it IS annoying. It's tacitly saying "I don't conform to your rules, you conform to mine, even though I'm in your country."

[johnslat]

Dear Cleopatra,
I see your point - and yet, I have to wonder. If you were in the USA, would you use pounds, inches, etc? Or would you figure things in terms of kilos and centimeters? Old habits are hard to break.
Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

Hi all,

As usual JohnS has put his finger exactly on the problem. Whichever of the two systems one has grown up with, changing is very difficult. Certain parts of the metric system I found easy to change to - like Celsius (though I still translated it in my mind for years - fortunately in the Middle East that didn't involve a large part of the two scales. ) I found it relatively easy to switch to food measurements, but I have yet to this day to be able to relate to my weight and height in metric. I have probably translated my height dozens of times for class exercises we did, but right now I don't have a clue as to what 5'4" is in metric.

Personally I wish that we had changed to metric years ago and I wish that Reagan hadn't stopped it. The logic of it is obvious, but the expense of a changeover in a country the size of the US is phenomenal. But, as John said - visitors here never learn to use our system without grumbling and it is really the same. When you have had a measurement system pounded into your head from the time you are a child, changing it ain't easy - even if you want to. For me to use metric in a conversation requires either a pencil and paper and/or a calculator to translate it - and that is after 18 years. The date turnaround still confuses me when I read it - but I learned to write dates using the word for the month. I expect that fewer people learn to think in a completely different measuring system than learn to think in a second language learning as an adult - especially a middle-aged adult.

VS

PS: I too am put off by some of these arrogant young posters who demand that their responders translate the numbers for them rather than doing it themselves - a laziness that I recognized from my students--- 'we don't want to look it up in our dictionary, miss, just tell us what it means'

[scot47]

Adapting to the use of the metric system and Celsius is hardly like becoming a rocket scientist !

My hunch is that those who cannot do this are also those who are constitutionally and psychologically incapable of learning a foreign language.

Should someone like this be involved in cross-cultural education ?

[veiledsentiments]

Oh Scot!! Since when are language people good at math! I'd say that they were the small minority.

The reality is that I am quite good at math - an accountant for many years. And, a darn good teacher according to my students and supervisors (some days I even felt that they were right). I had little or no trouble adapting to my new cultures and enjoyed the challenges and the differences.

And -- I had a helluva time adapting, and as I said before, never got comfortable with probably 70% of the metric system. It is the same as a new language and all research in our field shows that if you don't learn them prior to puberty, few will do well or become fluent.

If you had to be good at learning a foreign language to teach a language, that would exclude the vast majority of teachers from the British Isles, the Americas, and English-speaking Austral-Asia. But the fault is not the intelligence of their residents, but the cultural/linguistic arrogance of their educational systems. What is taught tends to be too little and too late. Not to mention, I have taught with quite a number of bi-or tri-lingual people who were lousy, even abysmally lousy teachers.

Sounds to me like you are stereotyping (generalizing actually) - weren't you getting after someone in another thread for doing this about senses of humor??

VS