Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

Normally I’m all too content with the public education I received. I’m a firm supporter of public education in the United States. I recognize there are flaws in the system, and that the current school system often fails a remarkable number of young people, but I really believe in the philosophy of a society investing itself in the education of its young people. I believe that parents should be actively involved in their children’s education. It is my firm assertion that the schools exist to assist parents in teaching their kids, not the other way around. All this said, I have to admit to being wildly disappointed in my inability to comprehend and function within the metric system, and I blame my American public school education . . .well, kind of. Deep down I know it's all my own fault. Laugh all you want, but it’s a lousy feeling. I feel somehow less intelligent than my European friends (and pretty much everybody else in the world) who know exactly how long 45 centimeter

I have always been a counter. I count . . . well, anything, actually. I count to pass the time, to avoid boredom, or to distract my mind when I’m doing something that’s particularly hard or distasteful. When I was a girl washing dishes, I would look at the dirty ones and estimate how many of each type of dish there might be, then I kept track in my head as I washed them. Six spoons, two knives, four forks, three plates, two bowls, and a spatula . . . it was pretty tricky sometimes, and required no small amount of concentration. I found it weirdly entertaining, and enjoyed the challenge of seeing how accurately I could estimate the actual numbers. I count breaths. I count cars. I count street signs. Anything. It could be related to the same element that caused Steven to arrange and sort his Micro-Machines instead of rolling them along the floor as a child. He would spend hours doing it. All the red ones, the blue ones, the yellow ones. Then he’d mix them up and sort them into rows of