Reestablishing my Americanness

If I were asked six months ago to pick three categories of people I despised the most, they would be: (1) people who drive so slow in the left lane of traffic that I have to pass them in the right, (2) people who spend a short amount of time in a new place and begin acting like they’ve fully adapted to that culture, and (3) this dood I’ve met like twice who calls himself ‘Pope’. As much as I tried to avoid it and as lame as it is to admit, I’ve started to realize I’m becoming more and more like those posers in (2). Here are a few of the lame things I find myself doing:
(1) Referring to time in military time. For example, 6 pm would be 18 hours.
(2) Referring to dates with the day of the month first. For example, February 7, 2008 would be 7 February 2008.
(3) Talking very slowly and painfully over annunciating every word.

Filled with shame, I just want everyone to knoe that I DID stay up Sunday night/Monday morning for the Super Bowl. It came on at 1 am. I ate chilli, chicken wings, and binge drank as much soda as possible. I incorrectly predicted the coin toss for the first time in years (I’m still shocked it wasn’t heads). I loathe the commercials here.
As per the outcome of the game, let’s just say that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to return to the states so long as Eli Manning is the QB of the world champion football team. I guess I’ll see everyone in January 2009 or we’ll have to arrange some rendezvous in Tijuana. I got home at 5:30 a.m. and was at work by 8:00 a.m.

I tried to cement my American status by watching the Duke v North Carolina late last night. I even made plans on where to watch it and found someone to watch it with me. These plans failed miserably when I made the oversight of not checking when the game came on (noon today) and thus apparently stayed up for nothing. In retrospect, not having to listen to Dick Vitale and not having to see Duke win is probably a blessing in disguise.

Oh yeah. My office mate just bought me Cherry Pop Tarts at the U.S. Embassy. I am not going to lie, these are going to be the highlight of my week.