I was part of the Gen X world who experienced that brief moment in time when the US educational system decided it was going to become like a normal country and start using metric. I absolutely loved it. It made so much sense, and to this day, I can move readily between volume, distance, and weight measures quite readily.

The problem has *always* been Celsius. It means nothing to me. I don’t mean doing the conversion. I can do that. It’s just in reading or conversation, I just don’t have a sense of whether a measurement in Celsius is relatively hot or relatively cold. I have always felt very bad about this, and always assumed someday I’d have a better grasp of it. But it hasn’t come.

One of my most wonderful students Dustin Wong who has traveled at lot but is I believe originally from Singapore overhead me describe this problem, and he said to me “Fahrenheit means nothing to me.” Since I’m pretty sure Dustin is 40 times smarter than me (Dustin actually has a legit shot at TRULY being the Smartest urbanist in the room), his comment made me feel much better.

I was stuck at the cancer center waiting and waiting and waiting for my imaging appointment and I decided to take myself in hand and try to learn what Celsius means relative to my own understanding of temperature (what I call “the Lisadex”) and Fahrenheit. Also, I decided to do a silly font because waiting at the cancer center is depressing and blows.

The result follows: