This past Friday here in Buenos Aires it was now three hours earlier in New York than it was here. Today, on Monday, it is now one hour earlier there than it is there. That’s what happens when one location falls back and the other springs forward.
I’ve never been very good with time, keeping track of it, being on time with it, leaving enough of it to accomplish work and on an on. Of particular confusion for me has been these things called “time changes.” I never have a clue when changes in time are taking place and I definitely don’t know why.
I’m also not so great with managing time zones, often calling someone three hours later than intended instead of six hours early, just because I happened to be in California and they happened to be in New York, or maybe it was the other way around. (And why would I be calling three hours late, anyway?)
The medical profession has been nice enough to give my serious problem managing time a name: “Time Ineptitude” (TI). But just because it has a name, there is no medication to help me overcome it and, gasp!, it had gotten worse — and become even more mystifying — thanks to my move to Buenos Aires. I’m constantly on the phone to people in the USA and Europe and I often call at the wrong times sometimes calling mere hour or two early and seeming overly eager, but usually just like a disorganized idiot. (When I called photographer Philip Kuruvita more a full DAY late, he asked if I had been down-and-out with a bad hangover, bless his Aussie heart.)
These two human beings -- in front of the best cookies EVER -- live in New York City. Do they know that the time difference between their home and and my home in Buenos Aires changed from 3 to 1? If so, do they have any idea WHY?
When I moved here on July 4, 2006, the time in New York was one hour earlier than here in BA, and of course that made California four hours earlier. Minus Three for Colorado, and who knows about Arizona. This didn’t seem too bad and I thought I could manage. But things got trickier.
At one point — yet again screwing up a phone call with my TI — I noticed that the difference between BA and NYC had changed to Minus Two. Then, oddly, a few weeks later it changed to Minus Three. This made California a whopping Minus Six. And by this, I could deduce that made Colorado had become Minus Five instead of Minus Three. But I had no idea what might have happened in relation to Arizona and, more important, I couldn’t imagine why this was all happening in the first place.
This is kind of how things went along for a while, my TI ensuring that I was generally confused about what time it was where and why. Sometimes Minus One, other times Minus Two, then Minus Three again for a cool long time before the Minus One came back.
A year ago, someone less TI than I smacked me on the head when Minus Three changed to Minus Two and I expressed confusion. He pointed out something supremely obvious to those of you who are not suffering from Time Ineptitude: Not only is Earthly Time affected by the fact that we live on a globe spinning around, but — get this! — our Earthly Time is affected by the wild fact that the northern and southern hemispheres are angled towards the Sun relation at, um, different angles. (Yeah, I know: Derr.)
I’m sure you already learned this stuff in kindergarten, but I hardly understand it myself even now, and I’ve been in a Time Ineptitude Training Camp for nearly three years. So I repeat:
“This past Friday here in Buenos Aires it was now three hours earlier in New York than it was here. Today, on Monday, it is now one hour earlier there than it is there. That’s what happens when one location falls back and the other springs forward.”
Forgetting WHY we have time changes (I once heard it had something to do with farming, another time that it had to do with saving energy, and another time that is just for “shits and giggles”), the fact is that I live in a place that is not only considerably farther east than New York (ensuring that the spinning Earth exposes us to the Sun’s rays earlier) but I also live much farther south — meaning that I’m angled closer to or father away from the sun at different times of the year. Apparently this is why, when we change the times on our clocks twice a year, we do so in opposite directions.
Actually, this makes things a lot clearer--NOT.
This weekend we subtracted an hour while New York added an hour, and three became one.
Even though I suffer from Time Ineptitude, I do remember that, in relation to the this clock-changing habit, someone once told me: “Spring forward, fall back.”
It’s going from hot and muggy to rainy and less muggy here in Buenos Aires (that would be “Fall”), so this weekend we reset our clocks “back” an hour. In New York it is going from freezing to less freezing (that would be “Spring”) so all those people up there are reset their clocks “forward” an hour. (I can’t speak for Arizona)
Since I moved to Buenos Aires I’m pretty sure this was the first time that this hour-shifting happened in both countries on the same weekend, if not in the same direction. Because this had not happened before, this resulted in my further confusion about the mysterious two hour difference that would last for a week or two, or maybe even longer if I was on a major drug binge, which really reeks havoc with time.
I wish that my slightly better understanding of this 3 to 1 nature of time would give me a slightly better understanding of the movements of the heavenly bodies. But it doesn’t. I can hardly grasp that the world is round, which seems REALLY counter intuitive to me.
You know, it’s like, I realize Galileo would cream himself for the opportunity to explore his concepts of universal mechanics by observing the same phenomena from different locations on the planet — or even to be able to merely compare notes while talking to another observer in real-time via Skype.
Myself, I just can’t make much sense of it all. I’m not sure if this is just an embarrassing statement about my scientific idiocy or also a comment on greater how access to data and planet-hopping experiences doesn’t necessarily make one more perceptive, or both.
Whatever time it might be wherever you might be, maybe you can share something about this topic. Do you suffer from Time Ineptitude (TI). If so, what’s the worst screw up (or greatest accidental benefit) you have ever derived from your condition? If you’re not suffering from TI, maybe you can share a BASIC idea about Time, Time Zones and the Time Changes in relation to life on this round, spinning planet (I really don’t belive it).