la confiance.

piggy backing off my last post, it's been rather refreshing living in a country that actually trusts their citizens. i first realized this a few weeks ago when i bought some hot chocolate mix. when i got home i was looking at the container to find the directions and felt oddly uncomfortable that there weren't any. then i snapped out of it and realized all i had to do was add enough powder to my taste to some hot milk. not difficult at all and rather logical and i didn't need printed directions to tell me how to do it. on the contrary, in the US everything has very explicit directions and outrageous warnings against every single possibility. i'm pretty sure there are many websites and books detailing these outrageous warnings that an intelligent person would never think of doing. but i'm sure somewhere along the line someone did something stupid then sued someone and someone had to pay a lot of money so now companies feel the need to hold the hand of every consumer in order to protect themselves from liability. a lot of it is really unnecessary and it's nice to be away from it.

i also learned today in my french civilization class that there are 12 communists in the current french general assembly (equivalent to the US house of representatives). as the new york dolls said, better red than dead.