Afternoon is a vague time concept for me since in my home country it is usually used to describe any given time between 4pm to say 7pm. Which also means that for me as a mom this is a time frame I would refrain from scheduling work related meetings since it may risk my ability to pick up my kids from school on time. Basically afternoon starts exactly when noon ends, and noon here is 12 sharp, while back home noon is a lengthy period of time that lasts from 12 to around 4pm. That is also why scheduling a meeting at noon will require additional followup and correspondence to schedule the exact time. Here, I would be expected to show up on 12 for a meeting at noon, only being raised on another side of the globe I was aware of the fact that I would have to switch centimeters to inches, celsius to fahrenheit and move my clock 7 hours back, but I wasn't quite prepared for changing my time perception (not to mention switching from 24hr to am and pm which I still find somewhat confusing). One couldn't know that without a thorough orientation... This could create a wide degree of miss communication, but even now, that I am aware of the discrepancy, I still get somewhat distress when am asked to meet in the afternoon or when attending a lecture that is supposed to end no later than 2pm and get the phrase: "We will cover this in the afternoon" from the instructor, with the thought of an unexpected extension of the talk crossing my mind. I don't think I could ever grow out of my already well imprinted time concepts, but I already know I'd better show up at 12 to my weekly noon lab meetings as long as I am in the U.S.
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