Americanized

Recently I took an online survey on the difference in perception of intelligence between American and South Asian. It was part of data collection for someone's research. The questions were ok, like, do you think intelligence is something we are born with or can be it acquired with hard work, do everyone is born with same amount of intelligence? etc. Towards the end of the survey, there was a question that intrigued. It asked:

How much Americanized do you consider yourself to be?

It has been on back of my mind ever since. How do you define and, more importantly, measure Americanization? Well as far as definition goes, Meriam-Webster says:

Main Entry:

Amer·i·can·ize

Pronunciation:

\ə-ˈmer-ə-kə-ˌnīz, -ˈmər-, -ˈme-rə-\

Function:

verb

Inflected Form(s):

Amer·i·can·ized; Amer·i·can·iz·ing

Date:

1797

transitive verb
1 : to cause to acquire or conform to American characteristics 2 : to bring (as an area) under the political, cultural, or commercial influence of the United States intransitive verb
: to acquire or conform to American traits

However, I haven't found any measure of the term. Seems to me that it's pretty subjective. If you ask my Grandma, or for that matter few of my cousins, I am completely Americanized as I can speak fluent English and live alone. But if you ask someone who grew up here, I am still clueless. Like the other day my room-mate and I were watching news and there was a piece about O. J. Simpson. I had no clue about who he is and my room-mate reaction was how can you not know O.J. Simpson (Apparently he was a famous footballer in 70s who killed his wife in 90s).

Anyway, question still remains: How Americanized am I ? In order to answer that question, I decided to make a list of traits for each category. Here they are:

American Traits:

1. I have started understanding and following the American news. I have always been bad with remembering celebrities: Indian, American or otherwise so that doesn't count (still I know Paris Hilton though I might not be able to recognize her).
2. I don't follow Bollywood any longer. I do love watching movies so I have switched to Hollywood for that.
3. I have a car and I drive it quite a bit.
4. I work-out and eat healthy (though I am not sure it falls in American Category...there should be a California or rather Bay-area category for this.).
5. I have a calendar to remind me of different appointments.
6. I floss every night.

Indian Traits:

1. I kinda follow Indian news though not the way I used to.
2. I still like old Hindi numbers. I don't have patience for English songs.
3. I still have a bike and love to bike. I don't do it as often due to my schedule.
4. I still like Indian food and usually eat that.
5. I don't balance my check book. Ever. That's one concept I can't get used to.
6. My dentist lives in India.

Well that's all I can think of. Seems I have equal points in each category. May be I am 50% American and 50% Indian. Like half-n-half. At least now I know. Next time I should be able answer that question.

P.S.: I am just procrastinating. I have the last HW submission tomorrow and my code isn't working. I can't figure out what's wrong (Everything is by the book, I have checked at least 15 times) so I am just taking a break...