16 October 2009

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 1)


--1--

Every now and then I get these random thoughts in my head that are slightly too long for twitter but too small for a blog post all their own (i.e. totally pointless, and your life wouldn't be lacking if I never typed any of it out). But then I discovered Conversion Diary. She invented this marvelous thing called Quick Take Fridays, and that's when I realized that God put her blog into my life for a reason. Not to bring me closer to Him or anything* - no, that'd be too obvious - but instead to show me the most efficient and valuable way to amass all trivial short stories of mine into one post once a week so that my imaginary readers out there can waste their time in bulk, rather than a few minutes out of every day (you know...by reading all those pointless blogs that I'm constantly posting on here. All the time. Everyday. Because I'm such a regular poster and all.)

*please note my facetiousness here. God enjoys a good chuckle too, fyi.

Anyway, let's try this out.

--2--

I work at a franchise portrait studio at one of the local malls, and as part of the check-in process with the customers, we always take down the children's birthdays (and about 98% of the shoots consist of children, so we take down a LOT of birthdays). Now, there's this (unrelated to my job, but related to this here story) thing called the Birthday Problem, which basically says that the number of people needed in order to reach the odds of 50/50 that at least two people share a birthday is.........23. I know. You'd think it'd be something a bit more (theoretically) common sense like 182.5, but whatever. It's called the Birthday Problem for a reason. And back to my job, I always like taking down the kids' birthdays out of the hope that one of them will have the same birthday as me, because kids always seem to flip out when someone shares their birthday (okay, I might flip out a little too, since I'm five years old and all), and it's cute and adorable and it's a good way to get on the good side of the kids before you blind them to death with about a hundred flashes. And I've been at this job since, what? January? February? I can't even remember now, but it's been a decent amount of time. And I have asked HUNDREDS of children when their birthdays are. Maybe even a thousand. So, just take a guess at how many of those children have had the same birthday as me. Seriously. Just guess. I'm gonna move on to #3 while you take your sweet, precious time guessing since this is becoming a longer story than I had anticipated.

--3--

I have a deviantArt page, and I don't know if anyone cares, but I've moved as of today. My account there is so old, I was still going by 'havenli,' and honestly, doesn't that sound like a name some lonely, pathetic high school freshman girl would come up with? Yes. Yes it does. And that probably has to do with the fact that I was a lonely, pathetic high school freshman girl when I came up with it. Yeah, it's THAT old. Almost a decade, which is terrifying to think about actually. Anyway, I've been desperate to shed that name from all sites I'm still active on, which is why I went through the tedious task of re-registering and reuploading a whole bunch of my photos under my new account. It's not all the photos (Lord knows that'd take DAYS), but at least the ones worthy to stick around. Oh, and some new ones are there too. So. Go there. Look around. You can buy some of my pictures too. That'd be nice actually. Real nice. Mama needs a new camera.

--4--

NONE! That's how many kids I've worked with at my job who have the same birthday as me. Not a single, solitary kid. Out of ALLLLLL those hundreds of children. I've even had twins come in who didn't share the same birthday as each other (one born at 11:something PM and the other born at 12:something AM), and really now, what are the odds of THAT? I'd put my money on it being less than 50% for every 1 in 23 sets of twins, that's for sure.

Anyway, there wasn't really a point to that, I just think it's weird, is all. My birthday defies the laws of probability.

--5--

Speaking of work, I've stopped liking my job ages and ages ago. I won't bore you with the details, but I've been looking for something else for a while now. The problem is, I'm moving to Florida come January 20th. So do I stay at a job I hate for another 3 months? Or do I find another job, knowing I won't be there very long. If it was a job I didn't care about, say...a grocery bagger or something else everyday with a high turnover rate, it wouldn't be an issue to me. But I just had an interview today with my church for part-time position in its pre-school, and they seemed to love me and I loved them and we laughed and cried and we saw rainbows and unicorns among us, and unless of they interview someone with actual teaching credentials (which is entirely possible), I think there's a good chance (better than 50% of 1 in 23 applicants!) that I might be offered the job. Only I'd have to leave in 3 months. And I KNOW I'd have to leave and they don't, which makes it worse because they even asked me about future plans, which I had to lie about. That's right, I had to LIE. IN CHURCH. Okay, I actually didn't lie. They asked about "next semester" with my class schedule, and I said that my classes would be no problem, and that's technically not a lie. I just withheld a little information. Which, FINE, it's just as bad, and I might as well stock up on Dermoplast Spray for Hell now. But still. I think I'd like working there. Better than where I am now (oh, how I do not like where I am now). But I would feel awful leaving them so soon like that. Then again, I don't even have the job, and might not even be offered the job, so I guess I'll just pray on it and cross that bridge when I get there.

--6--

Oh my gosh, I'm just now on #6 and still have #7 to go? Wait, this counts. Ha! Beat the system.

--7--

In case you missed the quick allusion to it earlier, my camera is broken. It's gonna cost $212 to fix, which was just AWESOME to find out, I'm sure you can imagine. Only Canon has this upgrade program where I can let them keep my camera, and I can instead upgrade to a better camera, though one that is refurbished. At first, the word "refurbished" scared me, until I realized that that's basically what my camera is being right now - "refurbished." So instead of getting my Canon Rebel XT back, I can get a refurbished Canon 50D for $629 (they're about $1200 new), and ohhhh, is it ever tempting. I mean, I have to spend $200 anyway, what's another $400 for a better camera? Well, it's another $400, I suppose, if you want to get all bogged down by the details. But it is such a great deal. I guess it's just one more thing to add to my prayer list.

2 comments:

  1. > I have asked HUNDREDS of children when their birthdays are. Maybe even a thousand. So, just take a guess at how many of those children have had the same birthday as me.

    The chance of not a single kid sharing the same birthday as you, where N is the number of children, is

    1 - (( 364 / 365 ) ^ N)

    For 200 kids you've got a 42% chance of having found your match.

    For 400 kids you've got a 67% chance of having found your match.

    For 800 kids you've got a 89% chance of having found your match.

    For 1600 kids you've got a 99% chance of having found your match.


    So, if you've seen 800 kids, it's unlikely, but not totally bizarre, that you haven't yet matched your birthday.

    There, how's that for nerdy?

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  2. Hmph. Thanks for ruining my fantasy where my birthday is some special, magical day that only I was born on, which would somehow play an important role in me becoming some sort of super hero due to my uniqueness and currently-dormant, soon-to-be-unlocked magic powers.

    How cruel of you to use math against me!

    ReplyDelete