'Compare People'

I received a Facebook invitation to add an application called 'Compare People'.



I thought it seemed interesting, so I added it, instead of clicking 'ignore' like I normally do. =)





It's actually quite good fun!



Basically, it asks you questions, such as, 'Who would you rather be stuck with on a desert island?' and shows you 2 of your friends, and you have to click on the appropriate person.



It stores all of the info, and then uses everyones statistics to compare you with your friends.



At the moment, I'm winning for 'Person with the Best Smile', 'Best Shopping Companion', 'Most Talkative', and 'Person who would make a Better Mother'

When it shows the results, it tells you your rank (1st, 2nd etc), the number of times you were compared with someone else, the number of votes you won, and the percentage of votes you won.

Looking through my results has reminded me about a lot of statistical problems I did in GCSE maths.
For example, although I'm ranked 1st in my network for 'Person who would make a Better Mother', I only won 3 votes our of a possible 4; i.e 75%.
And I'm ranked 2nd for 'Person I would rather have dinner with', for which I got 100% of the vote (3/3).

Not surprisingly, I am ranked 33rd in my network for 'more tech-savvy'. 0% of 3 votes.

But guess what? For 'more talkative', I won 100% of a whopping 7 votes. 8-) (Actually, maybe that doesn't surprise you either...?!)

To be honest, making a good mother is a far more useful life skill than being an entertaining dinner guest in my opinion. Not that my opinion effects the statistics in any way.


______

Update: since writing this, I have been over taken by someone who is, apparently, 'more talkative' than me.
That person is Mike Pilavachi (Big Loud Greek Man In Equally Loud Poncho Who Heads Up Soul Survivor). A worthy opponent.
And actually, he may have 22 votes, but that represents only 79% of his total votes, and he has a much bigger network than me anyway.

I think it would be bordering on stating the obvious to say that I have the moral victory. =P


Oh, and I also have 100% of the vote for 'rather marry'. Though my charm and sophistication aren't as widely appreciated as it may seem, since there have only been 2 votes in that section! hehe

Switzerland

I feel like I should write something about Switzerland.
I started a post about it, but now I can't be bothered to finish it...

But I kind of feel obligated to write something, what with it being a new linguistic/cultural/independent/educational/strange experience.

It was really hard work. I was working in a guest house - mostly in the kitchen, but also cleaning and stuff like that.

Very long hours.

We had to be in the kitchen at 7:30 am, and we normally weren't done until 9:30 or 10 pm (though we normally had about 2 hours off in the afternoon - mostly for taking a nap!).

But hey, my French improved, which is the main thing, right? I mean, I now know more names for different kinds of bowls in French than I do in English. Which should have many practical applications in the future. =/

While I was there, I had one day off, which I spent climbing a nearby mountain, Le Suchet. (there were actually a lot of nearby mountains, coz I was very high up in the Alps).

Those of you who know me will probably be thinking, 'Wow....Anna.....voluntarily going for a walk that doesn't involve shopping.....on her day off.... the mountain air must have got to her'.

No. There was a Dutch boy there who had the same day off as me. He thought it might be fun to climb the mountain. I agreed. It didn't look that far, or high, or steep on the map. And the map didn't say it would be freezing cold and very windy at the top.

Anyway, you have to hand it to him, because he only asked once whether my level of fitness was representative of the average level of fitness of people in my area. (To which I replied, 'YES!!!! *gasp* I'm actually quite fit compared with some of my friends. *gasp* Actually, I'm fitter than it may seem, *gasp* because the air is very thin up here *gasp* etc.')

He is one of those ridiculously energetic people who cycles an hour to school and an hour home again. Technically I'm half Dutch, and I've never been particularly into cycling, but why can't I at least have the weird fitness gene? Or at least the gene that gives you the desire to be fit...? On the way up, I made a mental note to join a gym as soon as I got home...but now.... well, I ran about 150m for the bus today, and lived to write about it here....surely that's enough...???

Though at one point on the way up, I thought I might die up there... all alone except for one person who's English wasn't good enough to properly understand my last words. And I also had to decide which language my last words would be in. But the thought of dying on foreign soil (and at that point, we weren't even sure whether it was French or Swiss) and saying my last words in a foreign language, to someone who would probably get confused and misquote me to the millions of people clamouring for my final words of wisdom was so depressing that I had to start singing songs from The Sound of Music and running about with my arms out like Julie Andrews in her habit. Then I felt less like I was going to die.

Aaaaaanyway..... we made it to the top. The whooooole way to the top, and guess what we found?

A big metal thing. That is IT.

Wow. I'm really glad I bothered.

The view was alright I suppose, but I could see a lot of it from the guest house. I had a really great view of Mt Blanc from my bedroom window. We could see France from the top (the guest house is only 2 miles from the French border though, so that's not saying much!). We also saw a few lakes. And some towns. And a lot of cows. And we could hear the cow's bells (but that was nothing new...there wasn't a single minute in the whole time I was there where I couldn't hear one of those bells).

Here's a picture of the metal thing:

There you go; it saves you lot having to go up now. ;-)

About a week later, we drove most of the way up with the others (theres a road that winds the whole way around the mountain about a million times. It's much further than the footpath, but obviously far more practical, in that you can fit a car up it...). We watched the sun set, while clinging onto the metal thing for dear life so that we didn't get blown away.

It was quite a pretty sunset, but I was a bit distracted, because the air felt like it was moving too fast for me to breathe it properly, and I was picturing my cells and tissues slowly suffocating and dying (which kinda detracted from the prettiness of the sunset, tbh...).

Here are some more pictures:

The lake in the distance is Lac Leman. (Otherwise known as Lake Geneva, but apparently only the people who live in Geneva call it that, and everyone else hates them for it...)

...and that one is Lac Neuchatel.

And that would have been a picture of France, if the sun hadn't decided to be all arty and get in the way...

And this is a picture of us at the top. We took our lives in our hands and let go of the metal thing to get together for a nice group photo.
You might notice the early stages of windburn, and how we are having to fight to keep our eyes open against the wind.

This is why the New Radicals should never have broken up

Lyrical genius. 8-)

I haven't been this proud since Brownies!

I won a badge competition!




I'm probably the only person in the world who has been given any sort of recognition for peeing on a campfire. (At least, the only female person).



Does that make me the world wide expert?



Does that earn me a world record? Or an appearance on Ripley's Believe it or Not?

I will start looking for an agent first thing tomorrow morning.