Friday, August 10, 2007

Statistical improbabilities?

About two weeks ago, a bunch of my good friends left town or were unable to meet with me. One was in San Francisco, one in Edmonton, one in Montreal (visiting with another very close friend of mine who just moved there), one was in Nunavut , one was in Chicago, one is in Africa on holiday, three (yes, you heard right) were in Calgary for the long weekend, three were busy with work, one is in Croatia, and the story goes on.

So in the end the Blogathon weekend was somewhat of a nightmare for me in terms of emotional support. I won't deny that I did receive moral support (and generous donations), my out-of-town friends gave me a call as soon as they got back, and even my friends who were busy with work called me over the weekend to see how I was doing. I also had the the moral support of my monitor and Rebecca (Miss604), who also Blogathoned (in her case, for the Surrey Food Bank). But I was really unable to hang out in person with my close friends (something extremely rare for me). My weekends are usually booked solid because I love seeing people in person.

So last weekend, when I was having breakfast with B, H, and A, I complained [of course, jokingly!] that they had abandoned me. But this rare occurrence (so many of my friends either out of town or unable to hang out with me due to work/personal commitments) made me think about statistical improbabilities. How likely is it for someone like me, with such a strong and solid network of friends, to have a vast majority of my close friends unable to hang out?

I consider myself a quantitative person. I like data and I like making statistical inferences. But I just found this extremely funny, the fact that so many good friends were out of town or super busy. There is no way to make sense through statistics. I guess it's summer :-) And for the love of God you guys, please don't do this to me again!

1 comment: