this is so stupid

This is a year 9 math question that I was asked...

In a class of 30 children, what is the probability of two students having the same birth month.

So... any two students, any month of the year.

This is what I did first:

30 students
probability of having birthday in any one month = 1/12
probability is the same for all children
so use a Binomial distribution
X~Bin(30, 1/12)
Find P(X=2) = 0.26427
This is the probability.

But it's a year 9 question, right, so we were pretty sure Binomial distribution shouldn't even come into it.

I can't stop thinking about it, and then the answer hits me and I feel so dumb.

Because if you have 30 students, and only 12 months in the year, you're obviously going to have more than one child sharing their birth month with another. There is no way to distribute 30 children between 12 months without having repeats.

The probability has to be 1.


This is what the TEE does to you. It makes you feel smarter than stupid.

But I'm glad it's over :)



[edit] call me sad for not being able to let this go, but is the question asking for exactly two students, or any two students?
I conclude that the wording is ambiguous and I've just wasted ten minutes of my life.

bliss in

16 hours and 15 minutes.

flipping pages

Ephesians 5:29-32
Remember, remember, remember.

Matthew 7:1-5

All I can be is the best I can be.
No looking left, or right, or anywhere else.
because everything I could do, make, change,
starts and ends right here,
with me.

Ephesians 6:1
OK.

Galatians 5:22
For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

scone(s)

I came out of my exam room this afternoon, starving. Good thing my mommy loves me and she packed me a date scone this morning :)

I was still eating it when I got into the car, cause I eat slow, and it's cool like that.
...and I was still eating it when we were turning off Karel into South ><

Then we brake suddenly.

...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
I was so cut.

But then mum turns around and sees my face.

"Eh, it's okay."

She sticks her hand into her handbag, and...


Is she awesome or what? :)

TEE

this is it.
breathe.
don't panic.
you will be fine.

o.m.g.

Tomorrow is my last day of high school.

sadface :(

nigara's story: Isabelle

Her name was Isabelle.

Her teachers called her Clara. So did all the other kids in class. Except Jeremy.
He called her The Ugly Duckling.

The duckling nickname bothered her, but only a little. She knew, even though she was only eight, that she was not the prettiest of little girls. Neither was she the smartest, nor the fastest. She was not particularly talented with the recorder, or as great at skipping rope as Josie, or anywhere near good enough at colouring. She knew this.

Unfortunately, so did everyone else.

She was the kid who was last to be picked during sport; the kid who sat alone eating her sandwich under the slide during break times.

She was used to it. So she didn't mind all that much when the other children called her names. On a really happy day, Jeremy would call her Fatty. Sometimes it was Snotface, or Cow.

But Clara was a puzzle to her.
She knew her name was Isabelle. Her mother called her Belle.

"You're a belle, a beauty, Isabelle. That's what you are."
That's what she always said.

She knew she wasn't, but it always made her feel beautiful.

Clara made her feel small. It was as if nobody cared enough to even learn her name, let alone use it.

She was too ordinary, too average, too nothing, to ever be somebody that anybody would remember.

And that was what she was most afraid of. Being ordinary. Because to be ordinary was to be overlooked. People would look at her and see nothing. They would move on to the obnoxious Jeremys and pretty Josies.

She was eight years old and when she was out there, she knew she would never be good enough.

And yet, she could smile.

Because when school was over and she walked out of the gates, her mother was always there waiting to walk her home.
She was no longer Clara, or Fatty.
She was Belle.

Princess.
That's what her daddy called her.
And she knew that's what he saw when he looked at her. Someone special.

Her name was Isabelle.
Her teachers called her Clara,
her classmates called her Duckling.
She wasn't clever or pretty, or even remotely important.

But her mother called her beautiful,
and she was her father's princess.

So she smiled,
because she knew that despite all her shortcomings,
she was loved.

charlie bit my finger

This. totally. made. my. day.

why my legs tell me i need no exercise until december

But it just goes to show that rain is not a dampener to a day of awesome fun :)


We started with JonPoh leading us in a time of singing.


Then came YJ's interesting games. The day would feel empty without them.

The Best Group Of The Day (coughminecough). We came second only because we let Team C win :P


They turned a three-legged race into a five-legged affair.

The scary balloon game.


Cheerleaders of the day:
...what's that spell? ALBERT!!!!!!!!!!



Thank you Auntie Shirley, Jononono, Mr. Joshua Fong (and anyone else I don't know of) for making food that tasted amazing even with the odd drop of acid rain.


Oh, and I got my quarterly exercise from this:
The birds were there. We saw. We chased.


Jason's lousy choice of model

Getting sand-blasted.
Retarded umbrellas.
PLAYGROUND.
"I will read you a verse".
Flower-pops.
Crossing the River Swan.

It really was great fun.



Let's do it again :)

moey's story: somebody else

She was the new girl, lonely and outcast.

He watched her get bullied and could not understand why she took it.

But unlike everyone else, he could not stand by and watch.

----------

He became friends with her, and with him too. The three of them, together, felt unstoppable.
When he looked at them, he felt like he belonged. They to him, and he to them.
Three people who were really only themselves with each other.

She became less afraid; opened up to them, and they helped her change. They taught her to hope when she never had before.

They became the reason she smiled, and she was the reason they stuck together.

And it took him a while to realise he'd fallen.

----------

"Ok, here's the plan..."

He watched as she listened intently, almost as if his was the only voice she could hear.

It pained him that the voice was not his, nor the idea, nor the look that she wore on her face.

It was always somebody else, never him. Still, she seemed happy. He saw how day by day, she was making new friends, and while he was glad for her, a part of him wished it wasn't so, that she would only be his.

But when she turned to him questioningly, all he could do was make a silly face and tell her he was alright.

Because he couldn't tell her the truth.

----------

They sat on the roof together again, just the two of them, sharing a meal.

"Oh, there you are. Someone's looking for you." It was a classmate.

She nodded and stood up to leave, but he caught her hand.

"Is all that... Are they really that important?"

Her eyes met his through her hair, and she hesitated for what must have been forever.

"But... someone else needs me."

Someone that wasn't him.
And he realised that he had helped her change into something that everyone else wanted, and that she didn't understand.
No, she didn't know.
She didn't know that all he wanted her to be,
was her.

And as he let her hand slip away from his, he realised that she had never been the lonely one.

It had always been him.