Hi,
it’s Christina –
Deep
down, I am a numbers person at heart. I like looking at a bunch of data, discerning
patterns, collecting facts. So when I got my six month report from Facebook, I
just had to play. One of the bits of data Facebook gathers is the location
(city, state, country) of people who have viewed your page. I was floored by
some of the numbers.
I
completely took out the data from my home state of NJ which was over 15K views
in 6 months, and NY and TX (both state were over 1K) because these three areas
are saturated with my family and friends, so as far as I’m concerned, the
numbers are skewed unfairly in those regions. I also took out PA, since it is
right next door, so it too was probably guilty of skewed numbers as well.
Here’s
where my surprise began – CA, where I know exactly 2 people, was just shy of
1K, half of which were from Los Angeles, Knoxville, TN – 316 views, Olympia,
WA – 224, Charleston, SC – 422, Raleigh, NC – 333, Hamilton, MT – 199, Fort
Gratiot, MI – 350, Chicago, IL – 633. I
think I have one friend in MI, one or two old classmates and one relative in NC,
and I visited TN last summer and chatted with the hotel staff about my books while
I was there. All told, 23K views of my FB author’s page in the past 6 months.
But
wait, it gets more bizarre. Those were just the domestic numbers. Add another
4K for foreign numbers, almost 1K of which was from London – yes just London,
not all of England. Again, I personally know exactly 2 people in all of
England. Mumbai, India – 358, Birsfelden, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland – 360, Hong
Kong – 278, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada – 322, plus another 400 from countries I
have never even heard of and doubt I would even be able to find on a map!
I
realize that was a WHOLE bunch of numbers and I have probably bored you to
tears with this post, but it blows my mind to think something I am writing –
me, a simple mom from central New Jersey – is being read all over the globe. It
is quite humbling and exciting all at the same time. Now if I could just figure
out how to convert these numbers to sales, I’d be all set.
On
a personal note, my daughter had a good first day at school. She was so proud
of herself because she didn’t get lost “even once”, and she was quite pleased
with her teachers. Let’s keep our fingers crossed it continues through the
year!
I
kidnapped my girlfriend Sharon, with only a five minute notice, and dragged her
to the airport with me. Don’t you just love having friends you can do that to??
My son and his girlfriend had a great trip. They met a father and son from England
who were visiting the US for the first time, and they hit it off so well, they
spent the entire weekend with them. They have even made plans on getting
together in the future.
It’s
funny, all of us have managed to meet people while on vacation who we continue
to remain friends with – Red and Rose, the couple we went to visit on the way
home from dropping my daughter off at college, for example. There’s also another
couple we met in St. Maarten who were on their honeymoon, Jim and Jen, who we
keep in contact with. I believe they just celebrated their 20th
wedding anniversary. Seven years ago, when we were in the Dominican Republic, a
pack of kids found each other on the first day, and they have all stay in
touch. It has been nice seeing pictures of them growing up. You never know when
or where you’ll find a friend.
OK, I have rambled on for more than
enough today. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!
Your Last Challenge was:
The first day of school…
Star Date: September 8th,
1971. Alien Planet: Menlo Park Elementary School. Since I had never gone to
pre-school, kindergarten did seem like an alien planet, but within minutes, I
was happy as a clam. I had the most beautiful teacher in the world, Miss Payne.
She was tall, and not just from the perspective of a five year old, she was
taller than my mom, and she had the silkiest long light brown hair I had ever
seen. She had a melodic voice, a warm smile and you could tell she absolutely
loved her job.
Now all of that would be of the utmost
importance to a young child, but it was not what endeared her to me; already at
my young age, I knew some beautiful people were not very nice. What made me
love my first day was there were two kids who were very upset, Michael and
Debbie. They were standing on opposite sides of the room crying. They were
scared and did not want to be in kindergarten. Instead of Miss Payne just going
over to try to talk to them, she asked me if I would go and talk to Michael,
and she asked another boy, Jimmy, to go and talk to Debbie. Both Jimmy and I
were successful in calming down Debbie and Michael, and they joined the rest of
the class with no more fuss.
For this, I thought Miss Payne was
brilliant. She, an unknown big adult, did not approach the crying children and
scare them more, she sent other children so they could feel comfortable. The
other children (Jimmy and me) got to feel important, needed and on our very
first day were established as the two kids to go to if something was wrong; and she showed to the class, even though we were young, we could still do very
important things to help each other.
I stayed in that school system through
6th grade, and even after seven years, Jimmy and I remained the “go
to” kids when our classmates had a problem. It’s amazing how your very first
day can set the tone for your entire school career.
Your
Next Challenge is:
I remember where I was that day…
You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong,
just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to
criticize what someone else has written. Go.
That moment when you
realize the house is silent, not because everyone is still asleep, but the
house is empty… sigh…
Good morning! Well Dani
Rose is off to her first day of her sophomore year, not without trials and
tribulations though. She convinced me to make her waffles and bacon. Now, not
to be a braggart, but I’m a pretty darn good cook. HOWEVER, I am an abomination
when it comes to breakfast food. It’s a mental block or something, but I got up
early and made it anyway. They came out fine, but Dani was so nervous, she made
herself sick, so breakfast was wasted.
She finally calms down and
we get her outside for the obligatory first day of school photos, then the
frantic texting starts. She knew her bus pick up time changed, but she didn’t
realize the bus route changed. All of a sudden it dawned on her that she may
not have anyone on the bus she knew. That combined with she does not have her
schedule yet so she could not map out where she had to go had her spazzing out.
The gods did shine upon
her though. One of her best friends was on her bus, and since I have not
received a phone call from either her or the school, I am assuming all is right
with the world.
