Archive for June, 2008

So … I always pride myself in being a rather educated person. To the point of being somewhat on the snobby side when talking about my ’superior German education’ ….courtesy of 13 years of Catholic schools … and all the baggage that comes with it ….

Part of that education, back in 6th grade I believe (long time ago … memory isn’t what it used to be) was the geography lessons we received from our dear old teacher Mrs. Bierbaum (yes, that translates as beertree in English ….) She was OLD, I mean, close to retirement and then some … maybe in her mid 60’s. Yikes, that seemed old to a six grader … now, not so much.

Anyways, she believed in teaching a healthy portion of Allgemeinwissen …. or what I now refer to as ‘Trivial Pursuit Knowledge’ … and had us not only memorize all countries of the world but also their Capitals AND, get this, DRAW the continent and the countries location and OUTLINE. Yes, that is what I call education! Catholic schools were good for something …

Anyways, so back then, I knew all the countries, all the Capitals and could point out where on God’s green earth they were located. Which made me feel well prepared for the quiz I was suckered into via a link on www.testpattern.msnbc.com … but more on that further down … DON’T click yet!

Mind you, much has changed since those good old school days in the 80’s. For one, that was before central Europe exploded from just being USSR and a couple of Eastern Block countries into two dozen countries that I couldn’t identify on a map if you paid me. Same holds true for the many name changes in the region of Central and Western Africa. I KNOW they changed names, I think …. let’s say, I would maybe recognize what continent they are on if you give me their new name … or maybe not …. well, whatever.

Still, based on my belief that I knew my way around the globe, I visited the following website ….. http://www.oneplusyou.com/bb/view2/countries …… via a blog on  www.testpattern.msnbc.com … wide eyed and bushy tailed, thinking: how bad can it be?I am smart. Well ….

Before I tell you how I did …. go ahead and get a dose of global embarrassment yourself.The goal is to list as many countries as you can in a 5 min span …. the timer starts right away so start thinking now …. GO!

Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock……. 

Did it? Yeah? How many did you get?

I am embarrassed to say that I missed 202 countries …. among them Liechtenstein (ok, maybe not so embarrassing for an American … but I lived 3 hours away from that mini-State and visited it many times ……I did get Luxembourg though!), Austria (helloooooo, 1o years of childhood vacations …..), Malawi (c’mon, know your celebrity’s favorite country to adopt from …..) and Vatican City (scroll up! I learned all this in Catholic School ….. the nuns are rolling in their graves right now …).

Insert Political Statement Here: Thanks to Mr. W though, I had no problem naming Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan ….

I am making no excuses ….. I sucked (hopefully less than you, though :->)….. well, I’ll slip in one excuse ….my one and only one worth mentioning is that I learned all of these names in GERMAN and the countries need to be entered by their ENGLISH name …. and I still don’t know how to spell Fidji in English .. well, now I know …. it’s without the d ….

So, let me know how you do ….  I’ll be busy eating some crow and whining over my deteriorating superior education …..