Friday the 13th

Song for the mood: On a day like Today --- Bryan Adams

There is a weird notion of 'bad-luck' associated with this date, Friday the 13th. A small read of the wikipedia article will tell you that the day is not feared for any associated history with it apart from the fact that the day 'Friday' and the number '13' are both considered unlucky. Talk about adding up fears! The fear of this day is also called paraskavedekatriaphobia ... I bit my own tongue trying to pronounce it. It is a version (yeah, version) of the fear associated with the number 13 which is known as triskaidekaphobia. I didn't even try to pronounce that one ...

Anyways, bad luck or good luck or something else, Friday the 13th of this month, proved to be good in the end for a lot of us in college. Me and 5 others got selection news for IBM. 3 others got Oracle offers and 1 person got an awesome offer for Texas Instruments. Congratulations to all you guys! (and me too of course ... )

For some interesting reading check out this article on the fear of 13 on mathworld. The most interesting snippet from the article says, in a study conducted by the British Medical Journal which analyzed the relation between health, behavior, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom by comparing the ratio of traffic volume to traffic accidents on Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th over a period of years found that,
The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52%. Staying at home is recommended
Talk about a free holiday ....