The Odds

In college, I took up Spanish as my foreign language. There were perhaps 20 or so classes of about 40 students each. A large percentage of our grade was based on how well we did in the oral exam. We were given six scenarios that we might be asked to portray. The catch was, we weren''t told who our partners would be. They could be anyone from the twenty classes. We were given the schedule but not the examiner. And at any given time, there might be as many as six examinations. I''m sure that the mathematicians are already computing the odds of getting the highest possible grade on this one. But this problem has more information and thankfully I don''t have to solve for the ending.

One of my dormmates happened to have a friend who had the same examination time I got. Since he wasn''t doing too well in Spanish class, my friend thought it might be a good idea if the both of us practiced together. It wasn''t so much that I was good at Spanish, it just seemed logical at that time to practice with someone who might be a partner. Better than practicing with someone at random, we thought. As we practiced, it became obvious that we were comfortable with about two of the six scenarios. And we muddled our way through the other four. On the day of the exam, we saw each other and two other people waiting to get matched. And wonder of wonders, my practice partner got my name. And another wonder of wonders, we got the easiest of the scenarios. It was a wonderful day!

When my teacher handed me my grade the next day, she asked me who my examiner was. When I told her who it was, she gave me hearty congratulations because I managed to get an A from one of the most difficult professors. If she had only known! But of course, I couldn''t tell her. I did not have enough Spanish vocabulary to explain. So I let her go on wondering why a so-so student from her class would beat the odds and do so magnificently under a difficult examiner.

In Mathematics or Statistics, odds are the probabilities of an event happening. If you check Wikipedia, it will actually tell you the equation: an event with m to n odds would have probability m/(m + n). Once upon a time, in my Math 12 class in college, I would have understood what that meant. But the odds of me remembering how to solve it are one in…well, I really don''t know.

What I find amazing is that if you search the net, there are odds for almost anything under the sun. For example: the odds of dating a supermodel are 88,000 to 1. The odds of getting canonized are 20,000,000 to 1 to. The odds of dying from a shark attack are 1 in 300,000,000. The odds of getting arthritis are 1 in 7. (Don''t I know this one!) The odds are 1 out of 2 (54 percent) that you''ve been caught picking your nose while driving, if you''re a man. The odds range from the absurd to the disturbing.

Interestingly, almost everyone I know falls into two categories when it comes to the odds: those who think they could be the one in the 100,000,000 and those who think that they will never be the one in the 100,000,000. The optimists buy the lottery ticket and the pessimists wait for the sky to fall. The risk-takers bungee jump, sky dive and throw caution to the wind, convinced that the odds are with them. The cautious exercise, diet, take vitamins and become vegetarians to improve the odds. And of course the gamblers and opportunists hang on to the odds as a lifeline while the fatalists negate their existence. I don''t think I''ve decided which camp I belong to yet. One thing I do know is this: there is no greater feeling in the world than knowing that someone has beaten the odds. The most inspiring stories are those of people who are the one in the five, ten, or six billion. They go against what the statistics say and prove to the world that the human spirit is far stronger than any equation we can ever come up with. That there is something greater in this world than numbers and chances. And that the idea of any one of us beating the odds are one in…well, let''s just say the chances are pretty good.