IN OTHER NEWS, today my world was pretty much totally shattered when I discovered that Europe is, in fact, SMALLER than Australia. I often learn new shit, quite often things that turn out to be common-assumed knowledge, that surprise me, but of all things, this one has got to be the most brain-boggling - never in my life (and I actually literally mean never) have I imagined that Europe would in fact be SMALLER than Australia. I know, right? What the hell!
I've always had the preconceived idea in my head, for some reason, that in terms of country sizes:
I would've drawn this out on Paint, or scanned a drawing that I did earlier today, but my computer is actually totally dead at the moment and hasn't been able to start up for two weeks, so I'm using my sisters computer, which is actually insanely slow and worse than death itself. But basically, for some reason, I always thought that Australia was a weeny little continent, while the United States was something like double-to-three-times the size of Australia. Meanwhile, I always assumed that the UK was actually totally pretty big, maybe something like 1.5x the size of the States, and that Europe was actually HUGE, and like, maybe twice the size of EVERYTHING (or something). Perhaps not everything, but largest is the point.
However, it actually turns out that if you discount Russia, Europe is actually something like about maybe 500 square kilometres. Why would you discount Russia, you ask? Shit, I dunno.
In related news, here are more things that I learnt about the Earth today which have totally destroyed a lot of assumptions I held:
1. South America and North America are totally completely different continents. This wasn't actually from today, I learnt this a while ago, but it turns out that North America and South America are actually ... yeah, completely different. Turns out that the United States is pretty much North America, while South America is stuff like... Peru, Brazil, and Italy, and things.
2. Brazil and Italy are actually not right next to each other in the same continent. I know right! What the hell! It turns out that Brazil is actually in South America (I JUST WIKI'D IT - IT'S THE LARGEST OMG), while Italy is in Europe. I think (most probably) that I assumed they were pretty much the same place because they both kill in soccer - well, they did in 2000, at FIFA and everything, so I assume nothing's changed - and because of that fact, they must come from the same geographical location. Whoops!
3. 'Africa' refers to the entire continent, while 'South Africa' is a COUNTRY IN AFRICA. Who the fuck came up with that idea? I could've sworn South Africa referred to the southern area of Africa. In a way it does, seeing as how South Africa is in fact located in the southern part of Africa (Whoa!), but why would you name a country South Africa? It'd be like having a country in the southern part of the United States called South America. Kinda. Speaking of South America, did you know that it's actually not in the same continent as the North?
4. 'Asia' is actually not interchangeable with 'China.' This one's half a joke, but I noticed that I kept referring to Asia today as China. Does that make me subconsciously genuinely racist? I refuse to accept that - coming from an Asian background myself, I know that Asia holds a diverse range of countries, not just China and Japan and Korea and all the other really popular ones. Asia encompasses much more than that.
Just kidding, I don't really care.
5. I could've sworn Greece was like, in the Middle East, or really close to the Middle East, or something. Y'know fun fact, in Year 3 or 4 or something, there was this girl in my class called Chloe Konispoliatis, and we had to speeches, and so she did hers on her trip to Greece, and I remember this one line from her speech where she said 'The houses looked different, the shops looked different, even the people looked different!' Since that day, I've been wondering about what she said, and wondering if Greek people actually look noticeably 'different.'
THE END.
