Discard World Ignorance

There was a great tip on one of my favourite blogs the other day - Discard World Ignorance. The blog (Discardian - it's great, visit it!) is about getting rid of things that clutter up your life. This tip asked you to write down as many countries as you could think of, then to spend a few minutes every day or week getting to know the ones that you didn't know. I found it quite an eye-opener to realise how few countries I could name, and even the ones that I could I wasn't able to confidently place on a map. Even ones that I have visited!

So, since reading this tip I've been making a conscious effort to increase my world knowledge. The country for today is American Samoa - an interesting fact which I have learned is that in a 2002 Football World Cup qualifier, Australia beat them 31-0. I am assuming that they didn't qualify.

I've also got some blank maps, and I'm working on learning some of the positions of various countries, starting with South America (I could only place Brazil, Argentina and Chile, now I can name them all up as far as Costa Rica, I'm very proud!)

Okay, maybe it all sounds a bit sad, but I think that it's something which is important, to me at least. So give me a month or two, and you can start to test me!