twenty-four candles.

Enfin...It took months of pondering for just the blog name to describe my current situation and it finally came to me during brunch this morning.

With weeks to go until the BIG "quarter of a century" birthday, my life is still well on the path to self-discovery (in other words, I’m almost 25 and still “lost”). After about a year-and-a-half of living abroad, I'm starting to feel a little homesick. Thankfully there's family close-by to help me cope. And for those not-so close-by, just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you! I have been wanting to document what was going on in my life for some time now and coming back from vacation all refreshed, I thought, there's no better time than now (let's just hope this doesn't share the same fate as the Paris blog).

One of the topics at the brunch table this fine Sunday was birthdays. Memorable birthdays, champagne birthdays, upcoming birthdays, were all part of the normal discussion. However, one very (nerdy, but) interesting fact stood out from all the jibber-jabber: the perfect number that is twenty-eight. 

“It’s the perfect birthday”, says J. Keep in mind that my cousin J is in the midst of studying for her actuarial sciences exams, she does have numbers on the brain A LOT these days. For those of you who aren't with it when it comes to mathematics lingo, here's a little math lesson for you:

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a "perfect number" is: 

an integer greater than zero, the sum of whose integral factors including 1, but excluding itself, is equal to itself

Examples of perfect numbers:

The factors of 6 are 1, 2, 3 and 6 (1 + 2 + 3 = 6)
 
The factors of 28 are 1, 2, 4, 7, 14 and 28 (1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28)

The factors of 496 are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31, 62, 124, 248 and 496 (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 31 + 62 + 124 + 248 = 496) 

After hearing this (and well, knowing that 2-5 is right around the corner), 28 had become the new 25... which means another chance to scratch off all those before-you-reach-25 (or should I say, before-you-reach-28) goals off the bucket list.

Celebrating my 24th with a pique-nique on the Champ de Mars.

And let's face it, reaching my 496^th birthday isn't exactly going to be a cakewalk...