Correlation

Last month my blog received more pageviews than it had in any other month of its existence.  I wondered why, and thought there might be a strong correlation to the number of posts published that month.  So, being a good scientist, I made a graph.  Here's a scatter plot showing the number of pageviews my blog had in a month (y axis) based on the number of posts I made that month (x-axis).

I used Excel to find the regression line:

y = 43.132x + 24.869

This means that in months that I don't post anything, I can expect about 25 pageviews.  For months that I do publish things, I can expect about 43 pageviews per post on top of the 25.

But being a good scientist, I also realize that there are other variables that I haven't accounted for.  Sometimes I "promote" certain blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +.  I didn't account for that - oh well.

(source)

Optometry

For those who don't know already, I've been accepted into the University of Houston's College of Optometry (hooray!).  Upon hearing that I want to become an optometrist, many people ask, "Is it because you wear glasses?"  This always seems like a silly question to me.  Do people become doctors because they occasionally get sick?  Do people become dentists because they've had a cavity?  Do people become mechanics because they've had a car break down?

Many factors influenced my career decision.  While some reasons are more personal, the following stats should do a great job at explaining "Why optometry?"

#12 on the list "Best Jobs in America" (2012) by CNNMoney & PayScale.com
#20 on the list "Highest Paying Jobs" (2010) by CNNMoney & Payscale.com
#8 on the list "Best Jobs of 2013" by CareerCast.com (as quoted by cnbc.com and Forbes)
#10 on the list "Best Paying Jobs of the Future" by The Huffington Post
On the list "Best Jobs for 2013 and Beyond" by AOL Jobs
On the list "Best Jobs for Investigative People" by USNews Careers
US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that employment of optometrists will increase 33% from 2010-2020 ("much faster than average")

Some good descriptions of the career:
ExploreHEALTHCareers.org
USNews Careers