A Stranger In The Mirror. Different Sides of Your Face.

You sure look at yourself in the mirror from time to time. Just to check that you DO look gorgeous. Or to show a tongue, or mimic a funny face to your reflection there.

But no matter why and how many times you saw your own reflection, do you really know yourself? Our body is agreed to be symmetrical from the common point of view, that is, a healthy person has two agreeably identical sides, left and right.

We assume that our face is symmetrical too. Our nose is clearly in the middle of our face; eyes are placed on either side of the nose ...

But is our face as symmetrical as we presume it?

A shape is called symmetrical if one half of it is the mirror reflection of the other half, when the vertical line (line of symmetry) is drawn through the center of the shape.

Lets check if our face is symmetrical. Take your picture where you look directly at the camera. Find a two-sided pocket size mirror. Place the mirror vertically with its long edge right in the middle of your face on the picture, thus dividing your face into two halves. Each half will be reflected in its side of the mirror. Take a look on the left and then on the right side of the picture. Surprise! I bet you see two different faces! And they are also different from your original picture.

You might want to have three faces of yours printed.

• 1. Using a digital camera, have someone take your picture. Look directly at the camera.

• 2. Using a drawing program from your computer, such as Paint (you'll find it under Accessories in the Start-Programs menu) create a unique set of three faces of yours.

For Paint: (1) open your picture from its saved location, (2) use your selection tool to outline one side of the photo (usually it will be a square-cornered tool), (3) under Edit choose Copy and then Paste, (4) under Image choose Flip/Rotate, Flip Horizontally, (5) drag the new image so it will create a new face, (6) crop your new image, and (7)save the photo. Repeat the process for the other side of the face.

• 3. Print the three photos to show to your amazed friends.

As you see, a human face is not symmetrical, as the left side of your face is NOT a mirror image of the right side of your face. Each eye is different, each cheek is lined differently, and corners of your mouth are curved differently. A human face is more or less asymmetrical, but you don't really see it unless you are looking for it. Facial asymmetry is a natural thing and in fact, this is what makes us look like us, this is what makes us unique and special.