Convergences

I'm not a religious person. Not superstitious either. But I've come to appreciate what I call convergences in life. A convergence is when something comes up again and again, from different angles.

When I was younger, my mother bought the oddest little car, an AMC Pacer. Suddenly I noticed them everywhere. Of course, that mostly reflected my own perception of the world. We're always best attuned to hearing our own name spoken over a noisy and distorted loudspeaker at a train station or doctor's office. So a convergence may mostly be one's own awareness of the world in particular ways. For me, being able to pick out connections to the same object (the "all roads lead to Rome" phenomenon) is a good sign that I'm on the right path.

This happened for me as my research focus emerged over the past decade. The more I read about disparate things that interested me, the more they seemed alike, the more connections I could draw. That's where my interdisciplinarity derives from. Sometimes however, these convergences emerge in more mysterious ways.

Yesterday, I mentioned a one-year job I'll probably apply for that would be a tough commute. This morning, while [obsessively] checking my webstats, I noticed one hit on my personal research website from the very city in Canada where that school is! Hmmm. I haven't even applied there yet. So, I looked more closely. The click (to the web-version of my CV by the way) was based on a Google search for one of my references. My PRW was the top page result. Sweet!

They say in advertising and politics, name recognition is king. So...

in your face, folks... this is me, I'm here, oh... and by the way, got any jobs?

More posts keep coming up. Mostly one-year gigs. But that's okay. I just want a jump start now. I can buy a new battery down the road. I just want to hear that engine purr.