Do you believe in coincidences or luck? Have you ever thought to urself, ‘What would happen if I were a minute too late or too early?’ Do the question ‘What if….’ pop up frequently in your head?
Well these questions do occasionally pop up in my head and yes I do believe in coincidence and luck.
Here is a story that always leaves me thinking about this, it makes me ask myself these questions. It is a story of how I met her.
It was a Thursday afternoon, it had been raining before and everything was wet. I had a lab after this I thought, so I hoped that physics would finish early so I can get a good seat for the lab. Getting a good seat I learnt, could only be done if u got to the lab early. For my previous bio lab, bio107, I didn’t get the seat I wanted cause physics finished late and so by the time I got to the lab it was already 5/6 full (roughly).
Back to the story. It was Professor Wills lecture…boring mechanics, being taught on that day. He didn’t make the subject more interesting as well. Well it was 10 to 2 and I was getting restless. I told myself that if he doesn’t finish this lecture in 5 minutes sharp, I’m gonna leave early (people who know me will know that this is not me, I never leave a lecture/class early in my life when it is still going on). Tick, tick, tick... concentration level 20% falling fast. Well its 5 to and he is still going on, thats it im going. So I stood up and walked out of the lecture. As I got out, it started to drizzle (just what i needed, to get wet before a 3 hour lab) so I started running to my lab all the way down in the bio building.
Even after all that, I found the lab to be ¾ full. However most of the people in the lab were not there as they were already walking towards the computer labs downstairs (lab 1 for bio101 was just a waste of 3 hours).
So the 1st thing that came to my mind was, ‘hurry up and secure a seat’. "Hurry up, get your stuff so we can lock up the lab"the lab tutor shouted, it was almost chaotic. Then another thing popped up in my head, 'hey lets sit opposite these 2 girls, but wait… that means I have to sit beside this blond girl'. My 1st impression was that she looked bored and uninterested, the type that didn’t really want to be in the lab (never judge a book by its cover i soon found out and the impression has since changed).
Initially I didn’t want to sit beside her cause I was concerned that to get good marks (to achieve that A+), I need a good lab partner. Believe it or not guys, I actually did have some internal conflict going on in my head for a minute or 2. Its like u seen in movies where the little devil and the little angel comes up on either side of your shoulder and try to influence your decision. But i didn't hallucinate or anything i can assure you.
So in the end I decided to be her lab partner. I asked her if anyone was sitting beside her, she said no. Then I introduced myself to her. ‘Hi my name is sujie’. She looked at me in the eye and said ‘Hi nice to meet u, my name is Lara’.
So where does luck or coincidence come into this? 1stly the physics lessonon thursday was mechanics, not electricity (I wouldn’t miss the awesome Prof. Conway’s lectures). Also, I got there exactly when I got there, not a minute later (after I sat down and took my stuff to the com labs, some other person put his bag onto my table, I told him later that it was my seat, he looked disappointed) .....
or earlier (I knew a 1/6 of the people in that lab (about 10 out of 64 people in total) but they had either already gone to the computer lab or i did not realise that they were there. If I did, I would have sat closer to them). So the timing was perfect you might say… well I agree, how my life would be different if it was otherwise.
Last but not least, it just so happened that my lab stream was the last stream that a person can enrol in (stream 16). She didn’t take bio initially,but took it up as an elective. She didn't even do biology in school i think. They didn’t have anywhere else to put her in, so she was placed in my lab.
What a freaky coincidence.