Divine Coincidence

**This blog is not an official publication of the US Department of State or COMEXUS, and they are probably happy about that.**

Orientation has been (to overuse a metaphor) a whirlwind. We have had about seven hours of training each day, covering topics ranging from diversity to Mexican history, from the immigration process to how to properly wash fruit (so as to avoid contracting anal pinworms), from travel warnings to lesson planning. Some days have been fun and full of interactive sessions, while some were absolutely, horribly, painfully, endlessly dragging and dreadful. Sorry, Tim, but we were all thinking it.

We have experienced some serenading:

Cielito Lindoooooo

Some fascinating architecture:

 Palacio de Bellas Artes

Catedral Metropolitana, on the zocalo

And some tacooos:

But out of everything that has happened this week, out of all the places I have gone and people I have met, there is one thing that stands out as perhaps the most unbelievable occurrence I have ever experienced.

This is Emma.

I was out to dinner Tuesday night with Emma and a few other people. We were all discussing the places we had previously lived or studied abroad. Costa Rica, Spain, Chile... nearly all the English Teaching Assistants have had significant experience abroad in Spanish-speaking countries.

Emma mentioned that she had studied in Argentina.

"Me too!" I said. "What city???"

"In Buenos Aires," she replied.

"Me too!!" I said. "What neighborhood???"

"Recoleta," she replied.

"Me too!!!" I said. "Where did you live???"

"In a Residencia (dorm)," she replied.

"Me too!!!!" I said, then paused for a moment. "...which one?"

"...Damas..?" she said questioningly.

This is when I flipped my freaking lid. 

"NO WAY?!?!?!? DAMAS DE LA MISERICORDIA??!?!?!"

"Yeah!!!"

"Oh my gosh! I lived there too!!"

We chatted more and discovered that she had lived at the same dorm I did, but during the semester after me. I asked her if some of my buddies were still there (one of them was). We reminisced together about how weird it was that the Residencia was hidden inside a parking garage:

And about how the McDonald's next door only had that one outlet, all the way up the wall in the playroom. I guess this was memorable for both of us...?

Then I got more curious. 

"Did you live on the upper floor or the lower floor?" I asked.

"The upper floor," she replied.

Me too.

"Did you live off the pretty courtyard or the ugly one?" I asked.

"The ugly one," she replied.

Me too.

"Which room did you live in?" I asked.

"The one at the end of the hall," she replied.

Me too.

Then, the clincher: "What was your roommate's name?"

"Umm... Cassandra."

ME

&#*%&#$*%&#$^$^()#$%*$% ^&#*$^%^#&^$*#$%&$*%*$%^%&#$*%^#*$^%*#$(@#))%!^^@&&#*$((((#**#&&&$$%%%^$^^*&****&%$%$%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TOO.

This complete stranger, who I had never met before and then encountered while on a grant in Mexico, had lived in my room the semester after me. She had slept in my bed. We had woken up looking out of the same window in Argentina for four months each and had met two years later, two out of sixty English Teaching Assistants assigned to Mexico in 2016. (I was turned down for the grant in 2015.)

She had never received the key to her room, even after requesting it from the management for two weeks. This is because I forgot to return the key at the end of my semester  and it is now on my keychain.

It is things like this that remind me that there must be an intelligent mind behind the universe and the Earth. On a planet with just the right qualities to sustain human life, in a solar system characterized by complexity and order, in a universe that doesn't have to exist at all, coincidences statistically should not occur. 

The number of variables that align perfectly to allow life to exist on Earth is such that human beings are already a statistical miracle. Coincidences of such an incredible magnitude, like the one I described, only add another layer of complexity to an already impossibly "coincidental" world.

Sorry, I'm getting wordy.

Essentially, I don't think that a random universe could generate human life and then also manage to orchestrate coincidences like this one. Make of this what you will.

To finish, another (smaller) coincidence: I asked Emma if she knew a girl named Aymara that lived in the Residencia. She said yes, that a friend of hers from Ohio had been Aymara's roommate that semester. 

Rachel, who accompanied me to Argentina, was also roommates with Aymara during our semester.

*oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoh* *ghostly chills run up your spine*

*THE END*