Sometimes you think you've got it all under control, only to find that due to some stupid event, things are not at all what you wanted them to be. This happens occasionally when I am at a cross-roads and facing tough decisions. Whatever the event, the decision seems to be made for me. Almost as if there is a higher power that is steering me in some direction. If I weren't such a sceptic, I might turn religious.
One such moment occurred this week. Late Sunday evening I felt really proud that I managed to attend a busy meeting in the UK, meet up with collaborators there as well, prepare two talks for the coming week, submit a job application, and have fun with the kids over the weekend. Yay me!
Of course I used my home laptop, something I rarely do, but the thing was readily at hand. Of course I used my work e-mail, which never works from home. And of course the application was the last thing I did, reading it through once more without kids running around. I clicked send, closed the laptop and went to bed.
Come this morning, I wake up with a nagging feeling: did I really use my work e-mail? I never do that for applications. But I should check. Of course: there it is. The original e-mail typed up on Sunday evening, with a little additional screen saying "Cannot send message using server X". Cue the cursing, screaming and shouting at e-mail servers and firewalls.
The application was resend, including a sincere apology and attempt to explain why it was late. It remains to be seen what the aftermath of this will be. Was this indeed one of these deciding moments, or was it plain stupid? At the moment I believe the latter, but I also believe in karma. Karma sounds so much better than stupid.
Time will tell, nothing I can change about it now.
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