Crazy Coincidences in My Life
I was born in the 1990s in the Northwestern part of mainland China and when I was eight years old, my parents brought me to a different part of China, to study in a semi-boarding school in an English-immersion-style setting, to prepare for my eventual immigration to Canada.
Steve Jobs once said that eventually, different parts of your life will start to align, like connecting dots, if we were to look back...
Here are some straight-up crazy coincidences that have adhered to Steve Jobs's quotation:
My first English name was given by my American-accented, white teacher who came to my parent's condo unit every other weekend, to practice conversation with me (是位外教). She named me Fanny, which means "Free People" in Welsh. Fast forward many years later when I arrived in Canada, some Ashkenazi Jewish kids I met told me it is also a Yiddish first name. I didn't have the guts to keep a name that means a** in North American culture of course so I asked my dad if we can register my official elementary school name and we both decided on Alice when I was 11.
By the time I was 18 and it was time to apply for university. I automatically knew that I am very humanities-focused and cannot do a science undergraduate degree. I came across a major called History of Religion at the University of Toronto, the Mississauga campus and coincidentally the Judaism professor gave me the highest grade. (Basically my second run-in with Judaism).
When I was 16, my maternal grandfather passed away from pancreatic cancer whereas my maternal grandmother, his spouse, passed away from a different type of cancer five years subsequently due to grief. I, myself, had always wanted to know what it is like to tolerate medical treatments at that kind of capacity = I went through some of the same treatments at 24-27.
Present day, I still follow the news in mainland China and it seems like this type of book is popular - the Talmud in Simplified Chinese. LMAO. (This is the third run-in with anything to do with Judaism).
My mom and I converted to Christianity when I was 15, or 16 - a friend of hers brought her to Bible studies for the first time and she decided to accept Jesus as her savior. Coincidentally, on the same damn night, I prayed for the same thing. There was a huge dispute on matters of belief at the first church I was a part of, and someone from the church introduced us to a new gathering place where the pastor is a third-generation Orthodontist from Shanghai. He knows a lot of Hebrew, Latin and English. My mom and I started reading the Holy Scriptures in the original text, in ancient Hebrew. (This is the fourth run-in with the Christianity/Judaism deity).
God found me; I didn't actively seek Him. I am serious. 😂. Could you imagine a girl from mainland China, who strongly had blind faith in science (Communist China), believing in half the things I believe in now？
In totality, some peoples' lives were pre-destined to be a certain way... Many of the major life events that have led you to where you are, are fate.