In December of 2017, I was in Europe travelling with a good friend I had met while studying abroad. I had received an offer to teach high school mathematics at a top selective school in Guangzhou, China, and I had 24 hours to make a decision. I was set on taking this offer, and giving up on my Honours year back home in Sydney.
By chance, Catherine (my future supervisor) sent me an unprompted email about a potential project idea which had the opportunity to be published. In a moment, everything changes and I get to work on this new topic.
Flash forward ~3.5 years later to today, and as of two days ago, this paper has been accepted by Combinatorics, Probability & Computing.
I’m sitting here at the Bogey Hole Cafe by Bronte Beach, having carrot cake for breakfast with a soy piccolo, about to meet a friend who is temporarily back in Sydney and about to head back to San Francisco. I’m thinking about the series of events and all the roads not taken, that have led to this moment and where my life is now. It’s funny how every small decision we make can have a butterfly effect that can last a lifetime.
