In mild disbelief

But this time, it's a GOOD thing.

So, okay: to give it in chronological order. This morning, doing my pre-breakfast Dinking Around on the Internet, I thought, "I should probably send a little money on to Doctors Without Borders; they will probably be among the first on the scene to help people cope in the aftermath of Irma" and also figured that my self-imposed yarn buying ban could help fund that sort of thing....so I sent them $50.

Went to school; taught my classes. Came back after my last class and checked my e-mail.

One was from the treasurer of the Faculty Senate: "How do you want the money from the award you won this spring disbursed?"

Money?

Wait, money?

I wasn't expecting money. I had heard that ages and ages ago, those awards had a small stipend tied to them, but had also heard that in our leaner-budget future, those had been done away with. And I was *fine* with that - I mean, it's nice to be recognized, and I'm doing OK financially and all, and I didn't even feel jealous of the people who HAD got cash awards in better times (though apparently some did, given some of the responses on the Faculty Senate survey I saw).

So I was startled to get that e-mail this morning. There was the option to put it towards academic travel expenses (paying to go to a conference) or to purchase supplies ("videos or computer needs" were listed) or have it added to your salary.

I have no travel planned and I don't need any supplies - and I don't know of any tradition that we throw this back in the departmental budget, though maybe ours could have used it - so I confess I checked the "salary" box right away.

I have no idea how much it is. I don't anticipate it being VERY much but even a token amount is a nice surprise.

And I'm struck again by a convergence I seem to see in my life. Not every single time, of course, so of course I do not expect it or take it as my due, but once in a while, when I kind of "step out" and go "I can afford to donate money to this good cause," in very short order some unexpected source of money (usually textbook-evaluation work) comes up, and I find I make back what I gave.

"Every good thing you do, comes back to you."

It doesn't always feel that way, and of course karma isn't really a thing (or at least, isn't a thing in this particular way), but it does strike me. A little fistbump of solidarity from the universe or something. Or maybe a little "keep on keepin' on" at a time when (to go by yesterday) I was VERY discouraged.

As I said, I didn't quite believe it at first - had to read the e-mail a couple times and then look at the list of recipients to be sure I wasn't mistakenly on it. But no, I was supposed to receive it and yes, I'm going to get whatever little consideration they send on.

I don't need the money, but I needed the encouragement today. (There's a saying something like "Coincidence is God winking at you" and this kind of thing has happened to me often enough that I find it hard to write off as mere coincidence)