Resolved: The Jenny Baillie Coincidence

On Monday I finally met Jenny Baillie, resident of Rossland, artist, and (in 1996) primary school teacher.

But she's not the Jenny Baillie I knew. She taught somewhere in New Zealand in 96, rather than Canberra.

I must admit that I'm not exactly disappointed that this wasn't the same Jenny Baillie. Ever since I heard she might be in town I've been trying to think of ways that the Jenny Baillie I knew might end up as an artist in Rossland. Admittedly, I was a 12 year old when I was in her class, so I doubt I had a very accurate picture of her as a person, but she just didn't seem like the kind of person who would end up as an artist in a town of 3,000 people in a reasonably obscure part of Canada. For a start, she didn't ski or mountain bike, and there aren't really that many other reasons to live here. I was a bit worried that there might have been some kind of family tragedy that might have driven Jenny Baillie of Canberra to the Kootenay mountains, and finding out that this wasn't the case is something of a relief.

On the other hand, Jenny Baillie of Rossland had apparently heard from a few people that there was a possible former student in town, and she was a bit disappointed to discover that I wasn't one of her charges from her prior career. It occurred to me that this might be another reason for me to be relieved that this wasn't my former teacher. Jenny Baillie of Canberra might be a bit suprised to find that the model student of her year 6 class is now a skiing vagrant rather than something slightly more worthwhile.

As an indication of just how much my trajectory in life has changed, in year 6 (the final year of my primary school education) I was voted:

• Most likely to become rich. Well, I'm sure my classmates meant well. I'm not sure what went wrong here. At some point in life I discovered that being dirty and having fun was more interesting than whatever it is people do to become rich. Of all the predictions made, this is the least likely to come true in the remainder of my lifetime.
  
• Most likely to become famous. This is certainly not the case right now, and given the current course of my life it doesn't look at all probable. However, I can't completely rule out this possibility. After all, my classmates never said what I'd be famous for. Perhaps they thought I'd go on to commit a number of grisly and well publicised murders, or become a wildly successful internet blogger. Unfortunately, their reasons were never clearly stated.
• Smartest. This is a little bit complicated. Clearly, given the first two predictions were well off the mark, the veracity of my classmates is not to be trusted. However, it is possible that they made the previous mistakes because they were a bunch of muppets. If that was the case, then maybe I was the smartest class member amongst a grade of dullards. Unfortunately, I can't remember whether I also voted for myself in those categories, which would neatly counter this argument. It would be nice to believe that I didn't vote for myself in any of the categories, but unfortunately that's not a guarantee that I can make about myself in grade 6.
  

Don't get the wrong idea about my classmates. We did manage to successfully identify the tallest members of our grade by popular vote. Democracy works.

So perhaps not meeting Jenny Baillie here is for the best. It's nice to think there are a few people around who still think I'm a productive and contributing member of society.