I was born in a small town. And I live in a small town.

I've never really known the population of Tallahassee. To ballpark it, I guess around 250k, but I never know if those stats include students or not. But it becomes frighteningly small sometimes.

Now that I am job-hunting both here and far, I'm realizing how small it can be. I've got a softball team's worth of people scouting out leads and am turning up a few possibilities.

And, hamdullah, I got an interview the other day. It's a fantastic part-time job at the hospital, and I mentioned this to my SIL. As it turns out, she knows someone in the department, but not the person with whom I interviewed.

Coincidentally, I also attended an event with the book author, and it happened to be directly related to the hospital staff, although not with the particular department.

So, during the interview, I mentioned that I am helping research a book and she pulls out a Tallahassee magazine profiling the author. Small world. (Previously, in the lobby waiting on interview time, I'd seen a Tallahassee Woman's magazine with a story on a woman in my French class. Small world, again.)

Later, at the end of the interview, I did a short tour around the office and met the person my SIL knows. I mentioned the relationship and we then mentioned a mutal friend of those two, and from there it went to a volunteer colleague of one of the two whom I'd happened to run into while eating at Hopkin's just prior to the interview. And the person also knew my brother, too.

So I really walked out of there just smiling at how different it is to me than Detroit, where, although I lived forever, I had no history or roots.

Today, I had a similar thing occur, too. I sent a resume for another position, a communication coordinator one, and called to confirm they got it. I'd noticed the name of the company was similar to one on an email my SIL had sent me which contained a job posting. A friend of hers had sent it to her.

As that side story turned out, it is the same company, which could work to my benefit. But that's not today's development.

I called the nice HR lady to confirm that my resume was received (I really don't trust online resumes anymore!) and she hadn't caught the name of the person whose call she was returning. In fact, she had merely seen the prefix and assumed it was a neighbor calling about her dogs.

Turns out, she also lives in the same small town.

So that's my big update this week. Nothing substantial, just forward progress in a very small world.

(Photo is my new "niece" Fendi.)