A rose by any other name...

I was looking at the bloogles again today and discovered that somebody found my blog by actually looking for me by name. This is somewhat reassuring... at least theygot there in the end - whether or not they werelooking for me.

The trouble is, having a name like Sarah Hamilton is not especially great for building a prominent internet profile. It's just too common, unfortunately. It reminds me of the Dave Gorman show.

I was at school with another Sarah Hamilton who was in the year ahead of me and when I was working in academia, there was a Sarah Hamilton ahead of me by a couple of years in a similar enough field that a colleague once congratulated me on the good reviews for (not) my new book! Strangest thing was that this other Dr Sarah Hamilton and I seemed to have quite a few academia friends in common though the two of us never actually met.

Having left academia for the greater pleasures of Youth Ministry, I sometimes think of the other Dr Sarah Hamilton leading the life I might have had (though in fact she was FAR more dedicated and scholarly than I was and therefore justificably more successful!).

Yesterday, a friend asked me if I ever miss university life with a "nonne" question (one for my former students there - a question expecting the answer no... a "surely not?") and in part he was right. I generally don't. I love my job so much, even when I have incredibly busy days like today and the prospect of full days ahead. There is occaionally, though, a brief moment when I picture myself sitting in a quiet library surounded by a large stack of Latin dictionaries but this is usually lost in me giggling (at the recollection that I really didn't have the dedication to solitary confinement when I was researching and was far more inclined to plan "fun" things for my Latin classes) and then moving on to plan the next event, buy some new resources, experiment with some craft or write something for my next sermon. Talk about dream job, surely? Well I think it is for me, as long as I get some time when I'm supposed to be a little bit mature sometimes!!!