strange connections

Came across an unexpected email in my inbox this morning from a person claiming to be an MA student in Pakistan with an interest in postcolonial literature. I have no idea how they got my personal email (or knew that I was into postcolonial lit), but I went with it and responded to their inquiries with a little novel about my particular academic interests (once you get me started babbling about that sort of thing, it's kind of hard to stop. Plus, what better way to spend my time when I'm bored at home than meeting a new friend?)

Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else before? I'm a huge fan of correspondences and a generally trusting person (I mean, they weren't selling me penis enhancements or overtly trying to get my bank account information!), but I don't want to be suckered into some scam that I'm not even aware of...I guess I do find it really strange that they knew my email and academic interests. To the best of my knowledge, I don't have any connections to anyone in Pakistan, nor do any of the profs that I've worked with on the undergraduate level.

The only thing is that my name and email are now on the website of my program. While I'd rather not reveal my specific school here, I will say that it's an Ivy, so maybe the person just decided to randomly email me based on an interest in my program? They did say they were interested in pursuing further graduate study in the US...But that still wouldn't explain how they know that I'm into postcolonial lit because that particular tidbit of information isn't available on the site. Furthermore, my intentions are to focus primarily on Asian American lit, so even if I did have a bio somewhere about my research interests, it wouldn't mention that...

Oh, the mysteries of the internet! I seem to be the queen of random communications (I've gotten quite a few messages out of the blue in my day), so perhaps I'll just chalk it up to my good fortune in this area. In any case, I'll keep you all updated (just as you should let me know if I'm being drawn into some scam!)