It’s a Small World Afterall

After completing Thai class this morning, I headed to the Emporium shopping center to pay my mobile phone bill.  Afterwards, on the platform of the Skytrain station at Phrom Phong, I saw this guy who looked really familiar.  He was looking at me, too, so I was wracking my brain trying to remember where we had met. 

Finally, I remembered that we had met at a party seven or eight years ago and had run into each other a few times back in San Francisco.  But I couldn’t remember his name.  I remembered that his name sounded a bit like another word, but I couldn’t remember the word, either.  So much for mnemonic devices.

He headed towards me, came up and said, “You’re from San Francisco, right?” 

“Yes,” I responded, “but I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.”

It turns out his name is Mynop (rhymes with “myop” as in “myopic” – you have to understand how my brain works, I guess) and, news to me, he is Thai.  Sure enough, my memory was correct as he confirmed that we had met at a party way back when.  So we chatted for a few minutes on the way to my station.  It turns out that he comes back to Bangkok to visit friends and family every year about this time.

As we pulled into Asok station, I considered whether or not I should re-establish contact with him and exchange numbers.  Ultimately, I decided that since I couldn’t remember his name and we’d had no reason to stay establish contact any of the other times we had met, there probably was no reason to do so now.

Maybe it was the right decision.  Maybe it was short-sighted.  I never quite know, as part of me thinks that you can never know too many people in this world.  Another part of me is very pragmatic and says, “is this someone I’m really going to stay in touch with?”  Maybe I’ll make this deal with serendipity: if I run into him another time, then I’ll invite him to meet Tawn and me for drinks.

Singapore Calling

Otto and Han (see the entry two months ago about our trip to Singapore) arrive this evening from the land of the Merlion for a holiday in Bangkok and Pattaya.  We look forward to seeing them again. 

Got DSL!

Well, the good news is that thanks to a couple of telephone calls Tawn placed to TOT, we now have a fully functioning ADSL line in our apartment.  Last night, for just the second time in over a month, I was able to directly connect to my company’s Virtual Private Network and check my email.  

What a boost to my productivity to have access to the Internet when and where I need it.