.. friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief

.. it was a great outing last night. A small gathering, nevertheless an interesting bunch of more than 30 turned up, born from a tool named facebook that is used by people with bad memories to remember names of their friends and spam the same friends with useless applications (.. well not all).

.. created back in September last year, this group aptly named Expats in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), with a group of 250+ members strong, attracted me when i first came to Vietnam, being a community which binds expats like me together, sharing a common goal, familiarizing ourselves with the intricacies of foreign cultures and laws. We began with introductions of ourselves I was placed in a position quite difficult as i was sitted right in the middle of a very long table arrangement. Stuttered a bit and was more like talking to myself as its difficult to maintain eye contact with anyone .. 15+ on my left and the remaining 15+ on my right .. left right left right .. zz. Confusion and disarray !! How could i even claim myself to be a good sales person dealing with the multi million AV industry after this experience ?

.. things got slightly under control later as i moved about trying to remember names and strike up conversations. There might be some that i missed out, but that is what facebook is for, to further develop the relationship that is hanging on a fine thread just because you have bad memories.

.. the day got better as i developed a bad throat from talking too much. LOL .. not better because of the bad throat, but better after i moved to the pool table when the soreness heated up. Met up with the owner of the restaurant which we gathered in, which happens to be a good friend of my director. He introduced me to another regular of his which plays Snooker! And both of them would introduce me to another friend which plays professional snooker .. looks like i could have my regular practices again soon.

.. this post might sound boring as this is not my preferred style of writing. Usually the boring stuffs i would just label it as news, for the benefit of those who would just want to ignore it totally. It is nonetheless important to me as it signifies small achievements that will change my life as an expat one way or another.

.. till the next post, ciao