It's occured to me that about a year ago today I was biking across Thailand when I happened across two unexpected things: a meditation center and a newspaper ad.
Two nights before I had seen an ad in the Bangkok Post announcing a U.S. Education Fair coming to Bangkok that weekend where 20 universities would be in attendance. I'm not Thai or a student but I still wanted to go as I thought these people (the univ. reps.) would be the right people for me to talk to about getting a job in international education, a field I'd been contemplating for a while. Or maybe, I thought, I could work for the company organizing this education tour. I bet they get to travel a lot, I remember thinking.
But, Bangkok was far from where I was and I had immediately liked the meditation center and wanted to start a 10 day course the next day. I choose to stay. After a few days of de-fragging, house cleaning my mind, whatever you want to call it I hit a mental block. Udi, the Israeli monk who runs the center, wondered what was going on, and I told him how I kept thinking of going to Bangkok to pass out my resume. A very non-monk thing to say no doubt. Udi tried to assure me more chances would come along, jobs come and go, but to leave this idylic meditation center that you just rode across while biking rural Thailand when you had intended on doing a course in Thailand would be an insult to my fate. One can't ignore fate.
Now a year later on my desktop are copies of the Bangkok ad (this year's), as well as our advertising plan for the Bangkok Post and other Asian papers. Next week I'm headed to Seoul to meet my boss and our clients after they fly up from Bangkok.
Fate is strange. I wonder where I'll be next March? I'll have to look for hints in the papers on my way home from work.
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