mardi 2 septembre 2008

Come again?

Since I was on the yearbook committee for a couple of years throughout junior high, high school, and college, I thought that my ability to recognize people and remember their names was pretty good. Oftentimes, that has been the case and it has only come about from seeing mug shots over and over again or indexing countless names, forwards and backwards. But it seems that my once-obtained skills have now disappeared.

Incident #1: Winter semester 2008. I was having a late-night dinner with some friends and professors at a restaurant I'd never been to when I realized that our server looked familiar. I couldn't place where I knew him from throughout the entire meal so when we were getting the bill, I asked the server if he had attended the same college that my group of friends and I went to. He gave me a strange glance, telling me that he did not go to that school. Several days later, I finally figured out where I knew him from - seminary. Not only that but we were in the same class. And to top it all off, I sat beside him for the entire semester that same semester in a course with nine people! Yeah, I have no excuse for this one.

Incident #2: About two weeks ago. I was at a different restaurant during a busy evening. The person I was with knew one of the servers and called out his name before we had taken our seats; this person ended up serving us. Again, there was something about the server that got my attention but I didn't think I actually knew him from anywhere. It wasn't until the next day that I put two and two together and remembered that I audited a course with the server three years ago. Granted, this was much better than the last incident in that I knew the server from three years ago as opposed to the day before but still, the class I took with him only had six people!

Incident #3: Last week. Finally, an incident that doesn't involve a server at a restaurant although this one is pretty bad because the person knew that I didn't know who he was. I used to volunteer in video technologies and student ministries at my church and this was one of the people that was involved with both as well. He was the same age as the group of students that I led and a fellow techie on the same rotation that I was on four years ago. I guess I wasn't thinking that youth don't always stay youth and that they eventually grow up because I had no clue who this guy was until someone else called out his name and I went, "That's him?!" Haha, he's definitely taller now.

I'm a bit embarrassed that this has already happened to me three times. I wonder what the next few incidents will look like although I don't know if anything can take the cake like the first one where I sat beside the guy for an entire semester and didn't know his face...

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