adelaidemedblog

Break from study. VERY random thoughts.

I think this one is a bit overdue, but something triggered the thought of it today. (again, today is the day the date one day before this post says the day actually is.) And yeah before you ask what triggered it, here is another staple quote:

“Is your name Alexandra?” - Rei, to Ego (Alex - a guy)

Though in her defence, it was a slip of the tongue, it did make me think a moment.

I guess I don’t even go by my actual name much anymore. Only two people has called me by my actual first name (Anthony) rather than what I go by (Tony) and not right after I said that that was my real name, and those were Cheryl and Uyen. (Yeah, it has become rather apparent to me that the vast majority of the readers of this blog are actually first year adelaide med students who would know these people anyway.) Well i did choose for it to be this way. I guess I can’t really complain either - I didn’t figure out that “Affy” was short for “Afsana” until quite a while after I met her.

Well, anyway, on to other “names” - such as the display name I use on here, and some other random thoughts on other names.

“Mana” means “why” in some dialect that my parents speak. It’s also from that game Magic the Gathering which I used to play and it means “energy” from the Maori word of the same spelling meaning energy. yeah. sad…

I think this should be birdman’s thing to say but I think by now he should have said it and it fits this post. Besides it means he can elaborate. and not forget to post regarding this event. Basically, he is “birdman” because at one time when he was younger there was this bird that just came and sat on his shoulder. And no matter what he did he could not get the bird off. Until a very long time after. i laughed when i heard this story… hehehehehe… I’ll let him elaborate further on this one.

I don’t know where Alex got the name Ego. Though “ego” does actually have a meaning - “the conscious mind” - which makes sense i guess.

Oh… before I forget (though it is difficult to), today (Saturday) was his 18th birthday! Happy Birthday Alex!! Thanks for a great night. (I’ll let him post about this one himself.)

Steph… you still haven’t explained to me what “tpaitpai” means, or where it comes from, or why you use it… or even how to pronounce it. shame on you

Then there are those real life names. You know what? I think there should be mandatory pronunciation classes in primary school for everyone to be able to pronounce names that are very common but difficult to pronounce in English. Just some basic pronounciation… like how to read pinyin and how to kind of not pronounce the last letter in French and… you can think of more. You could probably think I’m being insanely picky here, and yeah I am. And I think the maximum times that you should be able to attempt to pronounce someone’s name wrong should be ONCE and you should know how to pronounce it correct the next time.
notable exception to the rule is if the name is a tongue-twister or if it is very very very very long.

All through life I’ve had my last name pronounced “chow” by soooo many teachers it’s so annoying… I think I’m not the only one
feeling the pain actually. (well it’s not pain. just annoyance.)

Then there’s Mahesh “Brown” - no that’s not actually his last name though for a while I can think of at least two people who were under the impression that it was. Not only does it sound like “hash brown” or at least remind you of it, but then it could also be interpreted as a racist joke. And then his last name is insanely long. How cool.

Not quite as long as the last name of the winner of the 2006 international biology olympiad (”Jantrachotechatchwan” - what…) but still substantially long.

and Vishnu the Village god of cows. Not that there are any cows at the village, but if there were any, he would have absolute power over them. Until he moves out of course.

and Uyen (Rei) who I found out earlier, succumbed to the pressures of having other people pronounce her name wrong and so she just introduces herself pronouncing her name the “wrong” way. Also today Ego asked about her watching NGE and i realised that the character Rei in NGE is only a very small part of a full human. Or a small percentage of one. Hmm…

and the guy at college who goes by the name “Mecha” - though that isn’t his name at all; it’s an “internet” name, but he is called that in real life! even the headmaster of college called him Mecha. what the…

anyway I should get some sleep. More work tomorrow. yay for resource exam! or actually not.