names

how weird is it to have two names?
i have had a couple of friends born with chinese names, but known by their english/christian names (can never tell the difference) throughout, or from a certain period onwards.

heck, my brothers were born with chinese names only but their english names were decided before birth.
hehe but i'm special ^^
so it's weird innit. like in class, the teacher calls out, "zi ling". then you must correct her, "sorry my name is kristal"
what name do you write down in exams?
in official exams?
in.. everything?

for those who had english names in their childhood, okay can, as long as i knew you with that english name.
i had a friend, christina. sometimes i called her yun jen, sometimes christina. she didn't have a fixed english name, in fact she switched from something to christina.
i knew her from the start as both.

or another, ling min. a year into knowing her she adopted "nicole". can la so the whole world calls her nicole i just call her ling min lor.

but when you're like, late teens?
my secondary school classmate added her christian name to her i/c in sec 4.
when she moved to jc, all her new friends new her as joanne, so my ex classmates (who went to the same class as her) did likewise.
it's just so weird...... like all the double names.

and for the others also, who have secret (hehe) english names.
i had these 2 friends, coincidentally janyce and janice, i neverrrr could think of them as janyce and janice.
janyce was always hui min to me. she had the janyce since like sec 1, but adopted it officially like in jc.
janice..... was well, never, ever janice to anyone. perhaps in the working world then.

and my mum.
i asked her the other day, how come she had an english name, but in her family everyone called her sk, and her sisters by ther english names?

it all started at christmas when someone asked me if i was the daughter of (the host). i was like uh no.....
i'm mag's daughter?
magdalene?
uhhhhh, sk?
suay keow?

LOL I DIED. how many names sia.
then my mum told me, english name for work, sk for cell group and family, suay keow for everything else.
sian. now i wanna get her a name necklace also don't know what to put -.-

and my poor little brothers, i would have a confused identity if i were them.
imagine the start of every year, teachers call me "zi ling".
eww. last sunday during baptism there was a candidate called "dze ling". my mum was like, "eh it means lizard".
i looked at her and was like "YOU NAMED ME A LIZARD?"
"then she went, huh? oh ya your chinese name is zi ling hor"
and putting my name down on exams..... no english name.
saddening.

but whatever la, not like having this name "kristal" prevents people from misspelling it 88.7% of the time.
it fact it happens so damn often, i get a bit excited when people get it right.