What’s in a Name?

Apparently, a lot.

By chance I met up with an old college classmate and friend today. (Click THIS to read about it in my previous post.) She told me how she’s been looking all over the Internet for ME, mainly via Friendster, I suppose. And of course, she didn’t find a trace of ME. You see, back then, during my UP days, I went by another nickname. It was only then that I used that nick so no one else calls ME by that name except the people I met at UP back then.

It’s a nick "given" by a high school friend.

Actually, I’ve had several "name changes" over the years, starting with the 6th grade. I used to go by my nickname Malou all the way back then. But when I went to the 5th grade in New York, I didn’t like the way everybody would mispronounce my nick. So I started using part of my full name during the 6th grade. That worked well, even when I got back here and went to Brent School in Pasig for my 7th grade. However, when I started with high school at Holy Family Academy in Angeles City, the people there didn’t quite pronounce my name right. So I stopped using "Mary" in college and went by the new nick that my friend "baptized" ME with. 

Well, I had trouble with that nick, too. People kept spelling and saying it wrong. So I decided to shift back to simply "Malou" when I moved to the Adventist university of the Philippines (back then it was called Philipppine Union College).  Most people from there call ME "Malou." Some call ME by my "private" childhood nickname (which I’m keeping a secret), too.

So, that’s the story with all the nicknames I used. It’s that simple. Nothing quite so exciting as keeping several different identities and running from the authorities. Today, I’m forced to maintain several Friendster accounts, the latest I created today was one with the "Wyette" nick. My friends (those who were "lucky" enough to find ME again online) have all expressed their frustrations and difficulties at finding "Wyette Escasa." Haha. There might be more out there looking for ME with that nick. I might as well make it easier for them to find me. 

I Came, I Saw . . . and I’m Going Back Tomorrow!

I pushed through with my plans of attending The Social Networking and eBusiness Conference at the Hotel Intercontinental today even if I was feeling sluggish after sleeping past 1 A.M. again and waking up with less than my minimum required 6 hours of sleep.

I’m glad that I did. Even if I was about 30 minutes late and the first speaker (David Jones from Friendster) had already started with his presentation.

So far, hands down, I think Janette Toral was the best speaker. I walked up to her after the day’s session and introduced myself, hoping she’d recall my name as I sometimes see her dropping by my blog (just not sure which particular one she looks at or if she reads anything). I had a picture taken with her, too so that I could post something here. But it’s not a very good one since it’s only with my cellphone camera. I might bring a digicam there tomorrow to get a better shot. (Hehe.)

I suppose the highlight of my day was meeting up with an old friend and college blockmate — all the way back from ages ago — from my long gone UP Diliman days. I’ve lost track of all of my UP friends. I haven’t even found a single one of them in Friendster. I did find one on the cover of Manila Bulletin’s Sunday magazine — she’s working for the UN now, UN Habitat to be exact as its Country Programme Coordinator. Or at least that’s what it said in the magazine then — I think it was last year or the year before that that I saw that.

It was pretty cool meeting up with friend after all these years.  She finished her AB Political Science degree from UP Diliman, one of the few from our block I think who didn’t shift to another course or who didn’t transfer to another school. She’s married now and works for Smart Communications.

I have a terrible headache now. I think the pain is once again caused by my eyes. So, I’m typing with my eyes closed, occassionally peeking to check for typos.

I guess I better end this at this, rest my eyes a bit and then head out again to meet up with another friend from Lipa City who’s Manila also attending a two-day seminar. It’s pretty neat that their venue is just a few hundred meters away from our place so I’ll just walk over there later on to hang out with her a bit and catch up on what’s been going on with her life since we’ve last met.

M.E. with Janette Toral:

A terrible shot. I hope to get a more decent one tomorrow. That’s M.E. looking wasted after several nights of not getting enough sleep.