what's in a name?

Sometimes I worry about my stalker tendencies. I'm not creepy... at least, not really creepy. It's just that people happen to make excellent puzzles... and I like puzzles...

This all started because of my poor ability to remember names. I'm usually worried about so many things when introducing myself to someone new, that their name tends to slip by me. It isn't until later, after the interaction is over and I have time to ruminate over the exchange, that I realize I have no idea what the person's name is.

I do realize that I'm not alone in this name-forgetting dilemma. Lots of people have this problem. Most of the time I feel ok admitting to a new acquaintance that I have no recollection of their name. Although this is slightly embarrassing, it is often the case that the other party has also forgotten my name, in which case awkwardness is minimized, and life goes on.

However, there are those occasions in which those first "whoops, I forgot your name already" moments slip by, and one can find oneself several weeks into an almost-friendship not actually knowing the other person's name.

I met a grad student who teaches in my classroom the hour before me, and each week we've been chatting a bit before my discussion section. He's super friendly and really nice, but I have absolutely no idea what his name is. Unfortunately, he knows mine, and insists on addressing me with it (the jerk!). Anyway, this is how the stalking began....

"So," I thought, "I'll look through the list of grad students in his department, and maybe that will jog my memory." No luck. I tried Google imaging the promising names from the list. No luck -- the list doesn't include everyone. Next step: search for the name using the schedule of classes (I know the building, room, and time of his discussion). Bingo! I got the last name. Great! I Googled again and came up with his first name as well. Problem solved.

This is probably where I should have stopped, because really, all I wanted was the first name so that I didn't seem like such a jackass not knowing it when we talk.

However, with the internet at my fingertips, it's hard to stop at just a name....

Amongst other things, I found the guy's blog. I read it. There's nothing terribly personal or embarrassing in it, but just the fact that I've gotten all of this information about him without his knowledge feels, well, kind of creepy.

Oh well. Maybe I can stand to be a little creepy. At least now I know his name!

Lent

It's been 21 days. The withdrawal symptoms are finally beginning to subside, and the intense cravings that I initially experienced have almost completely gone away...

This year I gave up cookies for Lent. I'm not religious (so forgive me if you are -- I do not mean to insult this tradition through my frivolous take on it), but I do like the idea of giving up a vice for some limited amount of time. As explained in my last post, I'm not very good at very strict long-term goals, but 40 days seems to be about the length of time I can handle.

Ordinarily, giving up cookies for a few weeks wouldn't be such a big deal. However, coffee hour cookies have made resisting the cookie temptation extra hard. The neuro program has begun to do a Tuesday coffee hour. Coffee hour might as well be called cookie hour, as far as I'm concerned, because there is always an abundance of delicious cookies to snack on to accompany the coffee. That alone would not be so bad (Tuesdays are not terribly frequent), but the cookies for coffee hour often end up being stored in my shared office space, so that I am not only tempted to eat them during the coffee hour, but every hour that I'm in lab. What makes it worse is that my labmates think it's hilarious to make a show out of eating cookies in front of me. Luckily, I've made it this far and managed, so I feel pretty confident that I can make it until Easter. Until then, I'll comfort myself with the thought that after April 3rd I'll have the option once again to turn back into a cookie monster.