names

throughout my life i've been called many names. first i received my actual name, jenalee, from my parents. they then went on to call me jenny penny as a cutesy nickname and i responded for several years to just that, unaware of how embarrassed i should actually be. (there is a story behind that nickname, but who really cares)

eventually it was time for me to go to school, where my mother and father insisted i tell anyone off if they shortened my name. no matter what people started to shorten it, i began to respond to jen and jena. i did in fact "stand up" for my name and lost some friends over it. (telling people to call you by your actual name causes big arguments when you're about 6 years old, i don't recommend it if you want to keep your friends) when i got to the age where i wanted to socialize and basically do everything my older brother did, i started to play outside and because of the lack of girls on my block it was only natural that i became a tomboy. i played sports, traded pokemon cards, ran around like a lunatic, and told everybody off because i was a firm believer in girls being better than boys. (why wouldn't i? i could show all of them up) the only person who i didn't believe i was better than was my brother, and due to my absolute idolization of him at the time, i earned a new nickname. justin's little sister will be a nickname that will haunt me to my death. it at least lasted until the end of grade school, where even teachers called me that.

justin's little sister evolved into something new when he decided to abandon me and all that we stood for to go to high school. there were new people being brought home to hang out, and they did not call justin "justin", they called him truck. when the first person i met from justin's new friends met me, (jim kauterman) he immediately thought it was hilarious that my brother and i are so similar. instead of giving me a nickname like "truck's little sister" he decided that truckette, or she truck would work. thank you nicklewoman for being the only person in that 12 years of my life to get even semi-creative with a nickname.

eventually i had to abandon all that we stood for as well, and i ended up getting into the same high school as my brother. (another example of how much i idolized him) i was faced with four more years of the same "justin's little sister" if i didn't do something about it. some time during the summer before my partner in crime, jess, had about a hundred nicknames for me. i went through betsy, schmennalpee, and jet li as the most prominent of the many nicknames. jet li actually spilled over into my freshmen year as something people called me. thank god i grew out of that eventually. this was the point where miss angela jalbert made her way into my life, and started just as many nicknames. she didn't know it, but she was one of the few who i base my "jen", "jena", and "jenalee" rule on. she had people to start calling me jenapee, and several forms of that.

sophomore year was a deep abyss of anything intelligent or remotely creative. instead of talking about any nickname i might've had that year, i'll talk to you about my "jen", "jena", "lee", and "jenalee" rule. for the most part i could care less about what you call me, but for some reason certain people in my mind should follow these rules. my family tends to use my full actual name of jenalee, but because toddlers and babies have difficulty saying that my wonderfully adorable baby cousin silvio started the trend of calling me lee. this caused almost everyone to think he was even more adorable, and almost all of the adults called me that for a while as well. now just the little ones call me lee and everybody else uses the full version. the nicknames jen and jena are a little tricky. i noticed a trend a few years ago, usually the people who know me the longest and i like the most, they call me jen, and everybody else who is at least considered a friend calls me jena.

junior year has seen a similar lack of nicknames, except some members of my team call me lee and jlee. they also adopted "movie star". no matter what, somewhere in the time from freshmen year till now i've grown into an actual person and not a carbon copy of my brother. yes, we still have a lot of the same mannerisms, and yes, i still resemble him (no matter how much i hate resembling his ugly face, JK JUSTIN :D), but i have my own interests and i have some idea what i want to do with my life and it doesn't involve bike messenging.

it's almost completely off-topic, but the point of this entry is this: MY NAME IS NOT OCTOPUS, the new host at my work has been calling me that. no matter how much i like octopus and like to draw them, NONDAS MY NAME IS NOT OCTOPUS NOR IS IT ZENALY. he also calls me movie star, and he thinks i'm french. what is wrong with you NONDAS??? your name is silly anyway.