Yes, I am, in fact, alive.

Sorry for the little hiatus. I’ve been so busy lately, with school, work, and whatnot. I’ve been trying to keep up with all of your blogs, but I’ve been way to busy to update my own. Just figured I’d stop in to let you all know I am not dead. 🙂

I work as a teaching assistant at a preschool. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s a very fun and rewarding job. Let me tell you, I’d much rather be tying shoes, reading Dr. Seuss, and singing silly songs than flipping burgers or bagging groceries. The kids are, for the most part, very pleasant to work with. For those who are interested, here are the names of the children in my preschool class (if I know their siblings names, they shall be in parantheses):

Boys

Bobby (yes, that’s his full name!) (and Dylan)
Elijah
Jack
Brandon
Landon (and Deirdre)
Joseph
Justin
Eryk
Zachary
Michael
Daniel “Danny”

Girls

Makayla (and Samuel)
Skylar
Ashlyn (and Kasey [f])
Lizelle
Isabella
Aimee (pronounced like Amy, not the French way) (and Julianne)
Mitzie

There, I think that’s all of them! The children range in age from 3-5, but most of them are 4. Not a single John (though there is a Jack) or Mary, or a Jacob or Emily, for that matter. Interestingly, none of the kids share a name, either. The names are all fairly typical. I live in Rhode Island, a relatively conservative naming area, so there aren’t many oddballs, except for Lizelle and perhaps Mitzie. My favorite names on the list (I do have my favorite kids, even though I’m not supposed to!) are Elijah (it may be trendy, but it’s not tryndee, and I love the Biblical character), Joseph, Zachary, Michael, Daniel, and Aimee. Yeah, I only like Aimee on the girls’ list. I really, really wish Makayla’s name was spelled Michaela. In fact, I often pretend it is, but then I have to give myself a reality check when it comes time to write her name on something! She’s such a sweetheart, and doesn’t deserve a name that I consider to be misspelled. Do any of you ever find yourselves wishing you could rename people? I get that feeling way too much. It bugs me so much when a nice person has an awful name. 😛

What do you all think?

Deborah and Susan

I don’t understand why I’m so fascinated with baby boomer names these days! Normally my tastes aren’t nearly so vanilla, I promise. I go through phases of name infatuation–Greek mythology kicks, medieval kicks, and now a 50s and 60s kick. Some of them stick around and become old favorites–Ann from my family names kick, Atticus from my hipster kick, but many don’t. I’ll be interested to see if I’ll still like and want to use Judy and Lisa a few months from now, or if I’ll have decided to admire them from afar and no longer consider them candidates for future children.

Boaz

I got to name something!

We perceived that our cat, Mary Magdalene/Maggie, was lonely, and so, after much thought on the subject, we decided to get her a companion.

Roger and Lisa

A quick post before I head to bed.

Eulalia

I wanted to change my name to Eulalia when I was ten, but no one would call me that. I continued liking the name until I was thirteen, when I went through a brief, but horrific tryndee phase. Even after the end of the tryndee phase, I didn’t take the chance to pick this name back up, dust it off, and consider its merits anew–until now, that is.

My Sister’s Favorite Names

I suppose that with all of my constant rambling on the subject of names, my 12-year-old sister, Hannah, has become a name nerd by association. Or perhaps having such a common name herself has driven her to give her future children unusual names. Whatever the case may be, she’s showed me a list of her favorite names and, with her permission, I’ve decided to share it with all y’all.

Names I Wish Had Never Gone to the Girls

Now, I’m not completely against unisex names. Many surnames could go either way, so long as they don’t have obviously masculine meanings (I’m looking at you, Madison). And there are some traditionally male names that I really do think sound better on girls–but that’s another post, for another time. There are some, however, that I’d love to use on a boy, if it weren’t for the fact that my son would be constantly mistaken for a girl on college applications and the like and teased mercilessly by his peers. Here are a handful:

Judy

I like Judy. I like her a lot. She has a very retro vibe to her–kind of like pearl necklaces.

Old Xanga Post: The Anns

Originally posted on 12/28/08 at xanga.com/spicycrispychickenmeltJohnson

 

Like most homeschooling weirdos, I would love to have a large family some day. At least four kids, preferably five or six, or even more (I may change my mind once I start paying for all of them, but let me have my fun for now :P). However, I will never have enough kids to use up all my favorite names. I might have to get a bunch of cats or something so I can use all those charming names that I won’t be able to use after I stop spawning. And, of course, if I marry a sane person, which I plan to do as my own mental issues are more than enough for both my husband and me, my favorites may make him throw up in his mouth a little and the phrase, “you want to name our child WHAT?!?” shall be uttered by him at least twenty-seven times per pregnancy. Still, I find it very hard to narrow my lists down, and my favorites are constantly changing. But here’s one that will always be on my list in some way, shape, or form.

Old Xanga Post: A Brief Glimpse at My Obsession With Names

Originally posted on 12/19/07 at xanga.com/spicycrispychickenmeltJohnson

Those who read my “Clinically Insane” blog could probably hazard a guess that I have a slightly bizarre obsession with names, particularly for someone of my age. Well, you’re wrong. I have an extremely bizarre obsession with names, for anyone of any age. I have the SSA popularity charts nearly committed to memory. I have several lists of names scattered randomly all over my computer and the interweb: my long list of favorites, my short list of favorites, my “if I married this or that cool dead person/fictional character these would be the names of our offspring” lists, and entire lists of fictitious families, several spanning multiple generations, and one that’s even an entire urban/hipster neighborhood (they may be snooty and have retarded political views, but they give their kids some rockin’ cool names). Often, when I go somewhere in which I know there will be several children present, I perk my ears up and take note of the names I hear, analyzing the environment I’m in by what the children are named, sometimes even jotting them down the instant I get home for future reference. In fact, I’m considering bringing a notepad with me every where I go solely for this purpose. (The other day, I went to visit a nearby preschool for a job interview. The moment our “tour guide” left me and told me to “feel free to look around”, I dragged my Fa over to the attendance chart so I could check out the kids’ names and see if this is a place I’d want to work or not. It passed with flying colors; most of the children had comfy, cozy, Biblical classics [e.g., Hannah, Benjamin[ or timeless, ageless gems [e.g., William, Katherine] for first names, with only three super trendy names in the bunch [Sydney, Ethan, and Kaylyn], only one of which I found intolerably distasteful [Kaylyn].) And I am shamelessly and obnoxiously vocal about my opinions on names, except, of course, to the bearer of the name (usually).