Sorry you have to take the GRE again, Kiba, but glad you are not worried about it.

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I can't tell you how pleased I am when acquaintances call me Allie.

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the GRE is essentially meaningless.

The GRE tests how good you are at taking the GRE. Not so much how good you'll be in graduate school. My one frustration is the writing section. I feel like I better do well on it, but my application included a writing sample from my award-winning Master's thesis. And honestly, the writing they have you do on the GRE is worlds apart from real academic writing. And yet I'm not comfortable just blowing it off. Le sigh.

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I had an aunt who called me Bevvie. I let her, since I loved her a lot. Mostly I insist on Beverly unless you know me outside of work.

There was this one VIP volunteer's secretary who retained the "her name has three syllables" concept, though she wasn't really consistent on which ones. Marilyn, Vivian, as long as it started with a consonant and the accent was on the first syllable, she tried it. As her boss was responsible for a good deal of our fundraising, I answered to her, and did my best to find it amusing.

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But BevDOG is ok, right?

Oh Allyson, no. You are not an Allie.

What is wrong with people? Use the names we tell you.

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Everyone at the office knew who I was until my doppelgänger arrived two years later: a blond, blue-eyed former college quarterback from North Dakota. Then, people started calling me Shane, because hey, how can you tell us apart?!

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I... cannot even put Tom-Scola-the-person and Tommy-the-name in the same mental space. Not even adjacent. You are so blazingly, obviously nothing like Tommy, in much the same way that Rebecca is so clearly not a Becky. If anyone called either of you by either of those names in my presence, I'd have to check the person for a fever or sudden cataracts, because nothing but physiologic impairment could possibly explain it.

I am so sick and tired of people who use a computer program for their livelihood and who think not knowing how to use a computer is something to be proud of.

I am now tempted to learn everything about programming just so I can hack into the board and create a "like" button JUST FOR THIS SENTENCE. Relatedly, a FB-friend-of-a-FB-friend noted yesterday that "I canceled Facebook years ago" is the 2015 version of "Oh, I don't even own a TV" and is just as likely to make even the hearers/readers who agree with the speaker wish to administer a swift throatpunch.

{{{Plei}}} (is there punctuation to indicate hairpats? Because oh-your-family empathy somehow seems better expressed via hairpats, plus Plei's hair is very pattable.)

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I actually have no strong attachments to various iterations of my name, first or last. My handle here is my fave, even though the only person who called that in meatspace was a conniving beyatch. Juliebeans, jellybean, jujubean, juji, Ju, Jules, julu. And then there were the surname nicks of frazz and nelly (I like that one too), frenchvanilla, and sassafras. Maybe it was the dehumanizing in the army that makes not care, because anything is better than "hey you, in the BDUs!".

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It is very pattable, it is true. I credit the henna.

Family. Whatcha gonna do?

Allyson, you are not an Alli.

My sister is an Ali, though possibly only to immediate family. I think everyone one else does, in fact, call her Al.

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Huh. My new boss had a baby last night, via surrogate. Which is a great thing for them and all, but figuring out wording is more awkward than I thought. I'm not sure I've known anyone who's had children via this route before.

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