Are you resigning?

woke up this morning by an sms 'Claudia, heard you resigning?'


hmm.. first of all, my name is Claudine. It ends with 'ine'.


This name wasn't given to me when i was born. my parents are very traditional people and they do not see the need of a Christian name. Also, they aren't Christian. So i went by my actual name 涵欣 throughout my childhood and early teens.


I have toyed with Christian names like 'Yvonne' or 'Christina' when my cousin first told me the Christian name she had decided for herself and i thought it was really cool. Those names never stuck and people still call me by my dialect name which everyone had problems getting it right.


i had a terrible time when i was in Pre-U not because of my name, but because political i was in a super political class. Days dragged on and on like the 3 years will never end. I hated those 3 years of my life. it was the most miserable and saddest period i have ever had. nevertheless, those days finally came to an end. of coz, since i am not academically inclined on all the subjects i've done during then, i was unable to go to any of the local Unis. So i went to SIM after much begging to my parents coz the course fees werent cheap. anyway, my initial choice was to go to an art school which still was not the conventional route to success in life then and was entirely being frowned upon by my parents. They actually preferred that i went for a remiser course instead, thankfully i was below the required age to take the course.


when i was taking my break from As to Uni, i decided that i have to put the Pre Uni days behind. I was reading a lot of books then and came across this name 'Claudine' and during then, i decided this will be the name which will stick with me. it kinda signified putting the past behind and looking forward to something new. it felt like a new lease of life for me. Dramatic as it sounded, i felt that things will be different and yes things did.


i never did check the meaning of the name then until much later and i accepted the fact that people are most likely to associate the name to that famous model as well. it was ok for me, in fact, it was occasionally an ice breaker.


Of late, i have been asked questions like 'You are leaving? When?' and 'Are you moving to another department?' this was after an official email have been sent out regarding the successful movements of some colleagues who are on an 'inter department exchange program' of sorts and one of them happened to have similar sounding name as mine. Perhaps i should have recorded a message (oh yah, i got calls too). or typed a template in my sms drafts or an auto reply on my email when mails with words like 'you are leaving' are being detected.


it's quite disappointing that people don't get your name correct, especially people who have worked with you for many years etc. when i jokingly told the peepz who asked me that i've worked with them for so many years and you guys don't even know the spelling of my name?! they said they wanted to confirm that it's not me.


oh wellz, it's me and my expectations again and being a tad anal about it.


but it's interesting that people sometimes can also suspect that the top most level personnel of our department can type something wrong. hmmm.. not me. i believe she's merticulous and even if she says something that is out of the ordinary, i'd believe her.