“Name like No Other”

            September 4, 2012, the first day at a new school, Indian River Middle School. Not knowing a soul, I walk into my first block class with my head toward the ground. Ms. Ridley, my first block 7th grade algebra teacher, immediately jumped into taking the class attendance. Ms. Ridley had short hair that reminded me of salt and pepper, and glasses that hung on the tip of her nose. Shaking with nervousness, knowing I am the first to be called, I watched her as she was puzzled at the sight on my name. She arranged us in alphabetical order as we walked in, so everyone already had an idea of whom the confusing name belonged to. I was uneasy when she began trying to pronounce my name. After she completely butchered my name, she asked me to pronounce it correctly and all eyes were on me. A few of the classmates already had friends from the previous year gathered together and began to snicker as I said my name. After our teacher went through the rest of the list, she insisted that we do icebreakers. She passed around the room colored index cards, pink, green, blue, and yellow, I got a blue card. Ms. Ridley told us to write three truths and one lie about us on the card. After the icebreaker, we received forms and papers to take to our parents and went to our next class.

My second block was history with Mrs. Reynolds. She seemed like the typical soccer mom, blond hair held back with sunglasses, and a butterfly tattoo on her foot. She was a very enthusiastic and punctual teacher and did everything on a time schedule. She took attendance, and I saw the same look on her face as I did on Ms. Ridley’s face. Although she also stuttered to say my name, I corrected her, and she caught on right away. Mrs. Reynolds asked me where I could get a name like mine from, I replied Nigeria. After me saying that, she was interested to know more. I told her all about our culture, food, music, and language. Not even a second after, I heard a few students making jokes about my language by clucking and whistling. I pretended that it was funny and laughed along with the others. Even though it was tough to bite my tongue; we had two minutes until we went to lunch, so I sat quietly waiting for the bell. The class made its way to the cafeteria together except me. I choose to walk behind the others and watch everyone else mingle and exchange laughter.

When we arrived at the cafeteria, everyone already knew who they were going to sit with. Most people had their own packed lunches, I waited in the lunch line to whatever food they had to offer. Out of all the choices, I ended up choosing pepperoni pizza that was barely intact. I enter my lunch code into the code pad and my name pops up on the top of the computer. The lunch lady stares at the screen for a moment and says, “I bet people have the hardest time saying your name,” I smiled and went to look for a vacant seat. The tables were long gray rectangles, with six black circles for seats on each side. I sat down at a table with four other girls, and as soon as I sat they start talking to me as if they have known me all their lives. When they asked for my name, they took time to learn how to pronounce it. Throughout the whole day, this was the only moment I had felt like I really belonged. They did not judge me, nor did they make fun of my name. Sadly, lunch was finally over, and we all had to go to back to our own individual classes. The support and hospitality I received from my new-found friends will soon vanish when I enter my next class. I was not ready to reenact my previous classes with a new teacher and set of classmates.

So, I  wasted some time hiding in the bathroom. It was my first time going in to the bathrooms that day, it was a dreadful experience. I held my breath for as long as I could for fear of inhaling the horrible fumes and scents of what was caused by a bad lunch. The smell was not nearly as bad as the appearance of the bathroom. Toilet paper hung like streamers, bodily fluids remained on the toilet seats, and two square mirrors that had profanity engraved onto it. For as long as I could stay in there, I repeated to myself that a different name is not a bad one. I walked all that way to my next class, thinking that I would get in trouble for being late, but my teacher, Mrs. Whitehurst, understood that I was in the bathroom. She was a gentle, freckled middle aged woman with a soft voice. Before I got into the class, she already took attendance, and I was saved from embarrassment. She asked me to come up to her cheetah print covered desk and tell her how to say my name. I was happy that we practiced my name one on one while the other students were busy talking with one another. That class went smoothly and quickly, we went over the course outline and transitioned to our next class.

Last class of the day and I was exhausted of having to repeatedly pronounce my name. My last teacher, Mr. Stevenson, stood outside the class room as everyone walked in to be seated. Mr. Stevenson, a witty, old white man with even whiter hair, was my science teacher. I waited to be last to tell him to save the trouble of pronouncing my whole name and just call me “Addie”. When everyone is seated, Mr. Stevenson goes over the attendance and the first name called is me. He did not refer to me as Addie, but my real name Adedoyin. Everyone was interested to know the meaning of my name and where it comes from. As I tell them, I realize my name is really like no other, and I should be even more proud of it just because.

Reflection

My memoir, which was about me moving to a new school, and how my name was judged because it was different, I would use more pathos. Pathos is an appeal to emotion. I would write about how I felt or what I was thinking at times of being mocked and made fun of. I would relate the embarrassment I went to sad appropriate events. Also, I would use description more, I would make it feel as if the reader was going through the same things. If there weren’t a restriction on the word count, would add every little detail as if I were explaining a movie. I would describe and introduce all people encountered that day. Not only that, I would describe their appearance and personality. Even I would describe what I wore, how I looked like, and my attitude that day. I would fix the transitions between events and fix the comma errors.