Bloorp.

On the first day back at school from winter vacation in the newly established year of 2003, I immediately noticed that my Canadian History professor had cut his hair when he walked through the door.

I turned to Sam, who was sitting next to me, and pointed out his new ‘do.

She looked, nodded and said, “And no doubt he will mention it in class.”

My prof began the class, “Well, welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a good vacation.” A few seconds later, his eyes darted around a bit and he said with a little almost-proud smile to himself, “So I, uh…cut my hair!”

But oh, there was more. He dove into an awkward transition.

“So…my wife came home the other night and she’s waving these sheets of paper in front of her, and I’m like, ‘What’s all this about?’ Then she says, ‘Look! I found you on RateMyProfessor.com! Your class thinks you’re a geek!’”

Everyone exploded into laughter and our professor remained standing awkwardly at the front of the class, half-smiling to himself, eyes down, red in the cheeks and shrugging his shoulders and really not knowing what else to say.

It was almost as good as my second-year sociology professor discussing turkey porn, or my history of modern propaganda professor apologizing for not handing back midterms because he’d had a bottle of wine and a “lady friend” over to his place the night before.

The Simpsons put it best: It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.

I go by a lot of names. Not by choice, I just have an obscene amount of nicknames that I don’t need to share in this introduction quite yet.

But here in my new home on Tumblr, I’ll stick with Emily Claire.

It wasn’t until journalism school that I started going by my first and middle name, feeling inspired by Johanna and her mom, both saying that my three names together sounded like a writer’s name more so than just my first and last name. And it wasn’t until people actually started calling me “Emily Claire” that I realized how much I liked the name.

I used to think I was the only Emily Claire, but Google naturally set me straight. There’s a jazz singer in Toronto whose name is Emilie-Claire Barlow. In setting up this Tumblelog, I couldn’t select my own name as the domain because it had already been snapped up by someone(s) to show pictures of their young daughter Emily Claire.

Which makes me wonder whether this was the same person who had posed the question to Yahoo! Answers a year ago:

“What do you think of the name Emily Claire?”

I eagerly read on, wondering what people would say. Carrie (the asker) selected her favourite answer from Summer M, which read:

It sounds feminie and strong enough to know that she is an independent girl that is not like anyone else and has special quailities=] hope i helped

To which I naturally cheered silently, though it was difficult to ignore Summer M’s atrocious spelling that almost—almost—weakened her answer.

The next four answers were quite the opposite. pilljills flatly poo-pooed the name (No, that’s so old and common). deedee didn’t care for the combination (The names are cute apart, but not so sure if they go well together) and for everbeatinghope, the whole was not greater than the sum of its parts (I think it is cute and classic… BUT I am not a fan of ultra common names… if you don’t care that it is common, then go for it, but if you are looking for something more unique, I’d keep looking. If you’re interested I’ve got a great list of uncommon names).

Someone once told me that if she ever had a daughter, she’d name her Jane. And in a world where parents are increasingly giving their children unusually spelled monikers to set them apart from the other kiddies, I asked her why. Her answer?

A name like Jane almost forces her to set herself apart from all the other Janes that everyone else out there would encounter one day. There’d be Janes, and then there would be Jane. I liked that.

I’m Emily Claire. I’m Emily Claire—or, at least, I hope to be. It’s nice to be here.