Nothing is Something.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a student, Phuc, (pronounced more like Foop with just a little bit of a p sound at the end)... and as I checked out a book to him and asked him what he likes to be called... he said, "Nothing"...

So began a back-and-forth conversation that he's "Something" ...not "Nothing"...

He came back to the library to check more books out a day or so later and I said, "Hey Somethin'" - he seemed to like that! We added his nickname to his patron information in the checkout system and I asked if he wanted me to put in "Nothing" or "Something" - he said, "Something" - Yay! I'm glad that he liked the change and did not view it as me making fun of him.

So I've been calling him Something and feel like we've bonded a bit.





Well...

Something is in Sarah's ESL / Language Arts class and we've talked about Nothing who is Something...

Yesterday, when Something came to the library with Sarah's class, she updated me... now he wants to be called by his Vietnamese name, Phuc.

What??

Come to find out... Phuc came to AIS this year from a public school... where they do not choose Western names. He did not understand being able to choose a Western nickname... nor did he understand what it meant when he said that he wanted to be called "Nothing". He (we) figured all of this out by having a conversation with the school counselor. (Are you finding this to be a bit hilarious??)

The worst part is that I was naive enough to assume that most children (throughout the country) chose Western nicknames. I'm embarrassed to even admit that! When I learned that most of the students here have Western nicknames that they like to go by... I really didn't give it much thought. My main thing was - Great! That'll make it so much easier for me to learn their names! Sheesh. How naive of me.

So... Phuc came into the library this morning and I just started calling him Phuc.

Here I thought we had bonded! ha. Although... maybe we still have... he's still coming to the library on a daily basis and seems happy to see me (probably views me as the Library Lady with crazy hair... who kept trying to call him by some random 'name').

There's the saying about learning something new everyday... that's tenfold here! I'm learning things about the world... about this culture... about the teachers here from other countries... everywhere... in ways that I never expect or see coming. I love it.  :)