Me/name

Some facts about my being named "Woozle":

• It derives from a scene in the children's book Winne-the-Pooh.
  • See Wikipedia for an explanation of where it comes up in the story.
• It's the first name I remember being called, and it always felt like it refers to me.
• I intend to make "Woozle" my legal first name.

Some History

At Durham Academy, my 2nd grade teacher (Mrs. Land) wouldn't let me sign my work "Woozle" anymore, and made me sign by my full name. I went along with it at the time, because I was an obedient child – but in retrospect, I wish I had kicked up a fuss.

I only adopted "Nick" because it was better than the full version of my first name – and I didn't think of doing that until several years later.

In high school, there was this one incident where Jenny was trying to get my attention and kept calling "Nick! Nick!", but it wasn't until she called out "Woozle!" that I heard her. She only called me "Woozle" after that.

I think it was at that point that I started to realize that allowing them to take "Woozle" away from me had been a mistake.

Unfortunately, I continued to use "Nick" in most contexts, because I thought I had to. I'm finally realizing now (2017) that this was also a mistake, and plan to have it changed to "Nicola" (and demoted to second place) as soon as I have the mental energy and time to confront the unnecessary right-wing-induced bureaucracy. "Nick" can then be short for "Nicola", and I won't have to have all my checks and stuff reprinted.