Mom, Dad, I love my name. I think it's beautiful, and it encompasses my personality. But sometimes I wish you'd named me Sara.

I've never had an issue with my name before, and I never had to fall back on an English name in college (good thing, because I don't have one). But somehow over the phone it is impossible to catch my name, no matter how slowly i say it, or how many times i spell it out. Sometimes i have to laugh at the odd variation that people come up with, and sometimes i grit my teeth when my patients ask me *yet* again, to spell my name out for them. It's five letters. And it causes so many problems. But nothing is as funny as the time someone called me and bungled my name, followed by "did i get that right?" i never bother to correct people over the phone unless they ask, so i corrected her and spelled my name correctly, to which she replied, "um, no that's not what you told me".

as the teenagers today like to say, smh.