MY NAME, MY GUITAR

A person's name is like a song title. I believe it is. It's the very first thing people ask the first time they meet you, the same way they do ask for what the title of a particular song is, the first time they've heard of it playing. It's all in one's name where people will tag everything he does with his life, the same way they remember a song when they hear excerpts  from its lyics.

This is just enough to say that our names are the products of days, weeks and even months of thinking and brainstorming. Most of us, I suppose, have asked our parents about these crucial times when, aside from thinking where to get the money for all our milk and diaper expenses, they managed to invest time in giving us our name. So let me tell you a story of how I got my name.

I am Darrell. My name is a seven-letter English word derived from the French word "d'Airelle" or someone who comes from the Airelle, the most famous boulevard in France. Well, I certainly did not come from Airelle so It was not my parents' basis for giving me my name.

My mother told me I was supposed to be named ERL DARYL. She got Erl from the character in one of her pocketbook collections while Daryl is a singer -- one of the two balladeers of Air Supply. She wasn't so sure though of the spelling for Daryl so she just spelled it the way she heard it.

However, my father thought it was a sort of a tongue-twister so they decided to change it to just a word that somehow has a similar sound with Erl Daryl and there came Darrell.

What's funny about my name is that for my six years in grade school, I was misspelling it as DARREL. That has become a huge problem for me before my graduation then. We were told to pass, on a piece of paper, our names so they could print them on our diplomas. I misspelled my name twice: first as DARREL then second as DARELL. I felt it was really so weird to misspell my own name but yes, I did. The next morning, my mother told me to show my birth certificate to my teacher. I did, but it seemed like I just had my teacher's blood reach its boiling point. It's good that other faculty members were able to console him.

That was just one scenario that taught me how important it is to know my name not only for the mere reason that it's usually the first thing people ask me about or the thing that people most remember me for but it also serves as my guitar where all the strings of my reputation are attached and plucked producing vibrant sounds and melodies.

My name is DARRELL MINA MAGAT and I'm proud of it.

comm 105:

cReaTiVe

wRiTing

Cuts

with Kristel Palaganas at the AVR

waiting for my Chicken fillet  with Camille Cayanan and Benyowk...hahaha