Yasmeen's Descriptive Essay

Free Write/ Final Essay  

The second day of school (and my first day at SLA) about a year ago, as I wait to be registered into the school system I watch a senior, Kaloni Baylor write my name on a roster and inputs me in to the school system. When I get my roster I notice that the way that my name is spelled is Y-a-s-m-i-n. This is one of the things that pisses me off, ones ignorance to ask the necessary questions.  Though I know that I’m a hypocrite hit by this contagious disease as well “Mom she spelled my name wrong” I was quivering with uneasy feeling that this wouldn’t be the end of and already confusing year. I had the idea that this was only the beginning of a long road of more than misspellings.

As I was on my way to my first class of the day for now lets call it African American history. I thought about what it means when people mispronounce, spell, or just plain call you another name (that either sounds the same or they are completely different.) to me it shows ignorance or hard headedness to just ask about the right pronunciation, or just plain out from the start warn them of anything they may get incorrect. I mean it’s not that hard to do it may take more thought but all in all everyone’s happy. As the days, which soon turned into weeks, passed by I found out my new names. Though I didn’t openly express my anger to the teacher I got help from a lot of the new friends that I had made pretty quickly.

Depending on the way that you look at it my names went from making at least some sense to making absolutely none. The names I was given varied from Jasmine to Toni. It’s amazing how many names different names the human mind can come up with after hearing a name. I believe that inside my heart skips a beat and realization overwhelms me with excitement and the correct pronunciation of my name. Correctly spelling I think I may be close keeling over and twitching with excitement. (All of which goes on in my head of course) Maybe some people just feel as though I don’t deserve the same name that I tell them or show them and thrive to make sure I’m Jasmine instead Yasmeen.  I feel as though I get too excited when someone asks my name I tell him or her. Though they don’t get as excited as I do, they pronounce it back to me correctly. Maybe to the rest I look more like a Toni than I do Yasmeen.

Though I know that I am a critic when it comes to teachers saying my name. But I understand that they have to know a lot of names but if you know everyone in the classes name correctly and not mine i believe that it gives me the right to express my feelings about the situation. Maybe so teachers believe that not only do I not deserve my given name but they try to make sure that not only is my name difficult to pronounce they make sure they can’t spell it either. Like the first day of school Mr. Baird pronounced my name correctly but after that it was on and off.

My fifth grade teacher Ms. Tittle Seemed to be very fond of me as her student but for some reason calling me Yasmeen 24/7 didn’t cross her mind. Even today I can’t recall her actually calling me Yasmeen until I was in middle school. It started when i was in school for about a quarter of the year and she trusted me enough to do tasks like delivering messages and so forth. I was sitting at my desk working on an assignment I remember hearing Enays repetitively. I took the initiative to look up and find the face to the voice, my eyes slowly scanned the room as I was about to turn my head then I saw someone trying to get my attention out the corner of my eye.

I completely sympathize with people who get your name mixed up with some one else. I decide how to feel about the mixed up name if it falls on or between two things, sounding the same as another name or having the same first name. But if none of those are plausible then I get upset, and frustrated. I’ve tried to give this topic some thought and I came up with a couple ideas. The first Idea is the fact that people my not understand what I am saying when I tell them my name. It has often or occasionally been pointed out to me that I don’t enunciate a lot of my words correctly, that might be to blame for others mistakes. With my pronunciation others may take it and see it in a whole new way than I do. Enunciation reminds of when I was purchasing or ordering something from a store and the cashier asked me my name and he kept pronouncing it wrong no matter how many times I repeated myself. Then my mom came over and said Y-aaa-SS meen and she exasperated S and the S in Yasmeen. When the cashier said it correctly I gasped in shock. I guess that it is because my mother gave me the name Yasmeen, and that since she created for me she has to know how to pronounce it.

If it’s true that I can’t pronounce my own name. Then I’ve been living my whole life with the wrong pronunciation and everyone who repeated or saw my name decide to follow me.

Scene one and or two was accidentally deleted when trying to copy and paste information.