A Conflagration of Randomness

With all the hard hours and late nights, this is what happens…

The fastest way to lose weight, guaranteed.

I was just talking with some friends about how they were named.  One for example was named thus after their parents and relatives had a round-table and threw names back and forth.  When they finally found one they asked “Is anyone we dislike named Sara?”  Wince the answer was no, she was dubbed Sara.

I too was named for a reason.  My mother once had a small doll name “Bobby” and so I was whether I liked it or not named Bobby.  Since Bobby itself is not a first name, I was thusly called Robert.  And so names can have numerous origins.

Names are very important things, they define who we are. And when someone else mentions that you look like a “Peter” or a “Paul” you wonder whether you were named the right name.  However, as you start thinking about it, you realize that your name is perfect.  Why? Because for the last how ever many years that is the only name you have ever heard and responded too, of course it sounds right.  You can of course change your name, but the process can be reasonably tedious, requiring a petition and possible fee.

Your parents probably spent hours researching “baby girl names” or “baby boy names” on the internet or in books.  This is a painstaking process and requires many hours of dedication by parents and family.

So instead, why not have your parents play a game for your name, making it random, for the name does not define the person (besides they can always change it later right ).

These are possible steps for devising a name game involving more than 2 people:

1. Do research.  Find the best names.  Do a google search for baby names or simply go to www.babynames.com
2. Get prepped for the game.  Know your opponents.  Note: Game may be more enjoyable with the right drinks *cough*
3. Write up all the chosen names for the right gender on to cards.  The amount of cards does not matter, but try to keep above 30 cards minimum.
4. Shuffle and deal these cards out to the players.  If you prefer a name you can try little sleight of hand.
5. This game is a bit like “Apples to Apples” (rules at bottom).  Have the dealer begin.
6. Everyone but the dealer (the judge) puts a card into the middle face-down.  The dealer then picks up the cards and examines them, choosing the best name out of the ones in the middle.
7. The winner of the round takes his/her card back and puts it back in their hand.  The losers’ card goes to the discard pile.
8. The next person in the circle becomes the next judge. Repeat previous steps.
9. Play continues until there is one card left.  This card (the winner of the last round) becomes the name of the baby.
10. If this name is not desired by a majority vote of players at the end of the game, the game is repeated, possibly with an addition of more names. Note: This game is not intended to be actually played (unless you don’t care what your child is named). This was simply a fun idea I had.

Links:

www.babynames.com

www.namechangelaw.com/

Apples to Apples Rules

When you meet someone new in college, you usually see them face-to-face, so you already know their gender and for the most part you know about how old they are from how they look and from the fact that they are in college.  Since I’ve been meeting a lot of new people, I was wondering, since the typical chatroom introduction, Age/Sex/Location (ASL), is not very suited for the college atmosphere, there must be an alternative that college students could use to get the important information out of a new person with a short acronym.  The acronym I came up with was “Y/M/D.” Now, granted that looks like a foreign date format, with year, month, and day, but that is not what it stands for.  Instead the Y is for year (well maybe it is a date format), the M is for Major, and the D is for dorm.

Year

When you meet someone new on campus you are always wondering what year of college are they in.  Are they a new freshmen? Or maybe they’re just lost because they’re a transfer student who’s really a Junior.  Knowing the year (Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Graduate) of a person is very helpful in knowing how long you will know them (not long if they graduate in that semester), how much you can inform them about the campus or college life, and if they are datable….jk lol Knowing the year of a college student is definitely important.

Major

Definitely one of the first things you find out when you meet someone on campus is what they are majoring in.  This can tell you a great many things such if they have the same interests as you, how sociable they by the stereotypical party Business major or the studyholic engineer, and definitely what they want to do with their life.  Of course, if you’re like me with no idea what to do with my life, knowing my major might not help with that.

Dorm

If you plan on becoming good friends with this person and spending a lot of time with them, you must find out where they live.  You will not want to be in the smelly dorm, but of course you will want to be in the dorm with all the attractive girls (or guys if girls are reading this).  Also, knowing if the dorm is the farthest from campus or not is a good idea.  Many things can be affected by where the dorm is, especially if you need to go there at 7am to get the homework you left there the night before for your 8am class.

So next time you are in a Campus Forum, be prepared with your YMD