Name Change

Dear readers, please note that very shortly, I shall be changing my name. Henceforth, please address all correspondences to 鈴木花子　(Hanako Suzuki).

You may be wondering how this change has come about. Let me fill you in. You see, every day I eat lunch in the medical school cafeteria, and I've had my eye on Suzuki-san, one of the guys who dishes out the rice. Suzuki-san is quite cute and scoops the rice into the bowl with such grace that I couldn't help but fall for him.

For the longest time, I'd been hoping that he would notice me, so I had been trying to look as tall and white as possible. But sadly, no matter how much I batted my eyes at him and tittered merrily with my hand over my mouth, he never seemed to notice. That is, until last week.

Last Monday, I accidentally dropped my handkerchief in front of him on my way to the tea machine. Gentleman that he is, he picked up my handkerchief and as he handed it to me, we looked into each other's eyes for the first time. Suzuki-san has gorgeous eyes, and let me tell you -- the thirty seconds I spent gazing into his eyes were like heaven. Unfortunately, just at that moment, one of the ladies behind the counter called him back to help a customer, so we had to part. But ever since that day, I've been able to tell that Suzuki-san likes me because he always puts an extra scoop of rice in my bowl.

During the past week, our relationship has really blossomed and yesterday, Suzuki-san asked me to marry him. We wanted to wait a few months to have the wedding, but in the end, I decided that I just couldn't wait a second longer to become Mrs. Suzuki. So, we giddily ran off to the nearest Shinto shrine and were married by the Shinto priest/jazz pianist, who also does a pretty impressive Elvis impersonation, I must say.

Ok, ok, just kidding. (Did I fool you?) Actually, the real reason I'll be changing my name is that it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to fill out forms here if your name is not Japanese. In order to get a bank account, pay my phone bill, and register for health insurance and stuff, I've had to fill out quite a few forms over the past two months. And each of these forms has been returned to me at least once with a request to write my name in roman letters/katakana/capital letters/lower-case letters/full-size characters/half-size characters/with my middle name/without my middle name... Their data entry systems must be ridiculously anal. I've never been so afraid to write my name on a form before. Anyway, to make it easier on myself, I've decided that I'm going to change my name to something more straightforward.

I wonder how many times I'll have to fill out the name change form before I find a format that they can input into their system....