Interview Meme Answer: the Name
Aug. 22nd, 2007 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_tectonicNothing much interesting going on lately. Instead: interview meme answer!
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dcseain asked: How came you to be Beemer, Baron Mustache Wax?
So, Back When I Was A Freshman™*, I arrived at one of MIT's Independent Living Groups, TEP. (Those are actually greek letters, because it's a *ahem* phraternity, which I'm always a little hesitant to mention because there are so many contexts where fratboys have a dreadful reputation, and deservedly so. MIT is not one of those contexts.)
*Note: this is a stock phrase used among people of the tep tribe to denote happenings in the far distant past, back in the misty Dawn Times before teh Intarwebs when the Earth was still largely molten and all those d*mned young whippersnappers who inhabit the haus these days were but unjoined little wriggling gametes in their parents' respective reproductive organs [oh god that's almost actually true this year and no longer just a figure of speech sweet baby moses I am old]. Shockingly, in this instance, it really was Back When I Was A Freshman™, or at least when I would have been a freshman, had I not been a transfer student and already spent my freshman year at another university altogether, but since I spent 4 years at MIT total before graduating, I think it still counts.
Um. Where was I? Oh yes! So anyway, the way things worked back then is that you'd show up for R/O week (Registration and Orientation) and spend a few days jumping through administrative hurdles. Then, on Friday afternoon, there was the Freshman picnic. (Which is another story I must tell sometime.) Then Rush starts. All the upperclassmen pull off their shirts to reveal another shirt with the letters or logo of their ILG or dorm or whatever underneath, and there's a mad scramble and all the frosh are whisked away to be wined (non-alcoholically), dined, entertained, and amused all weekend long, all the while being secretly quizzed, poked, prodded, rated, and evaluated as the ILGs try to decide who they want to recruit to live with them.
Rush starts Friday afternoon. Bids ("we'd like you to live here") can be offered starting Sunday morning. Bids can be accepted ("keen, I'd like to live here, too!") starting Monday morning. And the whole thing is basically done by midday on Wednesday. Oh, and at the same time people are also figuring out which dorm they want to live in if they don't end up in an ILG. It's kind of like, "Hi, welcome to MIT! You have three and a half days to figure out where you're probably going to live for the next four years. No pressure or anything. And get used to it, because it doesn't slow down."
I ended up at TEP, where there is a tradition of nicknames. (This dates back to the days when there were five tall, blond guys named Mike living in the house. People would call up and say "I'd like to talk to Mike." "Which one?" "Tall blond Mike." "Which one!?") Everyone gets a nickname. Sometimes, they relate to people's actual names: N'Djamena's given name is Chad; T-Stop's last name is Kindel (Kendall Square being the T station serving MIT). Sometimes it's for random reasons or no reason at all: Sneaker was wearing Converses just like KPete, one of the alumni who was helping out, and someone pointed and said "Sneakers!" and it stuck; Spackle is named Spackle because it was a good nickname, and somebody needed to be named Spackle.
Sometimes it's because the name is "appropriate", keeping in mind that these names are being come up with and argued over by people (the upperclassmen) who haven't slept for more than four hours in the last three days, are slap-happy with stress and exhaustion, and who are collectively pretty goofy anyway. So Perlick is named Perlick because that's the brand of kegerator the haus had, and he was, what, 16 at the time? And it was just so totally inappropriate that it had to be. Plus he hated it, which is guaranteed to make it stick.
In my case, I was wearing topsiders and I had a tendency to tuck in my shirt, so Golan** decided that I looked like a yuppie. Hence, Beemer.
**Everybody gets a nickname except for people with names like Golan and Ariel and Debabrata, because sleep-deprived college students are generally not clever enough to come up with something more awesome.
At first I didn't like it, but now it's just my name.
As for Baron Mustache Wax, that's from my friend Jessie's online journal. It was pre-LJ, and as with many journallers, she used pseudonyms for everyone. She came to Denver to visit, and we went to the zoo, so she had to write that up and needed a pseudonym for me. After some thought, I came up with Baron Mustache Wax because (1) at the time, I was still waxing my mustache pretty regularly at the time (I don't do it anymore because I am lazy), and (2) the initials are BMW. I thought it was clever.
(Okay, that got a little long...)
dcseain asked: How came you to be Beemer, Baron Mustache Wax?So, Back When I Was A Freshman™*, I arrived at one of MIT's Independent Living Groups, TEP. (Those are actually greek letters, because it's a *ahem* phraternity, which I'm always a little hesitant to mention because there are so many contexts where fratboys have a dreadful reputation, and deservedly so. MIT is not one of those contexts.)
*Note: this is a stock phrase used among people of the tep tribe to denote happenings in the far distant past, back in the misty Dawn Times before teh Intarwebs when the Earth was still largely molten and all those d*mned young whippersnappers who inhabit the haus these days were but unjoined little wriggling gametes in their parents' respective reproductive organs [oh god that's almost actually true this year and no longer just a figure of speech sweet baby moses I am old]. Shockingly, in this instance, it really was Back When I Was A Freshman™, or at least when I would have been a freshman, had I not been a transfer student and already spent my freshman year at another university altogether, but since I spent 4 years at MIT total before graduating, I think it still counts.
Um. Where was I? Oh yes! So anyway, the way things worked back then is that you'd show up for R/O week (Registration and Orientation) and spend a few days jumping through administrative hurdles. Then, on Friday afternoon, there was the Freshman picnic. (Which is another story I must tell sometime.) Then Rush starts. All the upperclassmen pull off their shirts to reveal another shirt with the letters or logo of their ILG or dorm or whatever underneath, and there's a mad scramble and all the frosh are whisked away to be wined (non-alcoholically), dined, entertained, and amused all weekend long, all the while being secretly quizzed, poked, prodded, rated, and evaluated as the ILGs try to decide who they want to recruit to live with them.
Rush starts Friday afternoon. Bids ("we'd like you to live here") can be offered starting Sunday morning. Bids can be accepted ("keen, I'd like to live here, too!") starting Monday morning. And the whole thing is basically done by midday on Wednesday. Oh, and at the same time people are also figuring out which dorm they want to live in if they don't end up in an ILG. It's kind of like, "Hi, welcome to MIT! You have three and a half days to figure out where you're probably going to live for the next four years. No pressure or anything. And get used to it, because it doesn't slow down."
I ended up at TEP, where there is a tradition of nicknames. (This dates back to the days when there were five tall, blond guys named Mike living in the house. People would call up and say "I'd like to talk to Mike." "Which one?" "Tall blond Mike." "Which one!?") Everyone gets a nickname. Sometimes, they relate to people's actual names: N'Djamena's given name is Chad; T-Stop's last name is Kindel (Kendall Square being the T station serving MIT). Sometimes it's for random reasons or no reason at all: Sneaker was wearing Converses just like KPete, one of the alumni who was helping out, and someone pointed and said "Sneakers!" and it stuck; Spackle is named Spackle because it was a good nickname, and somebody needed to be named Spackle.
Sometimes it's because the name is "appropriate", keeping in mind that these names are being come up with and argued over by people (the upperclassmen) who haven't slept for more than four hours in the last three days, are slap-happy with stress and exhaustion, and who are collectively pretty goofy anyway. So Perlick is named Perlick because that's the brand of kegerator the haus had, and he was, what, 16 at the time? And it was just so totally inappropriate that it had to be. Plus he hated it, which is guaranteed to make it stick.
In my case, I was wearing topsiders and I had a tendency to tuck in my shirt, so Golan** decided that I looked like a yuppie. Hence, Beemer.
**Everybody gets a nickname except for people with names like Golan and Ariel and Debabrata, because sleep-deprived college students are generally not clever enough to come up with something more awesome.
At first I didn't like it, but now it's just my name.
As for Baron Mustache Wax, that's from my friend Jessie's online journal. It was pre-LJ, and as with many journallers, she used pseudonyms for everyone. She came to Denver to visit, and we went to the zoo, so she had to write that up and needed a pseudonym for me. After some thought, I came up with Baron Mustache Wax because (1) at the time, I was still waxing my mustache pretty regularly at the time (I don't do it anymore because I am lazy), and (2) the initials are BMW. I thought it was clever.
(Okay, that got a little long...)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 06:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 11:37 am (UTC)Oh, and Spackle got his name because he'd helped out at Work Week before he even joined the house - he was a freshman at Harvard before transferring, but came over to visit N'djamena (one of our most inspired nicknames, even if we pronounce it wrong) and ended up grouting a bathroom or something. But "Grout" was a terrible nickname so we called him Spackle instead.
My favorite nickname story was Rugburn. Bo decided that _somebody_ should be named Rugburn, and announced that the next person to pledge would get the nickname Rugburn. Young Andrew Sudbury thought about it and figured that it could be a lot worse, and pledged.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 03:15 pm (UTC)I'm still bitter (kidding!) that no one was willing to give out "Nice Guy Preemptive Multitasking," even though it would shorter to "Nice Guy."
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 02:09 pm (UTC)I myself am bitter that Chuck is a common name. If it were unique like Perlick, I would still be calling myself Chuck. I should really be using j4 more. It's unique.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 07:41 pm (UTC)I would like to say "I never even got a name!" here but I'm not sure how to make it humorously indignant instead of whiny. Is there an emoticon for that? Probably not.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 07:55 pm (UTC)I think "harrumph!" is the general indicator for humorous indignation. Or "/<humorously indignant, not whiny>".
no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 01:32 pm (UTC)Back when I was a freshman, the Harvard Bridge wasn't built yet--we'd just have to wait by the banks of the Charles to hop a ride on a passing plesiosaurus...
Why back when I was a freshman, we spent our first work week repairing glacier damage!
In fact, back when I was a freshman, the Materials Science department was still studying earth, fire, wind, and water!
[oh god that's almost actually true this year and no longer just a figure of speech sweet baby moses I am old]
Yeah... to also make you feel old, Cailah (U5's Cailah) has just moved into her freshman dorm. Yikes!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 04:29 pm (UTC)Do you keep having dreams where you're moving into TEP to start at MIT again? I did just last night...
Everybody gets a nickname except for people with names like Golan and Ariel and Debabrata, because sleep-deprived college students are generally not clever enough to come up with something more awesome.
What, so "Roadkill" was more awesome than "Max Lord"? I! Think! Not! I think Roadkill suffered a name demotion so that he would not rub our noses in the awesomeness of his name.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 06:55 pm (UTC)made it stick). I didn't get used to using it at work until I was at a division of eight
people, seven of whom were named "John". Nicknames became de rigeur. At first,
everybody was Dr. something (so I was Dr. Spam), for no particular reason.
As for the pre-LJ online days (
Mouser's Mortuary
BBS, to be exact), I was Squamulose Quiltsche. Joining me were Tango Wisterna,
Martin Scriblerus, and a cast of similar oddballs.
Those were the days, eh?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 07:44 pm (UTC)Hahahaha. TEP at MIT is not one of those contexts, for sure (I totally weasel my way out of saying it too). But dude! I lived next door to Fiji! They were as bad as everything everywhere.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 08:23 pm (UTC)And Pi-Lam. Ugh. (Or am I thinking of the lamb-chops?)