Cassareen

So the kids at school have taken to calling me Catherine, or as they pronounce it Cass-e-reen. I spent a few days figuring they'd just mixed it up, but finally dug through my old JET records and found nothing of an ALT in the area named Catherine. I mean there was a Mike, an Esther, a Thaddeus, a Danata, a Julie... no Catherine. Then one student discovered what she thought was a funny pun and started calling me Elmo. So i knew they couldn't have completely forgotten my name. Plus in class they still called me Miss Emily. I was confused.

A teacher told me today that Catherine is what they think of as a typical American name, so maybe thats why. This seemed even more bizarre as nowhere in the textbook (full of Janes and Mikes and Emis and Ms. Greens, etc) was there a Catherine.

But after school today i got to the bottom of it all. It isnt a mistake or really meant to be funny or an insult or anything - in the end the students have decided that they dont really like the name Emily and that its just not right for me. When i asked why they said it was because Emily isn't "cute" enough. I can only imagine what they called Esther...