When I was in 6^th grade I started to attend school in Cloquet. It was a big deal for me, 6^th grade, new school, new friends, and no recess. I was becoming a young adult. One day during the summer before my first Cloquet school year my dad talked to me about this, or more specifically, how I should be addressed. What should people call me now that I was an almost adult? Johnny? Hells no said my dad, my new name should be John Eric, like he had intended all along, and it would be a quintessential part of my journey into maturity. And I believed him.

I don’t know what it was, maybe the way I said it, maybe kids are just stupid and mean sometimes, but despite what caused it to happen, it happened. It happened hard and fast. John Eric was a laughing stock, and not just for the first week mind you, but until THE DAY I GRADUATED. Everyday every kid in every class called me “John Eric Moen” or “John Moen” every year until graduation. Even the ones that weren’t in my class called me by my full name, My girlfriends roommate still calls me that and didn’t really get to know her until 11^th or 12^th. “John Moen” “Hey John Moen” “John Moen!” is all I’ve ever known. Sometimes a kid would try to repeat the story of the event saying “Huh huh hey John remember the time you got super mad at us when we didn’t call you “John Moen”?” or “Hey remember that time when you punched that kid in face because he didn’t call you “John Eric Moen”?” I never was called what I had wanted to be called all along. My actual name, John.

Thailand is very nice and very hot. I haven’t had much of a chance to see anything yet but the hotel is very fancy, the only thing I haven’t really enjoyed is the food. Yesterday for lunch I found one hot dish of mixed vegetables, just to open it and find meatballs in with them, the Thai love their meat and it leaves me and three other AFSers resorting to the salad bar. The orientations are going well but they can be hard sometimes, the language teachers are very fun but often times sporadic and often just straight up crazy, usually speaking 95 percent of the time in Thai. For some reason I have stood out to them, and during most lessons I am made an example of. Sometimes they call me out for doing a hand dance incorrectly or pronouncing something wrong when I am just as good as the other students. I even got singled out for not being able to count to 60 when they hadn’t even taught us how to count to ten! They only yelled at me! Everyone usually laughs and points, but they call me John J

Today as a reward they wrote all of our names in Thai, mine was first (as usual) and after getting past “John” they got stuck on “Moen.”

“How do you say your name?”

“John Moen”

“John Moen?”

“John Moen”

“John Moen?”

“Yes that sounds fi…”

“John Moen?!”

“Yes”

“John Moen?!?”

“John Moen”

“John Moen!???”

Needless to say people were laughing pretty hard, and they laughed about it for a long time. I couldn’t possibly describe the feeling I got after the US embassy people came and left, and we were left sitting there as a projector was set up. As casual chatter filled the room, I heard someone behind me try to get my attention.

“Hey John Moen?”

I could never describe it. If I blow metaphorical cerebral matter into the deepest cackles of my soul just thinking about it how could I describe it to you. Sigh. Will it stick? Will this be name to the other members of AFS Thailand forever? I guess time will tell, but if it followed me this far, I don’t see why it would stop now.