How Did Your Downs Name Come About?

[JennyHallu]

JennyHallu was born in my first week of my short career as a college student. I came into it with a lot more promise than I left, and I was part of an honors "learning community" in the engineering department. (Basically all that meant was that we all lived on the same floors of our dormitory, and were in the same section of the two classes we were all in. Turns out I wasn't fated to be an engineer, anyway.) The day we all met each other, I grew tired of introducing myself to people who, had they been listening at all, had heard me tell my name at least five or six times. So...I began introducing myself as "a mass hallucination, don't mind me" and a new acquaintance who became a good friend decided it was his personal duty to make sure it stuck. As "The Mass Hallucination" is, at best, absurdly unwieldy, the nickname was quickly abbreviated to Hallu.

December of '04, I made the unbelievably difficult decision that the effort I wasn't putting into my classes meant that the expense of college wasn't justified, and wouldn't be until I matured and gathered some clearer sense of direction. That spring my boyfriend proposed, and I was married in the summer, so my "semester off" became a more indefinite postponement.

Since I have left college, and contact with the friend who gave me the name has become limited to occasional talks on IM, I am afraid that no one calls me Hallu in person any more, especially since my husband's revenge for me calling him strange, unreasoned, and random things like "Skwishy" or "Pikkles" (misspelling intended) seems to be to call me nothing more creative than "Honey".

However, Hallu, coupled with the familiar contraction of my given name I have used as long as I can remember, seems to be a unique combination, and a vivid reminder of a very rewarding time in my life (though not at all in the ways I anticipated). Now, as my explanation of my name is trying very hard to turn into an autobiography, I shall close...

PS. The only other name I would ever think of choosing would be "Juniper" because my mother has a weird but fun habit of calling me that, and I've always kind of liked it.