I’ve been wanting to start a blog for some time now.
Firstly because I’m a chatterbox-in-disguise, and I’d like somewhere to let it out, so to speak ☺. Like in real life, I’m often quite  shy on Facebook, and I never post the witty statuses I’d like, so hopefully I can do that here (instead).
I also wanted to share my experiences of being a student, and answer some of the questions I had before coming to university.
Another reason is that I love to write (see talking above) but, apart from the odd report or essay, I don’t really get much chance these days.
I like finding interesting blogs, websites, places and products, and this way I have a place to collect them all.
I should warn you, the basic ‘who am I’ and ‘where am I from’ will get quite complicated. I’ll probably split it into several parts.
For the moment I’m staying kind of anonymous, but if you know me, you’ll probably realise. Not because I’m famous or anything like that, and it probably sounds vain, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one with my particular set of circumstances and background. Let me know if you recognise/know me!

A few things about me… (she says)

I’m Aileen but it’s pronounced ‘Eileen’ (hence the name of the blog.) I wanted to get that straight first because I hate the idea of you calling me ‘A’-ileen in your head the entire time you read this. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t instantly despise people who call me ‘A’-ileen when they see my name written down (let’s face it, that would be most of the English speaking world. It has happened to me literally twice that someone read my name before meeting me and still pronounced it ‘Eileen’. Just twice) But usually, apart from the odd absent-minded teacher who forgets every time they read the register,  once I tell people and when they know me, they call me ‘Eileen’. Hopefully we will (know each other), so I wanted you to know. (If I’m probably never going to see someone again, I don’t always bother correcting them, which has occasionally led to that awkward situation where they’ve said your name wrong for so long it becomes embarrassing to correct them).
The reason for the odd pronunciation, you ask? Well it wasn’t just a whim on my parents’ part. I was named after my great-grandmother on my Dad’s side and hers was pronounced that way. She was Irish and apparently in Ireland it’s sometimes pronounced like that. It means light. My middle name is Jennifer by the way (in case you were wondering, it’s after my aunt). I don’t have an ‘in-case-it’s-a-boy’ name, my parents knew I was a girl, but another possibility was Isabella. (Fortunately there was an ancestor with that name too, so it was ok 😉 ) Apparently this was rejected due to the possibility of (I quote) “Isabella-ding-dong” related jokes/teasing. While I appreciate the concern, it obviously didn’t occur to anyone the sheer number of interesting things you can do with this name:
‘Alien’, for example, ( I was VERY offended when a boy in my class came up with this when I was nine), if you read ‘A’-ileen. In my parents’ defence, they had actually never met anyone called ‘A’ileen and so didn’t know about the pronunciation, but still. Then there’s the classic “Oh, you should totally marry Ben Dover. Then you’d be Eileen Dover, hahaha, geddit?” Yes, very funny. (Well ok, actually it was quite. The first time) I also found the song ‘Come on Eileen’ a tad embarrassing in my younger days, due to some of the lyrics… It turns out hardly anyone actually knows anything other than the one line of the chorus – ♫Come on Eileen ♫ – and then improvises on the second (hint: it’s not actually ‘oh come on Eileen’ in case you were wondering) but those who do and sing the start with a very knowing grin… I also had someone sing  ♪ Aileen Aileen Aileen AILEEEEEN ♪ to the tune of ‘Jolene’. I should add that he was drunk and also, I think, Scandinavian. But it kind of caught on.  Not that I mind really. I always thought it was so cool to have my own song when I was little (and before I knew the words) – I even have one for my middle name (‘Jennifer Juniper’♪) and I still love it. I’m told many Eileens find it very annoying (it does get a bit old when people constantly sing it to you after you introduce yourself) but I always get a kick (and probably a huge silly grin on my face) when I hear it played somewhere.
Oh and did I mention that I have a double barrel surname too? In all, my name is 30 letters long. I know of one person whose name is longer, but she has three middle names and a double barrel surname. Very fun for signatures and spelling out to people. (Apparently there’s a Facebook group called ‘People Who Always Have To Spell Their Names For Other People‘!)  I have taken to just handing them a card with my name on it, like a bank card or something, just to avoid all the faffing about with Aileen/Eileen and me having to repeat the spelling about ten times. I do tend to get called A-ileen as a result but if I probably won’t see them again it doesn’t really matter. For some reason people often think my surname is foreign, even though the first part is English and the second part is even Scottish! Another common misconception is that part of it is my Mum’s name (since I’ve already gone on about my name for about an hour – I told you I was a chatterbox really – I might as well finish explaining it all here and be done with it). The first part is my Dad’s surname. The second is a name from his Dad’s side. There were three children, a boy and two girls, including my namesake, my Grandpa’s mother, but she was the only one who married. Obviously her name changed, and as the three were the last in that line/branch (I hope I’m getting this right) the name would have died with them (not completely, just from that part of the family that is), so my Dad, who is a big fan of family history by the way, kind of ‘adopted’ it. As a result, we are a rare breed as there are only four of us – and a few spammers who stole the name.
So there you have it – What’s in a name (Extended version with director’s commentary)

Part 2: Where am I from
Oh, this is a long one. I recommend you sit down. And possibly even bring a beverage and snacks of some kind.
I dislike this question, I really do.
‘Where do you live?’ I can answer. ‘Where was I born?’ ditto. But where am I FROM involves so much more effort. It’s another one of those situations where I tend to judge the likelihood of seeing the person asking it again before choosing to go with the short (evasive) version – “I live in Mytown”– or the full version.  I should warn you, this involves going back several generations of my family, otherwise it doesn’t make as much sense. But you have been warned, so here we go:
(I’ll try and keep it simple-ish)
I was born in Germany.  My mother is also German, and her parents are too. BUT… Well… First of all my Dad isn’t (we’ll get to that in a minute), and another thing, I don’t consider myself as German as I used to, if that makes sense. When you’re younger you’re more sure about these kind of things I guess, because you don’t really take other factors into account, but also a lot of other things have changed. The main thing being that we moved to Scotland when I was ten, which gradually eroded that certainty a bit, especially since I realised that, because of my Dad, I was never really 100% German anyway. My Dad is from New Zealand and moved to Germany when he was in his twenties, met my Mum there and so on. BUT (again), his parents are both British and emigrated to New Zealand before he was born (his brother was born in England). And, even though they were English, there are also some Irish (like my great-grandmother and namesake)  and Scottish (although, come to think of it, no Welsh) ancestors, so part of my surname is Scottish, and some of them used to live pretty near to where I live now – on some weekends and during the holidays that is, i.e. when I’m not at Strathclyde. That’s part of the reason we live here actually, which is another common question people ask once I start to explain where I’m from. That question really is deceptively simple sounding, but it depends very heavily on what your idea of the meaning of it is – from originally, from as in where you live, from where you feel you’re from because you felt most at home there, even if you now live somewhere else… (like if you were born in one city but moved away when you were still a baby, so you don’t really remember it, and you consider the town you grew up in where you’re from, even though it’s on the other side of the country/world).

So there you go 🙂

Wow- that actually turned out a lot shorter than I thought! I might come back to it later because it’s usually something I can discuss at great length – you know, my identity crisis/confusion, the fact that I have triple citizenship and so on. I’ve written many an essay for school about it, because you can reflect on it so well…