What's in a name?

As I sit here on the North Campus of the University, working on many things at once that all should theoretically lead to a degree, I'm troubled by the thought that I'm now working against myself. If motivation be a gas tank that powers us through our days, lately I've been running on empty.

Symptomatic is my procrastination which sometimes masquerades as attention to detail. I mean, if I face a deadline, I'll spend the first 90% of the time between now and then working on 10% and then the last 10% of the time working on the other 90%. Or put another way, I'm much more interested in the beginning than the end. Luckily I usually choose the right 10% to focus on, and everything comes together just in the nick.

Looking back on my life, and I mean back back back, I see two events that foreshadow this unfortunate situation.

#1: The timing of my birth. My birthday, for those of you who don't know, is April 2nd. My mother likes to tell the story of how she waited so that I wouldn't be an April Fool's Baby. Despite feeling the pangs of imminent birth, my mother literally held it (and by "it" I mean "me"). And now I'm usually late -- is it any wonder? Ironically, my freshman year roommate in college, BK, was an April Fool's Baby, and I always thought him a bit "off". (No offense, BK.)

#2: The choosing of my name. My Chinese name -- which exists as my middle name -- translates into "ambitious to begin". At least that's what my parents tell me. Yup, nothing in there about "finishing" or "staying the course" (shudder) or even "taking it to the hoop". Historically, I see this manifest in how easily I tire of a geographical location. Any more than four years in one place and I start to feel like I've seen every building, street corner, and leaf on a tree one time too many. In the movie Mad Max, I empathize with, yes, Mad Max. That guy is always on the move.

You all might be interested to know that there are other people who take the name-determines-fate idea seriously. (I only half do.) You can Google "nomenology" and that exercise that will lead you to a book which as a scientist I can't recommend but which as an open-minded person I can't rule out either.

You might even try this sometime: Googling yourself or checking for yourself on one of the social networking websites. Disturbingly, I've found several other people in the U.S. that share my name (though I remain the top Google hit -- yesss!). On Friendster, one even sort of looks like me. (How's L.A., Stewart? We should meet for a beer sometime. Or do you prefer a gin-and-tonic like I do?) I've always wanted to talk to them and see how their lives unfolded. A similar idea turned into a documentary named The Grace Lee Project, made by one -- you guessed it -- Grace Lee.

Try not to think about it too much. You can really go batty if you start thinking everything's predetermined. In fact, I've spent too much time already thinking about this, so if you'll excuse me, I have 10% of my project to get back to.