Numerology (Part I)

In trying to pick and figure out the best way to pick a new name, I did a numerology analysis of both my birth date/names, as well as on the shortlist of new names and my "new birthdate". Here's what came up:

Original birth date and names:

Birth Path: Shows the opportunities present from birth that a person can use to express themselves. Often looked at as the vibration that describes the attributes of the type of career a person can successfully undertake. It is the road or path that is set and unchangeable for the person to take and complements the wisdom and experience from the total birth name.

6 The Provider Enjoys health and healing; involved with social issues.

First name: Represents the key to the character. It is the personal and physical side to how you perceive and carry yourself.

33 Keywords: Teacher and Counsellor (As subconscious knowledge and spiritual wisdom): A master energy that will have the opportunity to reach many. Creative in their approach. Teaching and counselling come naturally, but they must learn to detach. 6 Keywords: Responsible, Honest, Love and Home & Family (How the vibration is experienced or actually lived out): A person who is honest and trustworthy. Has a tendency to take on responsibility without thinking of the consequences.

Middle name: Represents the inner secret self and shows as emotions. It is part of the character that sets the tone for how one reacts to situations.

46 Keywords: Affluent and Resolute (As subconscious knowledge and spiritual wisdom): These people appear well-to-do, often attracting abundance. They stand up for themselves, having the courage of convictions of self and others. 1 Keywords: Independant, Original, Pioneer and Leader (How the vibration is experienced or actually lived out): A self-reliant person with strong leadership qualities. An original thinker who appears strong-minded; an ideas person.

Last name: Represents the contemplative self. It is how you seize life and use your intellect to navigate your way through life, and drives your thinking process.

23 Keywords: Adventurer and Innovative (As subconscious knowledge and spiritual wisdom): A person with a sense of change and adventure. Sensitive to outer energies and able to see possibilities in situations. 5 Keywords: Carefree, Curious, Freedom and Change (How the vibration is experienced or actually lived out): A carefree, happy-go-lucky type ruled by the five senses. Curious by nature, always ready for a new experience.

Full name: The true vibrational energies that were brought into this life.

102 -> 12 Keywords: Inventive and Crusader (As subconscious knowledge and spiritual wisdom): A leader with high ideals and a keen mind to solve problems. Can appear restless, with nervous energies. Enjoys socialising. 3 Keywords: Creative, Charmer, Expressive and Communicator (How the vibration is experienced or actually lived out): A person with a versatile flair for creating. Can be shy when young. Must take care not to become scattered. Excellent at communication in oral or written skills. Great salesperson.

Vowels: Reveal the inner disposition or individualism. This can be likened to the inner motor that drives and compels a person to be an individual, separate and different.

38 Keywords: Mediator and Storyteller A person with great imagination and quick wit, excellent storyteller and negotiator. Often the centre of activity.

Consonants: Reveal the personality. This can be likened to a mask, not necessarily a true picture of the character; however, it is how people describe you as this is what you show to others.

64 Keywords: Distinguished and Notorious Persons with this energy can have honours come to them as they are driven to help and are often pillars of the community. Everyone seems to know them.

Pathway: The map we wish we were born with. Often not realised until a person is more mature (approx. 45 to 58 years old).

135 -> 18 Keywords: Leader and Volunteer This person wants to make the world a better place for all to live. Is able to relate to others with tolerance and love, using natural leadership abilities.

9 To be selfless in tolerance and compassionate to all. To embrace and become the healer or teacher or mentor you came to be.

Missing numbers: Indicate the particular energies that need to be worked on and/or overcome to be more balanced.

2 Keywords: Detailed, Cooperative, Supportive and Balanced A person who enjoys detailed work. Patient, tolerant, and quick to please. Tries to maintain balance and harmony in all situations.

Posted in personal

And I Shall Name Thee v2.0

The matter of coming up with a name has been bugging me non-stop since day 1, and all the more so now that I'm getting so close to my first day on T. So here's what I'm considering at the moment:

There are lots of boys' names out there that I like, but I feel don't necessarily suit me personality-wise or looks-wise. For some reason, when I was much younger and the Internet was in its youth, I once had the idea of posing as male in some social chat rooms on IRC (yeah, remember that?). I don't know how the idea came to me, but I do remember how nervous I was and how the shivers ran up my spine when I logged on under the new id for the first time.

I soon realised that I hadn't exactly thought this true when someone asked me my name. Mind you, this was back when even internet connections were nowhere near the speeds we get today, and even text took a while to transfer. So I at least had a handful of seconds to respond, and came up with: Nick. Don't ask me why, but there it was. And because it's stayed in my consciousness all these years, Nicholas will be my first name: what friends yell out when they see me across the street (or what enemies would while they were chasing me with burning sticks I suppose), what my girlfriend whispers urgently into my ear, what I write in those little boxes when I fill out forms (and there will be many of those, no doubt).

So Nicholas Alexander Marius I will be. If you think that's overkill, I really want to work "Lucius" (Luke) somewhere in there, but I fear that 4 names will be a little much (i.e. Nicholas Alexander Lucius Marius) so I'll leave that to when I actually change my name legally before deciding on whether I'll leave it out. I also haven't decided on the spelling for "Nicholas" (e.g. Nicolas, Nikolas, Nickolas) and "Alexander" (e.g. Aleksander, Aleksandr).

Nicholas derived from the Greek "Nikolaos", a combination of the words nike (victory) and laos (people), i.e. victory of the people. Famous people/characters: Tsar Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov (the last emperor of Russia), Niccolò Machiavelli (a Florentine political philosopher), Niels Bohr (because I'm an electrical engineer) and Nicolaus Copernicus (an astronomer who first theorised that our solar system was centered around the sun).

Alexander derived from the Latin "Alexander", a combination of the words alex (refuge, protection, defence) and andros (man), i.e. protector of man. Famous people/characters: Alexander the Great (of course), and a whole bunch of other monarchs.

Lucius derived from the Latin lux (light), i.e. bringer of light. Famous people/characters: Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (the Emperor Nero), and a whole bunch of prominent men in Roman history.

Marius derived from the Roman Mars (God of War), or else from the Latin root mas, maris meaning "manly". Often thought to be from the Latin "mare" (sea). Famous people/characters: Gaius Marius (a famous Roman general), Marius de Romanus (an important character in the Vampire Chronicles).

Thanks to all who have voted in the poll on the left. It was interesting to see which names people liked the most. The final results are below, and a new poll has been put up.

Which name you liked the most. Total votes: 58.

Posted in new-id, website

My Life in B-l-u-e

I am in *love* with this comic. The art style and quality just bowls me over, especially because I'm getting quite sick of the manga influence in cartoons and the such nowadays. Zan Gullo does an impressive job capturing a certain mood with his combination of dialogue and images.

I haven't gotten far enough into the archives to be able to comment on the storyline, but I'm already a huge fan of the strip. I think that I may have just been introduced to the first trans character (FtM Marius?) though.

Also check out his Science Fiction and Fantasy section/repository, entitled Elfwood.

Venus Envy

Check out Erin Lindsey's Venus Envy, a great little online comic about an MtF teenager who's trying to adjust to her new life. Don't worry, there's an FtM character in the main cast too. Anyway, it addresses many little issues that will ring a bell for all of us, and is an entertaining read most of the time.

There's a full archive available on the website, although you'll have to get the "strips" day-by-day since I don't think the "weekly view" is available. The graphics load pretty quickly though, so those of you with dial-up shouldn't worry.

T therapy here I come!

Went to see Gaye yesterday, and had another great session. I felt that we got to know each other a little better this time around. Although the session wasn't as ground-breaking as the earlier ones, it certainly went well as she knew the background to a lot of the things I wanted to say to her, so I had to sidetrack less this time around and could make my statements/points a lot more directly.

The great thing is that near the end, she said that she's convinced that I know myself well, and that she trusts me to make the decisions as to what's best for me. We talked about starting T therapy, and she said that it may be a good idea to wait till my next session (she gave me a few things to think about in the meantime) before getting that crucial appointment with the psychiatrist (for the T prescription). She then asked when I thought the next appointment should be, i.e. when I think I'd be fully ready to start T therapy. Of course, I laughed and said that I was ready when I was born. In fact, I told her that I'd been having these "excitement attacks" while waiting for this appointment to arrive, and often felt that I'd explode if I didn't get T straightaway.

I suppose that she was also impressed that I'd resisted the urge to utilise "alternative methods" of accessing T, and instead wanted to do this "the right way". She suggested 3 weeks from yesterday, which reminded me that my birthday is coming in 4 weeks. She thought that it would be a significant event and that I should come after that, so I took a deep breath, hesitated for a few seconds, then said, "I think we should leave it to 5 weeks from [yesteray]. If I don't have any doubts in that time frame, then I know that I cannot possibly regret this decision." DOOFUS! =)

I'm not sure what the usual practice is, but I feel that she'd probably vouch for my candidacy for T therapy in her referral to the psych. At the very least she might refer me to one who's more empathetic and likely to help the cause. But of course, this is probably wishful thinking.

There were some things from yesterday's session that I'd wanted to note down in this blog, but I might leave them for another post later. For now, I'm going to enjoy my new tv for a while!

Posted in counselling, transition

When Recreation becomes Stressful (rant)

Played tennis again today. Kicked butt again. Felt my fitness and strength pay off again. And was stressed out again.

Here's the scenario: our "sister team" was short of a girl, so my (stand-in) team captain volunteers to play as a reserve for them. The hook is, we're playing each other. Worse still, we're in the final round-robin round before the final play-offs, and we wanna ensure ourselves the second seed while helping the other team actually qualify for the semifinals.

Now, my team captain is one of those women who wories all the time about what other people think, about doing the right thing etc. So she asks me, should I play for this other team? What if we lose and come in third? So I say, we've always had the agreement to help each other out (although it's usually us doing the helping out), plus there's no way we'll lose this even with her playing. They're lucky if they'd get a single set off us with their own team members playing.

We know that we only need a few sets to get the points that we need, so our boys muck around in the first match and lose that. So my team captain gets a little more worried and nervous. Up comes the first women's match and my partner (whom I'm meeting for the first time) struggles, and my team captain starts getting paranoid. So what does she do? She starts throwing the match. So on the changeover, I say to her, "Just play your game. We'll be alright, we just need to get into the groove." And she continues to throw the game.

Now, her partner (we'll call her Y) doesn't say anything, and once we get off court, we sit around talking about how many points we'll need to ensure the seeding and how many points our sister team will need to ensure that they qualify. There are 13 points to go around - conveniently, we need 3 and they need 10. So we decide to split the points that way, and play the matches as normal but to report "fake" scores on the scoresheet. The next thing I know, Y is on court bitching about how she can't play against people with no morals and that if the scores were decided, we shouldn't have to play the matches.

So I get pissed off. I asked her what the problem was, and she says "nothing" in a pissy way. I go, "No, if there's a problem, we'll have to sort it out," because I'm pissed at the way she's acting especially considering that we were going to give them the overall win and all the points they needed (lowering my own stats and team's performance evaluation). She says, "I don't have to say anything. It's obvious enough what's going on." So I lose it, grab my bag and walk over to the other court where they're finishing up the other mixed doubles. And all hell breaks loose.

In short, she accuses us of having our team captain fill in for the team so that we can manipulate the score. This angers me and I ask if they have anyone else that could have played, as well as if they think that we'd discussed this and sent someone in to throw the match on purpose. Then Y's teammate gets angry, yelling at me that "we're not accusing you of anything!" which in turn makes me get up (Y's crying and sitting down and I was sitting down next to her), look him square in the eyes and say, "Don't you raise your voice at me," all steely-eyed Clint Eastwood-y.

By now everyone's standing around, and Y says, "So you guys think you're so great, that you would have won this [for sure]" and I say "Of course. Are you kidding me?" because I can't believe that these people think that they stood a chance against us. We've never lost any set we didn't want to against these people (yeah, guess how many times we've helped them qualify for the playoffs), and the only reason my team missed out on being promoted into the top grade last year was because of a rain-out.

Man am I pissed off. Not only was this anger directed at me while I'd encouraged my captain to not throw the match, but these hacks think that they're good players! It's not the first time I've seen this, but it makes me sick how some people think they're great at tennis when they'd be considered a social player at best. And before you point your finger at me, I'm a tennis thoroughbred and been through my paces, so yes, I am that good. My only problem in the past 4 years has been my fitness, and even then I was among the top picks in the damn area. My performance since coming back into the comp a few weeks ago should have been proof enough that I'm back in the groove, and still these people have the guts to mouth off like that.

My teammates worked to calm things down, although the conflict still wasn't resolved, they agree to finish the final 2 sets. Me and my partner were down 0-1 in our match, and despite a cut on my small finger and a deep gash on my forearm (clumsy me wasn't paying attention and gashed my arm on a metal plate on the fence at the end of the court area where I was sitting with my other 2 teammates while things were being sorted out) that was bleeding like mad and definitely needed stitches (we held it together with a few band-aids), we walked calmly out on court, played as non-aggressively as humanly possible and won 6 games in a row to take it 6-1.

So yeah. I hate that. I play in this stupid comp for some recreation and to meet up with friends, and this happens. Of course, my captain shouldn't have thrown her first match, but you'd think that people would be able to just take the handout we're giving to them and not bitch around on court. Right now, I'm hoping that they actually get into the final by some miracle just so that we can kick their arses in that.

While I'm at it, here are some other things that come to mind when I think of getting aggravated on court:

10. People who walk around (or worse yet, stand around juggling balls) behind the fence at the back of the court while a point is being played. How can I keep track of my opponents while keeping my eye on the ball when you're standing 2 metres away from them!

9. People who hold 2 balls while they're serving, and throw the second ball behind them if their first serve goes in. It's against the rules, it's dangerous, and it's bloody annoying. Get a fucking ball holder or some shorts with pockets.

8. People who don't call faults out loud, because you either let the ball go (not realising that the idiot on the other side of the net has called your serve that's a foot out, in) and lose the point, or othwise not only waste energy returning a dead ball, but losing your rhythm for the second serve.

7. Guys who use their women opponents for target practice in social mixed doubles. Look, just put the damn overhead away. You don't have to smack it right at the lady at net. I'll take them myself, no qualms at all, but it annoys me when they pick on the weaker/older women who definitely don't have the reflexes to get their racquet on the ball and don't always know to get out of the way.

6. People who should be passing you the ball but just hit it God knows where, just as long as it's on the other side of the court.

5. People who call my serves wide when they land right on the centre line. I swear 40% of my aces have been discounted this way.

4. People who call the lines when they're in no position to do so. No, you can't call my serve wide when you're standing at the net on the other side of the court, moron!

3. People who don't know the rules and yet want to argue the validity of their action. Once, in a mixed doubles match, this lady hit the ball twice with her racquet, and it obviously wasn't with one motion because she has an awkward forehand in which the racquet follows through in two parts. I call it, the point ends, and her partner says, no it's their point. I point out that her racquet didn't move in one motion, which she starts to deny. And then the guy says, "she didn't hit the ball twice." So I say, "You were standing in front of her, facing me at the net. You wanna tell me that she didn't hit the ball twice?" And you know what this guy has the balls to say to me? "I heard it." He's lucky I didn't smack the next overhead I had right in the middle of his back.

2. People who intentionally give bad line calls to the point of being notorious for doing so.

1. Hacks that yell, "Come on!" and do that damn Wilander (now adopted by Hewitt) non-fist pump after every point they win. Even when their opponent just double-faulted. Asshat.

Posted in rant