I was born, grew up and spend almost all of my life in a country that doesn’t really care about global rule of naming. This country doesn’t care about how your parents name you. Every parent has a liberty to pick the name for their child, including the last name. Yes. Total freedom on last name. You don’t even have to have it.

That’s what my parents chose.

I have four sisters, and all of us have similarities in our names. All ends with 'a' and only have one word name. No last name, no middle name. We only have a name. I got lucky; my parent decided to be generous and spent 9 letters for my name. Two of my sisters only have six letters on their name.

When I was in elementary school, I never really thought about it. Although, I know that there are people out there that have family name. There are also people who actually don’t have family name, but lucky enough to have two (or more) words name, that they can pretend that that is their family name.

During my junior high, I started to think "what if someday I went out of this country and have to introduce myself to foreigners. They would expect me to have last name". I started to give myself cool last name(s), and then giggled at it, and then forgot about it. Who am I kidding anyway? Yeah right... Me, going outside of the country? Not in a million years.

Then along came my first nephew. He’s the first grandchild of my parents. He’s the son of my six-letter-name sister. He end up having a complete full name (first name, middle name and last name - that is not family name) that consist of 23 letter (spaces are not included). Talking about obsession.

This name thing is like a big pink elephant in our family. No one really seriously discussed about it. No one think that it's a big deal, but now... after 7 nieces and nephews, I know there's something there within my family. All seven of them have first, middle, and last names, which consist of at least 14 letters (and I think the youngest one has the longest name).

Now back to me. Where am I after all this?

Well as I predicted earlier on my junior high, I was 26 and didn't have a passport. Never had a problem with my name. Life is easy.

Well, not that easy.

I mean, come on... I live in the 21st century; I bound to have some relationship with internet, right? Back at my junior high years, I made my first email account. As part of a system that adopts global naming convention, the email system asked my last name. After being creative for quite a while, I decided just to put my father's name there. And I can get away with that. So long story short, I put my father's name every time something in the internet asks me for a last name. Sometime, some systems accept space or dot as first name. Then I can put my name as '. Risvelina'. Pretty cool, huh?

Then, something changed in my life and I have to spend some time outside of the country. It’s quite a long time, which means I have to deal with lot administrations within that country to make sure that I can stay there. Administration means putting your name in a form. It means that I have to put lots of last name. Hmm.

When I decided to move to the Netherlands, my name is one of my considerations. I can make a life changing decision here! I told you I never had a passport before, so I will make a new one for this. I can put my father's name again in the passport, and people told me that it won’t be a problem. But I kinda doubt it. My passport will be my primary identification for 2 years or more. They might cross check it with my other documents; say my credit card, my birth certificate, my diploma, etc. None of those have my father's name as the last name there. I don’t know how the system works, but I plan to make my life as easy as possible there. So I decided just to use my original name in the passport.

Everything worked well. I arrived in the Netherlands. Apparently here, people have remarkably long names. So long that the need to make their names into initials except for the last name. For example, someone can have name like W.R.J.V.A.T.Y van de Berg. And what is W.R.J.V.A.T.Y stands for? Bite me! All I know people call him Bob. Among these long names, my name will stand out :p

I've stayed here for 1.5 years now, and somehow I survive with my short name. With small bumps here and there. Some systems here don’t accept dots or spaces, so instead I put R as my first name. Some systems go further and don’t want to accept only one letter for first name, so I put my name as ‘Risvelina Risvelina’. Lame, but what can I do?

The name can be a nice ice breaker. Every time I introduce my name, usually they asked again once or twice whether it's my complete name. And then we can laugh about it. Sometime it leads to further question about how you can find someone in the phone book, which shows that they only know one way to sort people's names (duh).

Unexpectedly, so far university is the only place where I got some trouble with my name. When I register for the online system in the campus, I register as ‘. Risvelina’. This system tries it best to be friendly and welcome you with your first name. And that's what I get every time I open this system. "Welcome, ." … pffft..

Then the system is adjusted, and they can’t accept dot as first name anymore. So they asked me to change it. Without thinking, I put R. and there it goes. "Welcome, R". Which one do you think is better?

But nothing beats the name that I have in my student card. Because at first in the university, dot is acceptable, then I put dot all the time, even when filling form for student card. It took a while for the card to be ready, but it arrived eventually. And I was shocked. Somewhere between the international office desk where I submit my form and the postal service, someone decided to become creative. They see dot in my name, and they want to spice it up. And look what I got my card.

Yay... I’m a porn star!!

While opening my online TV series website, I stumbled upon a link to Poirot TV series. Apparently in 1989 till 1991, there was TV series dedicated to Poirot cases in Agatha Christie’s book. This reminds me of those old days when I was in the elementary school.

Living my childhood with four young adult sisters make me know a thing or two that not suitable for my age back then. I know lots of English songs that not suitable for a child (although I didn’t really understand what the lyrics means) and I read teenager's magazines. My sisters were (and I don’t think are) avid readers of Agatha Christie’s books, with Poirot, miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence and other main characters as the detectives. I was taught to follow the examples of my sisters, and therefore, I refuse not to read Agatha Christie’s books as well. I love the books.

My sisters rarely (or never? I forget) bought those books. They usually borrowed it from the book shop that rented almost all types of fiction books, including comics. When I was old enough to buy my own book, and Gramedia (a popular book store in Indonesia) came to the city nearby, I started to build my own collection of novels, including Agatha Christies. My favourite books of her are “The Big Four” and “Ten Little Niggers” (also known as “And Then There Were None” or “Ten Little Indians”). Why? In The Big Four, Poirot got physical. He not just sat and used his "little grey cells" but really jumped to the scenes and made some surprise moves. The plot is also different from the other books because the villains were described case by case. Ten Little Niggers is the best of Agatha’s books, based on my opinion. It doesn’t have a detective for once, and the murders were done so meticulously that I was still mesmerized even days after reading it. Believe it or not, I couldn't even look at the cover of the book because it scared me (ha-ha).

It’s been years since I read Agatha’s book. It’s replaced by harry potter and those kind of novels. Seeing the Poirot TV series make me want to read the book again.

Oh well... maybe some other time, because now.... I scared more easily than when I was teenager.

I was alone in my not-so-spacey container (or some might say "birdcage"). I couldn't barely stand. i couldn't eat anything for days.

I was surrounded by my beloved friends (which somewhat like a family now) in a room full of people and went home to a homey apartment. I performed my traditional dance on a stage to promote my culture and my country. I ate my stomach out in all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant.

Cheers for another year (insyaAllah)...