User:Gusandrews/OriginsOfGus

From Studyplace

Originally they named me Gillian, but around about my seventeenth year I got renamed at a writing workshop by a friend, and I made it stick. "Gillian" was proving too hard for most people, especially with the Slavic way I pronounce Ls. People thought I was saying Julianne, or Joanne, or they called me hard-G Gillian or even Gilligan... and then one day when I had a 104 degree fever the doctor called for William, which just about cemented the fact that I needed a new nickname. Jill was out. That's my stepmother's name.

By now I kind of think I'd like to be Gillian again, for the sake of being a Professional Person, but Hampshire College professors had other plans for me... we delighted in calling them by their first names, so they took a perverse pleasure in calling me Gus even when I introduced myself as Gillian. Thanks, Hampshire. That's the reason people trash-talk you, you know -- you just have to be so goddamn different.