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On a particularly lazy day, I gave in. I have long been tired of not finding my name on Robee stickers and ready-made identification plates. I usually give a different name when I go to Starbucks or Yellow Cab for fear of getting it misspelled. So I wondered if my name means anything at all. I tried my favorite problem solver: the online search engine Google. I typed “Anissa” and “meaning” and this is what it came up with:

1. Grace of God, Favor.

Wow, really? A perfect pick-me-upper, and if I had a bigger ego, I wouldn’t have just written this on my blog, but on full-sized tarpaulins around our village. Then again, aren’t all of us gifts of God?

I think my parents would be the one to relate to this, as I was born three years after they got married. Both of them were in their early thirties and my mother had difficulty giving birth to me – the doctor told her that the chances of giving me a sibling were slim. This explains why in our house, even if I am way beyond legal age, all spotlights remain on me. But to ask them now if I am still God’s gift to them…hmmm…

2. Friendly

I forgot which site gave this meaning. I just wish they don’t see my report cards from grade school (yes, a Catholic school gives grades for conduct) wherein my teachers helpfully suggested that I be “more sociable” and “interact more”. The culprit would be the Nancy Drew Mystery Books I discovered in the library, which I couldn’t put down, even in class.  I mean, why would I play in the hot sun with my classmates when I could sit in the shade and daydream of far-off places? I did get to play patintero and Monkey-Annabel – after I finished my book. Such antisocial behavior of mine ended in high school, where my teachers kept changing my seat because almost all of my classmates became talkative when they sat beside me.

At present, though, I have Friendster, Multiply, Facebook and Tagged accounts – now do I get to live up to my name?

3. Pure

This is perhaps another version of ‘grace of God’. I’ll take it to mean that I am sincere…well, most of the time I am. I just find it difficult to say offensive things because I easily get guilty. So I usually keep quiet. Now if I tackle the other definition of ‘pure’, I’ll just say hmmm…

4. Great companion

Now this, I must advertise if ever I seriously date again. Ha ha. This was the one description which truly boggled me. If ‘companion’ means friend, well, I take this as a compliment, but if it means ‘wife’, ‘better half’, ‘sweetheart’ or what-have-you for a beloved, I don’t know. I have zero domestic skills and I’m not typically malambing. Oops, should my soulmate read this, I am so willing to change.

With a name as unique as mine, I’m a little shortchanged by the results I got. Don’t worry, I still love Google though. Maybe I just hate being stereotyped, and I maintain what I wrote for a school assignment ten years ago, that my name is defined by me. So someday, typing “Anissa” on the net would yield entries like “camera-crazy”, “incredibly self-centered” or “artistahin”. And people would immediately recognize who they refer to. J