The One Time I Wish Mom Went With "Alessandra"

I was sitting in Italian class learning how to ask people's names and how to respond (In this case, "Come ti chiame?" to ask "What's your name?" and "Mi chiamo _________" to answer). We all answered back, and then we learned the alphabet.

The issue here is that there are only 21 letters in the Italian alphabet, and "X" is not one of them.

Kelly had the same problem, since there's no "K" in the Italian language (they go with the hard C there, so I don't know what her Italian equivalent would be).

But then I remember talking to Mom and asking her what names she and Dad were considering for me when naming me, and she (shockingly, to me) mentioned that Alessandra was briefly in the running. Which, in this particular instance, would've made things a little easier.

This is not to say I don't like my name. Really, I do love it. It's not often that I use the whole 4 syllables of it (Alexandra), but I do use it in my bylines for the Ithacan and on my resume. It's used for what my Mom wanted: She wanted a name with lots of nicknames that looked good on leterhead (and to be honest, Alexandra Palombo looks pretty awesome, if not intimidating to a 5 year old learning how to spell for the first time). I use Alex because my parents have called me that since I was born.

But really. Mom? Dad? For the purposes of this blog post and this class? Alessandra. Just saying.