Awkward . . .

So I have one of those names that people just don't know how to pronounce when they see it. Obviously, I can empathize as it's not spelled phonetically. (Does anyone else find it ironic that "phonetically," itself, isn't spelled phonetically?) This has provided many awkward occasions in my past. Let's start with childhood.

Roll-Call.
It began my very first year in school ever, and the situation has repeated itself in every single class I've ever taken throughout the following twenty years of my life. Growing up in the south, there were rarely ever any uncommon names. So the event generally went like this:

Teacher: "....Catherine?"
Catherine: "Here."
Teacher: "Jim?"
Jim: "Here."
Teacher: "Evan?"
Evan: "Here."
Teacher: "Jennifer?"
Jennifer: "Here."
Teacher: " . . . ."
Me: (sigh) "Here."

Of course, there were times where the teacher, feeling brave, would attempt to pronounce my name. This, naturally, lead to a classroom full of giggling children and mental images of one of Scrooge McDuck's nephews. Occasionally, when I tell them the pronunciation of the name, the teacher would think I was providing a nick name, but out of curiosity, would ask me how to say my "real" name.

Even more rare are the times where my teacher never got my name right after the course of an entire semester--as was the case with my 2nd semester design critic at Harvard. This situation actually snuck up on me. What happened was on the first day of class, when calling roll, I gave him the pronunciation. For whatever reason, he didn't feel it necessary to refer to me by name until a few weeks into the semester--and when he did, it was wrong. At that point, it felt a little awkward to correct him. So I just let it go. And every time he said my name, quiet snickering from my peers trailed behind.

"Hi, my name is . . ."
"What???" This is the usual exchange when I meet someone. Bars are the worst--or anywhere with loud music. Sometimes they think I am being a smart ass and saying "Me." I've often been a little on the shy side in social situations where I'm meeting strangers--perhaps this is part of the reason. While verbally introducing myself can be hairy sometimes, it's not quite as bad as meeting people online. You know, like match.com. I kid you not, the first girl I went on a date with never addressed me by name. We had a second date. Still nothing.

Restaurants
It seems silly, but I hate restaurants that ask you for your name so they can call it out when your food is ready. I've gotten to the point where I'll say my name once, and whatever they repeat to me, I'll just say, "yeah, that's right." That's assuming I don't give them a completely different name altogether.

The Roommate
This leads us to the current conundrum and the reason this post was created tonight. The guy I've been sharing this apartment with for about 5 weeks now doesn't say my name correctly. I know I've told him how to say it, because . . . well, why wouldn't I? But still, he calls me "Dewey." I missed an opportune moment to rectify the matter when I met his girlfriend. But it was so brief I didn't actually introduce myself after she said, "Hi, I'm Katie." In any case, if any of you have any brilliant suggestions on how to get this guy to say my name right that would be great (any GSD people that read this should find him and start talking to him and nonchalantly ask who he's living with and when he answers, you say "Oh, you mean Yeee!"). As it is, I cry a little inside every time he calls me by "name."

Don't even get me started on my last name . . .