Connection & Identity

I just watched "Google Me" on Hulu.com. It's a documentary which follows one man's quest to meet all the men who share his same name who he found by googling his name. It makes us realize how closely connected we are yet how separate we are by individual differences.

My pic of the day is inspired by this notion of interconnectivity and I chose a photo of my Russian doll (also known as Matryoshka doll) symbolizing this connection. Since I have such an unusual name, Jalana, I have often felt very disconnected. Especially as a child when all my friends were able to buy items with their names on them and when children with the same name would be in my classes.

I would often be asked if my name means anything, and to my knowledge it doesn't. However, in googling my own name I did find this in the "Namipedia" on www.babynamewizard.com, "Jalana derives from the Indonesian term 'jalan', which means road, and 'jalan jalan', which means to wander or travel." I also know that by googling my first name only, a Japanese clothing store is the first thing that pops up (http://www.jalana.co.jp/).

All that I know about my name's origin is that my mom had a friend who heard of the name and decided to name her child that. Several years later my mom chose the same name for me since it was different, outside of that I've never met another person with the same first name besides those "Jalana's" that I can find on Facebook and Google.

It would have been very helpful to my sense of identity and feeling of connection had these online resources been available when I was a child.