The Evolution of a Name

I have a lot of names: Elizabeth, Liz, Hightower, Hot Stuff and sometimes Lizzy or Elly. My various names correspond to different people and phases of my life. For those of you who are confused, I am going give a mini-history of my name.

My parents named me Elizabeth Ann Hightower, which was not the easiest name to write come kindergarten with 18 letters in just my first and last names. Most of my family calls me Liz, although my dad often calls me Elizabeth. My mom is the only one in the world who can call me Lizzy. Take note of this if you are thinking about trying it.

My friends from my childhood street called me Liz but my friends at school always called me Elizabeth. At church I was usually Liz and this carried over to the Christian summer camp I worked at in the summers.

In college I was Elizabeth to most of my friends. My college roommate, Lucy confused about the Liz/Elizabeth debate, decided to try to call me Liz for a week. In her words, "It didn't take" and she resorted back to calling me Elizabeth. I also came up with my own self-proclaimed nickname in college, "Hot Stuff." This came from having to sign up for different things with my campus ministry. I would grow bored of writing my name so I would sign Elizabeth "America's Sweetheart" Hightower or Elizabeth "Sweet Thang" Hightower. One time I wrote Elizabeth "Hot Stuff" Hightower and a friend named Sam Duff started calling me that. It stuck. I love absurd things and what's more absurd than me giving myself the nickname, Hot Stuff?

After college, I attended my DTS at YWAM Maui where there were two other girls named Elizabeth. One went by the one-of-a-kind nickname, Biza and the other commandeered Liz so I was known again as Elizabeth. Then when I came back on staff, my closest friend, Amy called me Liz and most other people followed suit. On outreach to Bangladesh, our contact started calling me Elly. First time I had heard this one. Some of my friends from that team still call me that.

When I was a teacher we pretty much all called each other by our last names so I became Hightower to my teacher friends. Then for some reason when I came back to YWAM for the third time, people also started calling me Hightower.

So depending on where you know me from, I could be Elizabeth, Liz, Hightower, Hot Stuff, Elly or even Mexican Sugar (long story.) It doesn't really matter which one you call me as long as you stick to the same one. And remember, only my mom can call me Lizzy!

Fun on the Metro

There are definitely great things about being in this large Asian city. Two dollar shampoos/head massages are clearly high on the list. So are all the other kinds of massages you can get for basically pennies. I also love these shopping carts they have here. They are like the little baskets you can carry around at Wal-Mart if you don’t want to push one of those bulky carts. The genius of these baskets is that they have wheels so you can fill them full of heavy things and still easily maneuver around the store. I am tempted to make an offer to buy one even though I am pretty sure they aren’t for sale.

Another great thing about this place is the metro/subway system. There are at least five lines but there will be up to nine later this year. They are super clean unlike New York’s subway system which is like a giant toilet. The trains come about every two minutes and make it super easy to get around the city. The signs are in English which also helps greatly. There is some good people watching with plenty of weird fashions and mole beards. There have been many fun adventures on the metro for my team. Sometimes the metro is so crowded that you literally squeeze yourself in or out of the subway car. Sometimes people try to bring large luggage or boxes onto the metro, which is pretty much a terrible idea. It makes it super difficult to disembark the car. One time my student, Sarah started backing up into what she thought was an empty space and fell onto a giant box. Good times.

Sarah has a lot of adventures on the subway. Whenever a seat opens up, we all race to try to beat the locals to the coveted seat. Sarah was making a power move to the seat and totally beat some guy to the seat. Apparently he didn’t see her sneak into the seat and ended up sitting right on her lap. Talk about awkward!

My favorite subway moment involved my student, David. We were on our way home from a long day at English camp. David was a little away from the rest of us and we lost track of him. We got to our subway stop and I saw David walk out in front of us. He happens to be 6 foot 9 so he is fairly easy to see. I see David talking to some guy I have never seen and then all of a sudden they are hugging in a very awkward way. I guess any hug in a metro station is going to be a bit awkward. We were so confused about why David was hugging some guy in the metro. It turned out they had talked for most of the long ride. As they were parting ways, David thought the guy was reaching in for a hug so David went for it. The guy seemed a bit stiff and confused about the whole thing. After the guy left and David thought about it for a moment, he realized that the guy had been trying to measure himself against David and was not going in for a hug after all. Always an adventure on the metro!