In Vietnam, everybody goes by the second half of their first names, so my name there would be Thạch. In the US, people pronounce Thạch as "That," which is nauseating. As a baby, I started going by Lan. Lan (orchid) is less fitting than Thạch (stone), but sometimes life is all about compromise. Unfortunately, in my later elementary school days, I learned that people couldn't even pronounce Lan. More often than not, it came out as "LaWn" or "L-anne" or even "Lane." Thus, I switched to the dreadful one. Everybody can pronounce Pauline. Pauline means "little" or "humble" or "younger." These are not fitting words for me, and they are not fitting for my grandmother. The sound itself manages to be ugly and overly feminine all at once. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with what my wonderful mother (Diệm Trân Từ Kratzke, or Từ Thị Diệm Trân) named me. Thankfully, as I entered high school, I came to my senses and thought, "To hell with what other people can pronounce." I became Lan once again. My mother calls me Lan, so everybody else can, too. Of course, if you would like to call me Thạch and not "That," that would be splendid.
And then I got married. I never considered changing my last name, but found that many people expected me to. After explaining several times that there is no need to erase my last name in accordance with sexist traditions, I began to grow agitated that my own mother's maiden name was being lost through me. I may be rash, but I try to be consistent. And for those who ask why I don't start stringing along chains of names with even more hyphens, I say, "Please." Because it is unbecoming. One hyphen is plenty.
George and I decided to change my name a couple of years ago, and found out that it requires a lot of forms and people and buildings and stamps and driving and fees. We put it off in hopes that we would stop caring and could avoid the hassle, but that never happened. And then I got pregnant. After very little discussion, we both agreed that if we have a little girl, we would give her my last name, "Kratzke." So you know what that means. I couldn't not be a Từ and name my child Kratzke; only a littler, humbler, or younger person would do that.
To be a real Lan-Thạch Từ Kratzke, first you have to print out a petition and fill out those forms. Then you have to get that notarized. Then you have to go to a fingerprint place a pay them for some more forms. Then you have to take all those forms and go to an office in a court building and get more forms and meet with somebody and pay them $243. I'm serious. Then you have to wait until court is open and show up at the right time and wait for over an hour. Then you have to talk to a judge who signs one of the forms. Then you have to find the right office in the court building again and have them stamp the forms. Only then is your name changed. George and I started that process before our trip to Virginia and we finished most of it yesterday. Today at 8:30, I completed the last step. Today I also have jury duty.
I arrived by 9:00 as requested. They had us sit on a bench for an hour. When the hour was up, they had us stand in a line for 15 minutes. We weren't waiting for anything in particular, but we had to be standing in a line. Eventually, all 20 of us were ushered into a room, given numbers, and instructed to sit in order. They take the first six they can. I was number 17, so it was very unlikely that I would be selected. For the next 45 minutes, we listened to a condescending lawyer explaining some things about a traffic violation that disrupted the "peace and dignity of the land" was therefore a "class C criminal offense" or something like that. The lawyer, who shall be called Beadle from this point forward, represented the state of Texas and thought very highly of himself. Beadle asked us questions so he could choose the six jurors that would most likely side with him. He started by asking us questions such as "what is traffic?" or "why do we have laws?" It was like those awful discussion classes that some educators believe in.
Then, he asked us a series of four questions that we were to answer individually. The first was whether or not we were comfortable with the fact that intentions don't matter because the law is the law. When my dad taught me how to drive, he said that traffic laws are guidelines to keep people safe when they are trying to travel between two points. To this day, that's what I think of traffic laws. In other words, I have no moral objection to breaking traffic laws if the driver is making safe decisions. Although laws and safety are related, people can drive dangerously following the laws or drive safely while breaking them. Last year, I saw a Westlake cop create a big scene, screeching his tires and pulling around in front of a bunch of trucks like a jackass so he could pick up a fine from some poor guy who was probably going 35 in a 30. And that is what I think of cops.
We were going down the line, one juror at a time, and everybody thought it was okay that intentions don't matter. We kept getting closer to number 17, and I was all excited to be the first one to disagree and disqualify myself. Unfortunately, he stopped after juror 15, since jurors 16-20 very rarely get selected. Beadle's second question was worse. He asked whether or not we were comfortable with the fact that according to Texas law, one witness (regardless of who Beadle is paying or sleeping with) is as good as 2,000 witnesses if that witness could prove something "beyond a reasonable doubt." I could not wait to disagree. I don't trust Beadle one bit, or his smarmy witness! But, alas. Once again, Beadle stopped on juror 15. His third question went something like this: "I really am an attorney, even though I look so young and dashing. I'm a sleek city lawyer. I have a lot of experience with the law and have studied it extensively. The defendant is choosing to represent herself and is not a lawyer. Would anybody therefore hold any sort of bias towards the defendant?" He asked jurors one and two, who said they would have no bias. He looked at all 20 of us and asked, "Would anybody have a bias?" My hand shot up from the back row. Beadle pointed a pen at me and said, "Yes, Ms..." and then started fumbling through his papers to find my name. I cut Beadle off. "It doesn't matter," I announced, "and I would favor the defendant." Of course, nobody cared because I was juror 17. It felt good to say it anyway, though, and I considered myself to be under oath despite the fact that I was too irritated to say, "I do" when we were being sworn in. His fourth question regarded the definition of "reasonable doubt." I would at this point like to point out that while Beadle feels that the term "reasonable doubt" requires a definition, he would rather define it after asking us a question involving the term. Happily, I was out of there by 11:00.
Speaking of being legally bored, it is time for Lan-Thạch Từ Kratzke to call "various agencies" which include, but are not limited to, the Department of State Health Services (birth certificate), the Texas Department of Public Safety (drivers license), and the Social Security Administration (social security card). Sigh. It's tough work being such a very reasonable person.
