Can I get a mask and a folding chair with that?

At school, the kids sometimes call me "wrestler."

Now, this may seem out of the blue, but stay with me. My name is Leslie. In Japan, the "L" sound and the "R" sound are combined, making my name sound more like "resurii." Wrestler is pronounced "resuraa." So it's really a small jump from "resurii" to "resuraa," and it's the first thing they think of when they hear my name.

I also sometimes get "refurii" ... referee.

This is all well and good - kids have their fun, and the fact that I have a few nicknames is a good thing... I think. On the whole, it probably means they like me to some degree. (I've recently gotten called "Leslie Jackson" by the track girls, as I have a "Jackson image." What that means I don't know, and all I can hope is that my Jackson image isn't a Michael or Tito one...or a Jessie one, for that matter, considering the "wrestler" bit.)

Yesterday, I was in one of my first-year classes at the middle school; things were going well. That is to say, things were going well until my teacher says, in front of a class of 36 12-year-olds, to repeat after "resuraa."

Moment of silence...class explodes.

I staggered to the closest wall, clutching my chest and acting to the best of my abilities as though I had been mortally wounded. The class was dying, and my teacher was trying to apologize but was doubled over, laughing just as hard as the kids (especially when I threw in a "kurushii..." ["it hurts..."] for her benefit). It took about some 3 or 4 minutes for us to get back on track, but it was a wonderful interlude.

Ahh, the life of a foreigner...