My name is not Alexandra. Not in the 'Hi, are you Spanish?' way, but in the 'Hi, so why's your name not Alexandra?' way.

My real name has nothing to do with teen immaturity or what people nowadays call CB.com (Crying Bitch.com). It has nothing at all to do with the fact that I'm coming to eighteen years of age and my family is planning to move to Canada.

It has nothing to do with the fact I have three sisters, two of whom are sophomores and one who is just coming out of her milk-teeth fiasco.

It also has nothing to do with the fact that I'm in my mid-summer vacation and that I've never wanted Josh, the boy next door, from thinking I adore him- which sounds strange- because:

A) I wear round-spectacles.

B) I love iced-banana juice.

C) I am basically a well-rounded socially inept girl who loves reading books than watching all the new K-pop hotties combined.

Josh is a grade higher than me in my virtual High School. Call it Gunn High School. He's light years away from being my match- in terms of beauty- which sounds less ridiculous and more realistic, since my premonition is that Josh is my dream-match.

My bride.

Sounds idiotic, right? Just a premonition anyway.

My real name is Jessica Is Not A Bitch aka Jessica INAB. I reversed the 'I' in my diary to make it become Jessica NABI (Jessica Not A Bitch Is).

Ridiculous of course.

So I replaced my thinking cap with the creative one. And alas!

Anne Frank Is A Bitch... (nah)

I Love Biebs.....(nah)

Crazy Bitch Here......(nah times a million)

Time for Adventure.....(kinda cool but nah..)

Creature of the Night ..(no way)

Personal Goddess.....(uhm?)

I wanted something cool. Something you put in your diary and when it's discovered say, twenty years later, someone looks at the name and goes, "Wow, this stuff is deep."

Some cool nickname. Something to remember myself by, or to be remembered for, anyways.

So, after crossing out a few lines from the rough book and realizing I still had like these huge chunks I'd to look through, I decided to drop the whole thing.

Perhaps a few ideas would pop into memory- the power of the subconscious mind, or whatever they call it.

Remember this is the time to be cool, it's summer baby. Some obnoxious reason snitched at the back of my mind. My father is an accountant, and sorry for the late introduction, but his job sucks.

It sucks because he comes back on Friday and says he'll be having a meeting at noon the next day, and to me that sucks. Because, usually, the next day is Saturday, and that's usually when all the kids do all the cool stuff with their parents.

That's when you go to the mall, and shop through your favorite ice-cream parlor. But no, Saturday is not an ice-cream parlor day. It's dad's day.

Dad's day of the meeting at noon.

We don't complain however, me and Liz, my little sister I told you about. When not busy, he's filling in the little time he can get with us. One Sunday, he brought us a huge Turkey breast, the biggest I'd ever seen anyway.

We ketchup-ed the thing up, and enjoyed to our utmost. No complaints.

Clare and Joan my two elder sisters are always face-timing now and again, always reminding us to be good girls, lest we become the evil witch in Wizard of Oz i.e We shouldn't annoy dad: also i.e We should remember that good girls win big blue berry sweets.

But their worries are not justifiable anyway. It takes a lot, and believe me when I say a lot, to annoy father.

He's the silent type and I deeply respect that. He gives us space and all we want, as long as we act our part, and that includes doing the chores, feeding the kitten (Liz's job) and being good daughters.

But that's too much to ask of someone who's striving everyday to make harmony between three daughters, amidst the crisis of having lost our mother.

She died when I was little. The only stories I have of her are from Joan, but those seem exaggerated with a Happyville-touch to them. The other part of her comes from the photos taken when she was around fifteen and still a high school student at some Korean school.

So, there you have it. I'm half Korean, since my father is , thank you very much, an American and my mother was Korean.

Talk Korean, and you'd have me for a deaf girl. Not a word of the vocabulary. That doesn't, however, mean I haven't tried learning Korean culture.

Our grandmother Ki-sun Jean invites us for holidays for at least every fifteenth of October, or the week before Christmas, but usually father declines politely because:

A) Quoting him one hot afternoon, "My babies (including yours truly) are not yet mature enough to handle it (the travelling, language, etc etc) but I'll bring them when it's ready.

B) Still quoting his phone call, "I'm really also caught up at work. I'm so sorry but I'll make it up to you soon."

Then he said something to the effect of "Goodbye ol' lady." in Korean. He speaks a little, unlike his daughters combined.

I've been to Korea though, just once. And that was when I was five, during my mother's burial.

Joan and Clare have travelled to Korea a lot actually usually to fill in our places at Granny's holiday. They say the food is great, the people - my people, or our people- are great. "Everything is really really really great." Clare once said.

"But what is great?" Liz questioned her amiably. She's this really cute newbie with these blue eyes and one can't help cuddling her. Which Clare did exactly at the time, leaving this void of how 'great' Korea really is.

But I've for one felt it should be this giant place filled with amazing figurines of hardworking people filled with a zeal to buy big ice-cream for their chubby-faced kids.

That was my view after watching K-Drama, a Korean series, when I was about ten years old.

Dad's view seemed divided. He continues telling us, me and Liz that is, that Korea is for big girls.

"Please let's visit granny dadda. Please let's visit granny dadda." That was Liz at six.

"Oh, look at you. Dadda is gonna take you if you take your soup." Another lie for another day.

I was watching the whole drama behind my bedroom curtain. I've always wondered the real reason why father keeps postponing our granny visit for a long time.

Clare at times says it is too big an issue for me and Liz to understand. And yes, she says that at the time when I can cross the road, do 1 + 1, and write the alphabet back and forth.

But imagination plays its tricks. I couldn't shake my brain from this big monster that wanted to devour father whenever he crossed the Korean boundary.

The real reason always remained behind a curtain. Always waiting to be revealed so to speak at that opportune moment. And that moment sure never presented itself anyway. Joan was soon leaving us for campus thanks to her scholarship from some obscure University. I really tried to find out where she was going though.

I entered her bedroom, looking for anything that may reveal the secret. One may be wondering, why be secretive about success. Well, one ought to know Joan for one has those 'perfectionist' genes in her.

Our father may be the prime cause, since he gave birth, sorry I mean, he donated part of his genetic material blah blah blah.

But that rules out the possibility at least for me and Liz, the two wannabe sloths of a perfectionist family.

But genetic or not, Joan has this thing about her. She won't tell you about her achievements, unless if she's very sure she's done to her very best.

The scholarship fiasco says it all. Father learnt about it a week after it'd been given to her. Reason? Joan, for her case, says she had to make sure she'd received the proper scholarship.

I know. Very weird.

To which university? No one, except father and Joan of course, knew.

So, yours truly entered yours truly's sister's bedroom with an intention to find out. And well, I didn't really find out where she went.

She may have gone to Cambridge or Harvard or God knows where, but one thing was clear. Joan was really disappointed.

She was seated by her bed when I entered, didn't even bother to look up.

"Is everything okay?" I couched in beside her in her pink nightdress.

"Yeah, I'm fine?" She said, her green eyes unblinking.

"Anyway, Liz is asking if you can take her to the mall. She says you promised her." I said, aiming for the door instantly.

She didn't reply back.

To an outsider, that's plain rude. But of course everyone has their peaks and perks, as one crazy genius once said.