When making one of my anxiously awaited public appearances, I’ve become accustomed to responding to a variety of different names. There’s the everyday “my favorite person ever”; the occasional “incredibly gorgeous”; and for those who don’t know me, “the girl with the sick flow.” However, these past few months another name has emerged above the rest: “Whale.”

How did this obnoxious pseudonym come to exist (for clearly it has nothing to do with my nearly flawless appearance)? No, it has everything to do with the abnormally slow growing abilities of my so-called friends. As hard as they might try, they just do not seem to be able to reach my height of 5’ 8,” and I, having never made one short joke in my life, feel that I am the undeserving victim of this nickname.

For all those unaware, whales aren’t even tall. Maybe if they called me giraffe I would understand, yet the utter inaccuracy of this name discredits my spectacular beauty.

I do not appreciate the snide remarks such as, “Can whales even hold pencils?” or “What Would Whale Do?” These are not funny. And when a certain “friend” replaced my entry on google docs to “Blowhole Infection;” it was far from humorous.

The injustice of this crime is thoughtlessly ignored. I am appalled by the lack of awareness of the situation by BSM faculty and staff. While students are punished for tardies and late assignments, teachers seem incapable of recognizing the dehumanization around them. They turn a blind eye as students are nicknamed whales and other corpulent creatures of the deep.

To all of my friends, you have heartlessly degraded who I am as a person, and if I am a whale, then you are no more than the lowliest mud-sucking bottom feeder. You can only hope that if you continue your ways as rude discourteous human beings who relish in the faults of others, that the day will never come in which someone finds a fault in you.

Mark Twain once said, “A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn’t make fun of another man’s cross-eyed aunt.” I think that about says it all.