U – What’s your Username?

Your Username is WHAT?

Lina was having a quiet respite from her class in the faculty lounge when Minna walked in, clearly upset. “Why is it so hard to find a person’s name online? I know her first and last name, shouldn’t that be enough?”

Her solitude broken, Lina asked, “Who are you trying to find and where are you trying to find her?”

The classroom teacher that I’m working with needs to find this woman, who she is planning to have Skype session with. She forgot the person’s username and asked me to figure it out,” was Minna’ reply.

Lina looked confused, “Why is that so hard. You have her name. Can’t you just do a search on her name in Skype contacts?”

Minna pretended to look like that was the answer she was missing. “Oh, of course, that’s what I should have done. I’m sure that will give me the answer right away. Oh, that’s right, I already did that. Can you tell me which one of the names listed is the one I’m looking for? I came up with ‘dragonbreath, ‘pieceofcake’, ‘twizzler’, ‘can’twait’ and ‘neverends’.”

“Wow!” was Lina’s reaction. “That is difficult. Why do people make up such weird usernames?”

“Because they like to be unique,” Minna said, “It gives them a sense of identity. The problem is it is very difficult to find them.”

“That’s true. It also causes a problem when they get tired of that name and they change it to something else to fit whatever they are into. I have a friend who’s email name was MarioKart132 and then he changed it to Zelda3486 and now his new name is MechanicB14.”

“I was told that the person I’m looking for is supposed to come in and do something with yarn,” Minna said thoughtfully.

Lina suggested, “Why don’t you do a search on Skype for something like ‘Yarngirl’ or ‘Yarnlady’ and see what names come up. If you show the results to your teacher, maybe one of those names will spark her memory.”

“I guess I can try that. It’s a shot in the dark, but with any luck, it will work. Otherwise, I’ll just have to say I can’t find the person.”

“Good luck,” Lina said as Minna left. It was quiet again. Lina took a deep breath as her prep time had run out. It was time to go back to her class to teach a math lesson. Today’s topic was “Logical Thinking.”