I start teaching tomorrow at a university in China. As a "Breaking The Ice" adjectival name exercise, I often introduce myself as "Barbara", instead of, or in addition to "Ms. Todish".

Next, I say that because I am so pale, and look almost like a "ghost" (the students usually laugh at this, along with me lol) I always wanted a tan, though I only get sunburned.

Then I say that the adjective I choose that starts with the first letter of my first name, ("B" for "Barbara") that communicates this desire of mine to be tan is "Bronze". Then I say I would like to be known as "Bronze Barbara".

Then the students get time to decide on an adjective to place before their own first name. It's fun for everyone in the class and the students always like this exercise.

However, in China I may have to do something else, because of communication difficultites. So I was thinking about "Identity", writ large, the philosophy of names, what I call "Extra-Idenity". I kind of want to ask big questions, like "What is IDENTITY, anyway?

For instance, why DO we HAVE identity, at all? If we ARE ourselves, why do we need to HAVE extra-identity imposed upon us?

Then I realized, it is almost impossible to BE yoursel! The best we can do is to HAVE our identity super imposed on our reality, in terms of forcing us to "fit" into categorical stereotypical constructs, like race, gender, ethnicity, religion, class, etc., instead of (or maybe, in addition to?) BEING our "IDENTITY".

When and if we are BEING, truly BEING ourselves, we, by the simple act of BEING, THREATEN all CULTURAL constructs, because by BEING OURSELVES we use our IMAGINATION instead of fitting into some CULT-ural stereotypical constructs.

Both Jon Rappoport, an investigative reporter, and Ralph Nader, among a few others, write about using our imagination to risk to live life free from social CULTural limitations. I am grateful for them.

So wish me luck when I try to use an "IMAGINATIVE IDENTITY Ice Breaker" in my introductory lesson.