r e f i n i n g - t h e - s i l v e r

what is the use of nicknames?
if we all have a name, why cause confusion by creating multiple names for the same person, in most cases which are obscure and meaningless to all but one person? i have come to the unlikely conclusion that it's to create more chaos in our world order, as we were talking about in philosophy on thursday. maybe it's the shortened version of a name. or maybe it's that the more obscure the nickname, the higher your personal status with the person. meaning if you have a more obscure nickname for a certain person than the next person you know this certain person more deeply. think about this one. i think it's true, which is comical and amusing.
for example, i have a friend at school whose name is richard-paul. those who call him richard we write off as mere aqaintances. in our "inner circle" we call him dickie.
i have multiple nicknames, none of which i particularly hate except for "mui" or "shorty". a few others are "seela", "angelle", "cookie", "may", "shla", "sheils" and "shiza". it confuses me as to how i accumulated so many just in the past 2 years. pop quiz: i've gotta learn to answer to them all -.-

you know it's cold out when you breathe and the condensation inside of ur nose starts to freeze.

french kids like knock-knock jokes. listen to this one:

knock-knock.
who's there?
anita.
anita who?
anita bath. can i borrow some soap?

first of all it wasn't my fault. it was in the grade 2 english exercise book i'm teaching this french korean kid from. yeah i'm an english tutor on top of being a librarian. anywayz...that's not the point. first i read it for her (because she can't read yet). then she proceeded in memorizing it. and then assigned roles.
"I say knock-knock first."
"ok, go ahead."
"knock-knock."
"who's there?"
"anita."
"anita who?"
"anita bath. can i borrow some soap?" ha. ha ha. ha.
"now you say knock-knock first."
"knock-knock..."
after the second time i was getting heartily sick of it. we went on for...about five more times. and each time she seemed to get more and more amused. and why didn't i stop this absurdity you ask? i think coz it was better than teaching her about rhyming words. slide, glide, tide, bide, guide...