Hi, I'm Joel. Like "Jo-el" and not "Jole". "It's the French way of saying it" is what I usually tell people. Which is true. I'm of Togolese ethnicity. Togo is a francophone country so that explains the pronunciation. But truthfully, I didn't know it could be pronounced any other way until teachers and strangers would say "Jole" and as a child living in a small and confusing world, I would wonder why are they saying my name like that? I soon figured out "Jole" is the English pronunciation and I suppose I am from Ireland so it makes sense people initially say it like that. So most of the time I wouldn't even correct them because in my head, they weren't necessarily wrong. Instead if I spent enough time with the person, they would gradually learn that it's "Jo-el". It was almost like a sign that this person now knows me somewhat. But then I got older and started caring about things. So I would correct people more often, other times it wasn't worth my energy. Then a funny thing happened. If it was someone who had to take my name down for something and I would say "Jo-el" they would spell it "Joelle"! So now not only did I have to expend energy pronouncing my name right, I also had to spell it for some people too! "Jo-el, j,o,e,l". This of course isn't as big as a problem as I make it out to be. In fact, it's not a problem at all. But this is how I think. I spend so much time thinking that anything that derails my thought such as correcting how my name is said, kind of irks me. My mind has to shift priorities for a moment and it feels like a waste.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a nice about me section but I seemed to have went on a train of thought about my first name. My last name is probably more interesting but that could be an article in itself.

I like to design and write to understand.