Introducing Peter

Quick meal with my
  visiting sister last week

My identity in person 

When you meet my in class, I think I might look a bit formal and perhaps boring. I always dress exactly the same way, in a white shirt, grey pants and black shoes. But it isn't too formal: my shirt is not tucked into my pants these days, and I never wear a tie unless it's required, which is rare. When I'm outside of class, the informality is more noticeable. Although I like dressing up for a meal sometimes, I usually wear just wear shorts and comfortable shirts, but never T-shirts. I haven't owned a T-shirt for many decades now. If I had to sum up my identity in person, I'd say I'm informal but like things done in a certain way.

Note: I just downloaded the image from my FB page. My sister was visiting with her boyfriend over New Year.

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My identity online 

I think my identity online fits with my identity in person, but might seem  a bit more complicated, which I think is normal. Most people have more than one online identity. My identity on places like Facebook is pretty standard, although with only 25, I have less friends on FB than anyone else I know, but I do know all 25 in real life; they are my actual friends or relatives, mainly Thai friends these days. Like most people, I want to look good on FB, but I post things that do reflect my interests. That means pictures of food, especially meals with friends, but also the books I read, the silly movies and shows I watch on NetFlix, and so on. At the moment, I'm watching The Big Bang Theory again, so I posted about that on FB. And of course pictures of meals with my sister and her boyfriend when they were visiting over New Year. 

My Felix Qui avatar does include
an ancient image of me in addition
to Felix the Cat

I also have a couple of online identities under screen names that are not the name on my Australian passport or my contract with AUA. The online name I've used the longest is Felix Qui. I like this because it reflects my academic interests and important aspects of my outlook on life. I've used this name for many years now. It originally comes from a line in the Roman poet Vergil's Georgica, which I read decades ago at university.  The line is: "felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causes," and Vergil is writing of the earlier poet and philosopher Lucretius, whose long philosophy poem De Rerum Natura has been one of my favourites since I read it when I was 18. Lucretius did much to introduce to Rome the ideas and ways of logical thinking begun by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and developed them with his own carefully worked out ideas in a brilliant piece of poetry. I like all of that, so Vergils neat summing up of Lucretius appealed to me as a screen name. And when I was a child, Felix the Cat was one of my favourite cartoons on TV. 

Note: I spent about 15 minutes writing the three paragraphs in the two sections above as I enjoyed my morning coffee before class today. You won't have time to finish yours in class, but can complete them after our class today. And I still have to write my third section below. 
 

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My ascribed identity

It was useful to read the article "Social Identity" on page 11 before I wrote this section of my introduction. In fact, I read it a couple of times and then decided to tell you about one aspect of my identity, my ascribed identity. 

Some of my ascribed 
identity information is
on my passport. 
(Do not post a full
copy of your passport!)

Most of this is on my passport, which tells you not only my age, which is definitely ascribed because it's a direct result of my date of birth, and that something I neither chose nor achieved. Although Western people don't normally talk about their age in this sort of context, I'm old enough that it doesn't worry me, and you might already have made a good guess from what you saw of my identity in person in our class on Saturday: I'm in my late fifties, which is accurate enough. Although some people believe that your date of birth influences your future, I don't generally believe that, with a couple of exceptions, but my birthday is also an ascribed identity trait. Similarly, my place of birth and nationality are not things I either achieved or chose; that I am Australian, born in the small town of Lismore in the state of New South Wales are more ascribed elements of my identity that are recorded on my Australian passport. 

Although my passport does not tell you, you probably also guessed that English is my native language, but as the reading "Social Identity" notes, while English is my ascribed native language, I have also worked to improve the way I use the English language by studying, so there is also an achieved element in this identity trait that makes me the person I am today. Also not on my passport is my family status: I am single, an older brother to three brothers and four sisters, an uncle to a lot of nephews and nieces, and of course a son to my parents.