Killer strikes again.

My last name is Keeler. That's K-E-E-L-E-R. It's pronounced keeeee-ler. Kee, like a car key. No, I am not related to Helen Keller. One would think that this would be obvious given the spelling difference, but you'd be surprised how many times I've been asked.

Speakers of a certain Southern African-American dialect (the sort that usually metathesize ask into aks) inevitably pronounce my last name as Killer. I've always found this odd, although it's never really bothered me. (Well okay, it bothered me once. In 7th grade I had an English teacher, Mrs. Williams. Not only did she frequently say "If you have any questions, please aks" but she called me Jane Killer every day when she called roll. Every day I corrected her, but she never got it right.)

Flash forward into my Russia-travels. Килер is the Cyrillic transliteration of Keeler. It is pronounced just like Keeler, but with a Russian accent. Imagine any stereotypical cold war movie villain saying my last name and you've got it. Congratulations: you now know a word in Russian. You see, Килер is a cognate meaning (you guessed it) killer, or hit-man. This was actually fun to use in class in Russia, as I could remind my students that they'd better behave as I was, after all, Jane Килер.

Today I went to the bank downstairs from my school in order to set up a bank account. My banker is a very nice man, who speaks English quite well, on account of having studied English for a year at Indiana University Bloomington. He and I talked for a while as he set up my bank account (using the correct information located on both my passport and resident alien card) so that I could collect my first paycheck. (Woohoo!) He gave me his card and said that whenever I had any banking business, I should come straight to him instead of waiting in line. Cool! He also told me that I looked like a Russian woman. I took this as a compliment, although Gwen says that in this country it's not a compliment at all. (Okay, so the bulk of the Russian women in South Korea are hookers... Is he saying I look like a hooker? Well, as I think Russian women are the most beautiful in the world, I'm going to take it as a compliment!) Anyhow, I got back upstairs, and pulled out my newly created bank-book. Just take a look at what I found:

Sigh.