TANSAN is derived from my real name. T stands for Teresa, AN for Anna, and SAN for Santos. Though it should be ANTSAN because my first name is Anna, my friends in medschool juggled the letters until this name sounds beautifully in their pinnacle. Yes, medschool. That was first year, 1995, and thanks to Chilay anyway.

My friends thought that the name Anna was too ladylike, the name Teresa was too holy, and Petit ( my pen name back in college editorial years) was too cute. They thought TANSAN best fit me, though in tagalog it meant bottlecap, in any other way it is just light, jolly, funny, boyish. In other words, they never thought of me as holy, cute and lady like (well, the way i drove my volkswagen made my classmates believed i'm a boy who underwent sex transplant).

At first it was just a joke. But everytime they started calling me in that name, i gave them a violent reaction, and the more i have a reaction to that name, my classmates (the boys usually), enjoyed naming me repeatedly until we passed 1st year, 2nd yr, and 3rd yr. Worst, the name was carried on to our residents during clerkship days (4th years) and during our internship.

I can't correct them when they call me TANSAN, our residents, our superiors, (Should i tell my boss to call me Dr. Santos?). So the residents passed it to the consultants, now my colleagues. From then on, i already accepted that in the medical field i will be Tansan, so unique that anybody looking for it will find me right away because nobody was named that except me.

I LOVE MY NAME!! THANKS classmates....