Treebeard, astrology, elections, high school horrors

[Tabouli]

Pippin:
> Dad thought LOTR was just silly, except for Tom Bombadil and 
Treebeard. 

Ahaa!  Ahaa!  See?  Even those who don't like Tolkien can appreciate the true glory of Tom Bombadil!  Treebeard is great too.  Excellent name.  If I had a male Irish wolfhound, I'd call him Treebeard (big, grey, shaggy...)

Another angle on the ol' age debate... astrology!  For those acquainted with the ol' sun sign profile thing, it really does look like JKR had her zodiac firmly in mind when she made Hermione is a Virgo, Harry a Leo, and Ron an Aries.  How appropriate can you get? (though Harry less so than the others - he's more on centre stage by default rather than choice.  Er... any thoughts from the astrologers out there?  Or is this (gasp!) On-Topic?)

storm:
> I've always been a bit err, quite obsessive. Some remains
enduring obsessions (P and P, Dorthy L Sayers, dogs and dog
behaivour) others have left me (cow breeding, Daryl Sommers
<phew!>)<

Like all passionate souls, I am obsessive to the point of, well, obsession.  When I get into something I *really* get into it.  I build my whole life around it.  I cast aside food, sleep, socialising, *everything* in its pursuit.  It's all very alarming for witnesses (and periodically very boring for them, as few people's level of interest in anything can be sustained to the level of my obsessions).  That's why I have to join mailing lists like this...

And dogs are great.  I have long had this romantic vision of myself in bathers tripping along a deserted sunny shore, adorable puppy jumping lovingly at my hand.  Of course, by the time I can actually afford to live somewhere with a garden big enough to house a dog, if this ever happens, I'll probably be not so much tripping as hobbling along on my walking frame.  O well.

storm:
> storm, depressed about the election result (It's Australian
policitcs Magical Mod Squad, no one really cares!)<

(ooohhoooo, isn't it frightful.  I mean, what are Australians thinking?  *Another* three years of John Howard?  Makes you weep)

Australia has compulsory voting for all citizens over 18, which is interesting.  Being particularly ignorant of politics I dare not speculate on this at length, but what are more learned people's musings?  As for the voting process, yesterday was mundane compared to the previous Federal election, where I had to do a postal vote from the Cape Town Australian embassy!  The place was full of whingeing Australian men smelling of beer and droning on about the AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final and how much they were dying to leave South Africa and go home.  Given that I was having a great time in South Africa and had no desire to go back to Australia, I wasn't sure what to say to my merry countrymen at the time...

Cindy:
> I think I know what is going on here.  You folks weren't sufficiently 
geeky and homely in high school, that's the problem.  Consequently, 
your classmates had every reason to expect great things, so you worry 
that you might not measure up.<


I wish!  I wasn't homely in high school (quite cute even, though I didn't appreciate this at the time, as I was crippled with extreme self-consciousness, bad dress sense and a bizarre conviction that my dainty, albeit short-legged, frame was fat), but I was geeky and uncool beyond the dreams of Hollywood makeovers.  Daggy, to use the Australian term.  At the time, I also fondly imagined and promoted myself as being street wise, worldly and all-knowing, when I was in fact a naive sheltered Good Girl.  I hung out with the studious girls with glasses who all ended up doing Medicine.  Compared with them, I probably did look marginally more worldly and rebellious (I did Arts!), but the genuinely Cool types thought I was a joke!

> > Amy
> who's too uncool to have anything but a Muggle name

Ahhh, but you have the coveted Z factor!

Tabouli.


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