Bag End, Tolkien and me
Jan. 10th, 2004 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckWhen I went to grad school in Ann Arbor, I lived in the North Campus Co-ops, O'Keeffe House. The Husband lived in the other half, Renaissance House. You can see O'Keeffe House here. (I believe that is Bag End just visible at the end of the hedge, behind the hill.)
The Houses were divided into 9 suites.
I lived in Bag End.
At the time, it really, really irritated me.
When I was a kid, I read *lots* of fantasy, indiscriminately. My favorite book was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.
I loved that book. It has a color centerplate that my parents photographed for me and enlarged to poster size for my 11th (?) birthday. It hung over my bed for years.
Then, in 7th or 8th grade, I picked up Fellowship. I wasn't dumb. I knew what Fellowship was. The "first" fantasy book. The one that started it all. So I also *knew,* right then, what Terry Brooks had done. Complete and utter plagarization. I think I gave up on Fellowship at the Watcher in the Water. I just couldn't read it anymore. It ruined my favorite book for me. I did eventually watch the animated "Return of the King" once while babysitting, so I learned the basic story, but I never read all three books.
(I had no interest in seeing the movies until the teasers started showing on TV. Thought Aragorn and Frodo looked cute and the movie looked pretty and like it would have good special effects. Still, The Husband and I were going to the theater on New Year's Eve 2001 and I really, really wanted to see Harry Potter, but he had already seen both and insisted that he wanted to see FOTR again, and I finally gave in because he was so desperate. Went home after, picked up the books and read them three times by the end of April 2002.)
Anyway, back to my life in Bag End - so I wrinkled my nose when I moved into Bag End. They had the first paragraph from The Hobbit posted by the mailboxes - "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..." I rolled my eyes.
Later, as I was getting started at UM, I had to pick a computer "UniqName." I thought it was some kind of password and supposed to be secret and hard to guess, so I picked a word I wouldn't forget, the name of the place I lived, "Bagend." You can imagine my complete disgust when my e-mail address became bagend@umich.edu! (I would kill for that e-mail address now. You can currently reach me at bagend1993@yahoo.com!) When I mentored undergraduates in my second year of grad school, people were always e-mailing me, "Are you a hobbit?" and calling me Bilbo, and I wanted to reach out electronically and strangle a bunch of geeks... *snortle*
So, that's me and Bag End. I managed to move out without a good picture of the front door, which was paited all hobbity. I just didn't care.
I loved the co-op. It was about 50% international students and 70% grad students, with a handful of non-students thrown in. There were 90 residents in O'Keeffe my first year and 80 in Renaissance. It was built with a $1 mil HUD grant in 1970. The 9 suites were each two stories with 8 rooms and 2 bathrooms on each level, a kitchen on the first floor and a common room with TV on the second floor. There was a large shared daylight basement with two large kitchens and dining rooms run by a professional chef (that was me, theh summer between my years in grad school) where we all ate, a couple of music practice rooms, a laundry room, a room with a pool table, and a couple of other common areas. I loved the people in my suite and house while I was there and I became Work Manager my second semester so was very active in House government. I stayed over the summer to run the kitchen after the first chef died and before the new chef was hired.
While I never miss Ann Arbor, I often miss the coop. Made great friends there, met The Husband there, and loved that lifestyle.
I'm trying to get an old friend in AA to send me a picture of the door.
The Houses were divided into 9 suites.
I lived in Bag End.
At the time, it really, really irritated me.
When I was a kid, I read *lots* of fantasy, indiscriminately. My favorite book was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.
I loved that book. It has a color centerplate that my parents photographed for me and enlarged to poster size for my 11th (?) birthday. It hung over my bed for years.
Then, in 7th or 8th grade, I picked up Fellowship. I wasn't dumb. I knew what Fellowship was. The "first" fantasy book. The one that started it all. So I also *knew,* right then, what Terry Brooks had done. Complete and utter plagarization. I think I gave up on Fellowship at the Watcher in the Water. I just couldn't read it anymore. It ruined my favorite book for me. I did eventually watch the animated "Return of the King" once while babysitting, so I learned the basic story, but I never read all three books.
(I had no interest in seeing the movies until the teasers started showing on TV. Thought Aragorn and Frodo looked cute and the movie looked pretty and like it would have good special effects. Still, The Husband and I were going to the theater on New Year's Eve 2001 and I really, really wanted to see Harry Potter, but he had already seen both and insisted that he wanted to see FOTR again, and I finally gave in because he was so desperate. Went home after, picked up the books and read them three times by the end of April 2002.)
Anyway, back to my life in Bag End - so I wrinkled my nose when I moved into Bag End. They had the first paragraph from The Hobbit posted by the mailboxes - "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..." I rolled my eyes.
Later, as I was getting started at UM, I had to pick a computer "UniqName." I thought it was some kind of password and supposed to be secret and hard to guess, so I picked a word I wouldn't forget, the name of the place I lived, "Bagend." You can imagine my complete disgust when my e-mail address became bagend@umich.edu! (I would kill for that e-mail address now. You can currently reach me at bagend1993@yahoo.com!) When I mentored undergraduates in my second year of grad school, people were always e-mailing me, "Are you a hobbit?" and calling me Bilbo, and I wanted to reach out electronically and strangle a bunch of geeks... *snortle*
So, that's me and Bag End. I managed to move out without a good picture of the front door, which was paited all hobbity. I just didn't care.
I loved the co-op. It was about 50% international students and 70% grad students, with a handful of non-students thrown in. There were 90 residents in O'Keeffe my first year and 80 in Renaissance. It was built with a $1 mil HUD grant in 1970. The 9 suites were each two stories with 8 rooms and 2 bathrooms on each level, a kitchen on the first floor and a common room with TV on the second floor. There was a large shared daylight basement with two large kitchens and dining rooms run by a professional chef (that was me, theh summer between my years in grad school) where we all ate, a couple of music practice rooms, a laundry room, a room with a pool table, and a couple of other common areas. I loved the people in my suite and house while I was there and I became Work Manager my second semester so was very active in House government. I stayed over the summer to run the kitchen after the first chef died and before the new chef was hired.
While I never miss Ann Arbor, I often miss the coop. Made great friends there, met The Husband there, and loved that lifestyle.
I'm trying to get an old friend in AA to send me a picture of the door.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 04:04 pm (UTC)And I think it's so funny how much you hated it back then, but now ...! I take it the door wasn't round though?
Never got round to reading any Terry Brooks, but am astounded by the amount of fantasy out there that takes ideas directly from Tolkien. Even Babylon 5. The guy who created it said any similarity with Tolkien was coincidental, but his Z'ha'dum, where the Shadows originated from is too like Khazad-dum where the creature of shadow and flame originated from. Then there are the Rangers, and Sheridan coming back from the dead, but only for a limited time before he must leave the universe with the last of the first ones. Gahh!!
Okay, that was a really geeky rant!
Back to Bagend ...
I'd love to see the pic of it, if you can get a copy.
And now you are one of those geeks!! *giggles*
I never got to go to university myself, and would have loved to. My parents moved twice in what was my first year of A-levels (started out as English Lit, Ancient History, American History, Sociology and Economics), but the other schools I went to didn't do exactly the same syllabi, and I just never caught up. Still have a passion for all of them but Economics, which I hated then, too.
I was a little pissed off with my folks for a while, but have come to realise that I probably would have ended up somewhere quite different if I had gone.
And I didn't know you worked as a chef!! Sounds like you had a great time!
Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 05:10 pm (UTC)No, the door was not round. And the suite was two levels and a basement. So only hobbity in spirit.
Way to mess up your A-levels! I'm sure you've thanked your folks many times! Well, for what you do, a university education is only of limited use, anyway. My parents both got in on computers before you could even get a degree in computer anything. They have both done a considerable amount of hiring in the world of corporate computing, and both agree that a degree means very little. Dad in particular has spent years training new hirees.
The summer I spent at the coop was a blast. But running a kitchen is stressful, and the experience convinced me that I really did not want to work in the restaurant business, no matter where my talents might lie. A bakery, now, or a little cafe. I could do that... ;)
Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 05:10 pm (UTC)No, the door was not round. And the suite was two levels and a basement. So only hobbity in spirit.
Way to mess up your A-levels! I'm sure you've thanked your folks many times! Well, for what you do, a university education is only of limited use, anyway. My parents both got in on computers before you could even get a degree in computer anything. They have both done a considerable amount of hiring in the world of corporate computing, and both agree that a degree means very little. Dad in particular has spent years training new hirees.
The summer I spent at the coop was a blast. But running a kitchen is stressful, and the experience convinced me that I really did not want to work in the restaurant business, no matter where my talents might lie. A bakery, now, or a little cafe. I could do that... ;)
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 05:40 pm (UTC)Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 05:43 pm (UTC)What the heck are you still doing up? Go to bed!
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 05:48 pm (UTC)SM is away on Skye tonight - running a course there tomorrow, so I was doing my usual staying up until I fall asleep sitting up thing that I find myself doing when he is away.
Was just going to finish chapter 3 of Prophecy, Destiny and Design and go to bed when I checked my mail, so here I am!!
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 05:57 pm (UTC)Away on Skye?
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 06:03 pm (UTC)Isle of Skye. He is running a course for Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the gaelic college. Not in gaelic, though (he would need a translator.
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 06:29 pm (UTC)Cool. A translator for a course on computer what? There's a thought. You speak much gaelic?
Here's to laugh. I got some music recently and wanted to know how to pronounce the titles.
So I got a teach yourself gaelic book from the library (no tapes).
I was doing OK with the consonants, but got to the vowels:
(Eh. Can't do the diacritical marks in html.) But there's an a like in cat and an a like in rather. Of course, in American English, saying "rahther" makes you sound like you're faking a stupid English accent, but I could get that. But then I came to "i, as in both tin and sweep." There is no way to pronouce tin like sweep, on this side of the pond. It was at this point that I glanced up and saw that examples were, of course, given in Scottish English. Teen? Swip? I'm guesing the long e in tin. "O, as in both top and boat." *snortle* Long o in top (tope)? or short o in boat (bot)? Don't even have a clue on that one. I took great glee in sharing it around with my folks! *snortle*
Heh. I should scan it and post it. Maybe you know someone who could help me?!
LOL.
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 06:41 pm (UTC)Had a good giggle at the gaelic pronunciation (there isn't an i in sweep!!!). Dont' know much at all, but our Dutch friend is quite fluent, so if you can scan it, send it to uisgich@yahoo.com, and I'll get him to have a look :)
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 06:49 pm (UTC)I'll get him to have a look
Nah. I've given up on gaelic without tapes or a real teacher. The slender and broad consonant thing nearly caused my head to explode! That will take more attention than I am really willing to give it, just so I can pronounce the names on my Best of Green Linnet...
I'm on AIM because I have an account with AOL. Yahoo has an instant message product that I understand works pretty well, and we're both on Yahoo already. But then, the idle chatter wouldn't be recorded in the LJ for posterity...
I'm now taking on a morbid fascination with how long we can keep you awake tonight.
The cat is sleeping sitting up on the modem.
Re: Bag End, Terry Brooks, and being a geek
Date: 2004-01-12 07:21 pm (UTC)Stupid yahoo. Will convert to .jpg post.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 07:56 am (UTC)Easy mistake to make at almost 3 in the morning!!!
On it's way
Date: 2004-01-13 08:00 am (UTC)You're on unusually early today! ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:06 am (UTC)The problem is, I've been on all day. So tired after last night, and on my own today = very little incentive to work. P is here for the next three days though, so after this evening, I doubt I'll be able to do much more than check my mail until Friday night. Wahh :(
Check out the other place, when you have a moment ;)