One of the first people that I met at UNM and ended up become incredibly good friends with is a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan. Every time I would go to her house we would, somehow, always end up talking about Lord of the Rings and I would always be so lost. Once, we even watched Return of the King casually over a family dinner. She has a replica Sting sword hanging on her wall, she has a replica Ring, which she boasts is from Italy and made out of real gold, and they receive catalogs every month in the mail for new Lord of the Rings merchandise. Since taking this class, I have learned so much about Tolkien and Lord of the Rings and I can confidently have a conversation with her about Middle-earth and the stories plots. When she talks about the history and creation of Middle-earth, I actually understand what she is talking about (not completely, but largely!) and now she insists that we go to the St. James Tea Room for their Lord of the Rings themed teatime. This class has made a real difference in my life and learning about Tolkien and his works have helped to grow my friendships outside of the classroom.
-Melian
2 comments:
Melian,
I relate to your story quite a lot! One of my good friends loves Lord of the Rings and had been bugging me for years to get into it. Even after I read the series for the first time, I wasn't very confident in talking about it and I constantly felt like I misinterpreted everything I read. Being in this class and understanding everyone else's version has really helped me understand how and why I see things the way I do when I read.
I didn't know there was a Lord of the Rings theme at St. James Tea Room though, and I will definitely need to go check that out!
Uinen
Melian,
Thanks for sharing! I also feel like this class has opened up some new doors for me and my brother, who is a huge LOTR nerd, as well as for a friend of Mine who I met within the past couple of years--she's just a book worm.
When I was little, I remember my brother reading so many of Tolkien's books and watching the movies with him. He would have his friends over and they would talk about what they liked about the movies and what they didn't like about the movies. My brother seemed to always be the ring-leader and got a lot of his information from the Silmarillion, although I didn't really know what that was until a year or two ago. Anyway, after taking this class I could talk to him about something that he really loved, and for the first time I felt like I could relate to and just hang out with my older brother. I couldn't get into Pokemon, so we needed something to bond over.
With my new friend, we both kind of decided to read the books at the same time and we loved the experience. As the book worm type, we really enjoyed learning far more about Tolkien than we had known before and we appreciated his work so much more after completing LOTR. I never imagined there could be so much to his myth, but this class has done a great job of overwhelming me with Tolkien's brilliance.
Yavanna
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