En Uphen

*glances back at previous essay-sized post* *shakes head slowly*

Rir! Qha phen? Renan eph tar. Tar qha?

You might need a translation. Unless, of course, you have a built in universal translater, which you don't.

An exact translation would be: Hello! You speak? Manwathiel I called. Call you?

Of course, if you don't speak the language you might need to have the exact meaning of the translation told to you...Here tis: Hello! Do you speak the language? My name is Manwathiel. What is your name?

Ok, by now you're probably wondering what on planet Earth (if indeed, I am on planet Earth) I'm talking about... Well, I'm talking about conlangs! Conlang is short for constructed language, which is a language that was constructed. Elvish is a conlang, as is Klingon, and many other languages. Actually, there are many conlangs, quite a few of which are spoken by many people.

So by now you've probably figured out that the words in this post that don't seem to be real words at all are a conlang. Well, yes, they are. More than that, they're my conlang! I love my conlang. This particular language, constructed by me, is called "En Uphen" which, roughly translated, means "The Language". Nice and simple. It's a very simple language. I actually started working on it last summer, but then I stopped for a while. But I started flipping through my notebooks yesterday and I stumbled upon it. So yesterday I moved it all over to a new notebook, fixed up a bit of the little details, and now I'm working on expanding the vocabulary of this language. So far En Uphen only consists of about twenty-four words, but I'm rapidly coming up with more. The alphabet is composed of twenty-five letters, although I haven't actually come up with the real alphabet yet, just its English counterpart.

Well, to sum up the point of this post, if indeed there is a point, conlangs are very fun to make, and I am having a whole lot of fun, even if I'm not a language person. With that said...

Narir, elana-n!
~Renan

"Do Wraith Have Names?" And Other Nonsensical Scribblings of a Wraith-crazy Science-fiction Fan

I am by now utterly convinced that no one reads my blog except my parents. With that in mind, allow me to continue my ramblings and scribblings as if no one reads my blog at all. Today, the discussion will be Wraith, among other things. No, not that kind of Wraith, this kind of Wraith. Stargate Atlantis Wraith, to be precise...

Of course, some of you (if indeed, anyone is reading this blog), probably don't know what a Wraith is. I recommend Wikipedia.

Now, having said that, allow me to continue...

Wraith.

I am a science-fiction fan, as you all should know (if you don't, you know it now.) and recently I have been watching Stargate Atlantis. But I told you that already. Well, it has come to mind that I really do like the Wraith (the baddies of the Pegasus Galaxy). In fact, I rank them up there with the Borg. Ok, so not quite with the Borg. The Borg get their own category. But the Wraith are high up there. Very high up there. Anyway, back to the Wraith. I have been thinking. I like them quite a bit, but not only because I occasionally really like bad guys, but because I have been wondering. Are the Wraith really that bad?

Well, let's look at the core idea of the Wraith. Wraith are life-sucking aliens that need to feed off of humans to survive. They defeated the Ancients, and are treating the Humans like a herd of animals... Well... that's bad. No doubt about it. But is it the Wraiths fault?

Well, is it? Can the Wraith help being who they are? It is this question that makes the Wraith interesting to me. What makes them unique. Can they help what they are? They need to feed off of humans to survive--if they don't, they die an agonizingly painful death. That's bad. Very bad.

Of course, the Wraith have been going about the wrong way of being Wraith. They hold the humans in disdain, feed off of humans with no remorse (we think?), and are, obviously, a bunch of bad critters. But what else could they do? It is my personal opinion that the Wraith should try to come up with something to make it possible for them to eat normal food. After all, as children they eat normal food, and they only start to feed on humans when they reach their teenage years. To quote John Sheppard, "So it's a teenage thing? Pimples, rebellion, life-sucking?"

Well, why not come up with something that makes the whole Wraith-feeding thing just not...happen? Would it be that difficult? But from what we've heard, the Wraith haven't bothered with that at all. Nor have the humans.

Instead, the humans on Atlantis, namely Dr. Beckett, decided to come up with a serum that would take all of the Wraith DNA out of a Wraith, leaving, instead of a Wraith, a human. Well, with several failures, Beckett perfected the serum and tried it out. Great episode. But was what the Atlantis expedetion was doing right? They took a Wraith, and without his permission took from him the very essence of his being. Oh, and did I mention that they not only turned a Wraith into a Human, they also wiped his memory. To quote a certain Wraith (who I will not name at the risk of spoiling things for people), "What I am is not a disease you can cure. And if I remember nothing of what or who I am -- if this consciousness is erased -- what is the difference between that and death?"

He has a point.

So are the good guys really good? And are the bad guys really bad? The lines aren't so clear. Of course, many of the members of the Atlantis expedetion later realized that what they did to the above Wraith was bad--and they paid the price. But that wasn't even the first time they used a Wraith prisoner to experiment on.

The first was Steve.

We must never forget Steve.

Of course, many members of the team, especially Dr. Weir, were not going to allow Steve to be used in an experiment. Sheppard summed up his feelings by saying, "No offence, Doc, but had the Wraith attended the Geneva Convention, they would have tried to feed on everyone there."

He too, has a point.

The Wraith seem to have no morals. But because the enemy has no morals, is it right for us to drop ours?

I think not.

So going back to the Wraith... Are they bad? Well, yes. But no. But yes.

They, as a species, are pretty bad. I mean, look at the millions of people they've killed. But they really had no choice. Or did they? Or did they not? It's all very confusing. Which is really what I like about it. Oh yes, and of course, the Wraith did attack the Ancients when the Ancients were proposing an alliance...Bad.

Well, back to the Wraith... They might be bad, and then again, they might not be bad. You know, people are always saying that Wraith are spooky and creepy and scary and all that stuff. Are they? Well yes. But no. I am saying that a lot, aren't I? As an excuse for the picture of a certain Wraith that I'll probably be putting in this post, allow me to say that I do not find the Wraith to be scary. Creepy, yes. But what's wrong with creepy?

Oh, going back to the Are-Wraith-Bad discussion. Remember Todd! Ok, we have met a good Wraith. Everything said Wraith said would be a very interesting addition to our little monologue here. Allow me to quote Todd, "For Wraith, hunger burns like a fire.Tell me, Sheppard, if you found yourself burning alive, would you settle for just one drop of water ...or would you take more?"

These Wraith do have a point, don't they?

So, good or bad?

Or both?

Maybe both.

Hmm... Wraith are a very interesting species, you know. I've been wondering. Do they have names? Of course, we've had many Wraith that have been given names. First there was Steve, then Bob, then-- *stops talking* I can't spoil it for you, can I? Who knows, you might watch it someday... Well, anyway, Beckett--or Rodney, I fail to remember--once asked a Wraith scientist what his name was. I would quote the Wraith except that the quote would look curiously blank.

He didn't say anything.

There is so much that we don't know about the Wraith... As it is, I simply cannot wait to get season four of Atlantis. I think I might go crazy if I don't get it soon. Ah well, I'll have to settle for re-watching season three and rambling on my never-read blog about the Wraith. Such is the way of life. Maybe I'll write an essay.

So, back to my question, are Wraith really bad? Well, I can't figure it out, so I'll just leave it up to you...

Farewell, my friends, and remember Steve!

Colorful! Colorful! Colorful! This is so not me...

So, I was told recently that I needed to make the BORING text on my blog more COLORFUL and BOUNCY and all that rot. Well, here is my take on that.... COLORFULNESS is WONDERFULNESS when used correctly and used by COLORFUL people. But I'm not that kind of person. I'm not BOUNCY and BUBBLY and BOINGY and COLORFUL. I'm the kind of person who sits in corners reading a UNCOLORFUL book about the DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND or watching tv shows about the HISTORY OF COLOR. So tell me, am I COLORFUL? Am I the kind of person who uses COLORFUL FONT and bright COLORS on my blog posts? You might say that I AM a COLORFUL person. But not that kind of person. Am I? So tell me, is this COLORFUL post COLORFUL enough for YOU? And more importantly, is this post at all like ME?

Boing boing boing--oops, there goes my arm and my dignity

Yep yep. This is the long awaited (or not) post regarding the jumping competetions that took place on Saturday and Sunday. Well...I guess I'll start at the beginning. I was on Gabelou and was third from the first rider. Lots of hecticness (I hereby declare that a word) took place, I didn't have a helmet, I needed a helmet, the course was complicated, yadayadayada. Anyway, Caroline was wonderful and let me use her helmet, I figured out the course, and I started warming up on Gabelou. As I warmed up I realized that something was different about his gait. Miss Soraya came over later and told me that Gabelou would be riding without shoes for...well...the first time in a long time. How comforting. Then Miss Soraya reminded me that Gabelou's canter is terrible... Well... Yeah. So I attempted a few practice jumps, which he cantered through leaving me very uncomfortable, then the competetion started.

The first one up was Rebecca, riding Achador. Achador threw her, but she got back on and finished the course. The second rider was Kristine, she did very well. Then it was my turn. I trotted out to the judges, saluted, said everything I was supposed to say, and started the course. Well...it was a disaster. I went over the first jump at a trot, but Gabelou started to canter. My reins were too loose and I couldn't stop him from cantering over the second jump. Well...Gabelou, jumping, cantering...no. So, to sum it up, it went boing boing boing and then I was sliding off his neck. My first thougt was "Oh great, falling off in a show" then I was on the ground. I jumped up immediately. To have stayed on the ground was too humiliating. I instantly felt that my arm was sprained, but I would be able to ride with it. I got Gabelou, listened to Miss Soraya tell me that it was ok if I didn't complete the course--it was over for the day--and got back on. Miss Soraya told me to trot around the arena once before going over the next jump. I did, then I jumped, he cantered, I tried to bring him to a trot, went over the next two jumps at a canter, and then promptly almost-fell-off. Just lovely. Well...Miss Soraya told me again that I didn't need to finish the course, but I remained my stubborn self and said I was going to finish. I walked around the course once, trying to get my breath back. The head judge asked the audience to give me some encouragement, I could vaguely hear some clapping, and then I trotted around, then went over the next jump. He cantered. I remained in the saddle. I brought him back to a trot and was told by Miss Soraya to trot him around once again before going over the last jump--I was annoyed. I had fallen off in front of who-knows-how-many people and wanted, more than anything else, to get off and cry. But I was going to finish the course. Finally, Miss Soraya let me go over the last jump, the crowd cheered, and I rode back into the training arena. Once out of the view of the others, I started to cry. I hate it when I cry. I don't cry a lot, but when I do I can't stop. Embarrassing. Humiliating. Gah. Well, I got off, gave the reins to Caroline (who I vaguely remember was being very nice and comforting), gave Caroline her helmet, humiliated myself more by crying in front of the very sweet Caroline, and walked off to the edge of the arena where I sat down and cried some more. Rebecca and Emma came over to me and asked if I was ok. I was like...umm...no? But they were sweet. And my arm killed. Oh well... All the other riders came over and asked if I was ok, then mom came over and brought me water. I complained about my sprained arm, tried to stop crying, and eventually wandered over to watch the other riders. My wrist started to hurt even more. Anyway... the rest of the day went by well, Maddie was first (yay!), Emma was second (yay!), and Kristine was third (yay!). My arm still hurt. And I was embarassed. I had fallen off in front of soooo many people.... Oh well. Later that night my arm started to stiffen up and hurt even more until finally we went to get an x-ray. Now, let us take a little break from the story and examine all the x-rays I have ever had in my entire life. What did they tell us?

X-ray #1: I am missing two adult teeth

X-ray #2: I do, indeed, have a brain

X-ray #3: When you stick your hand in a ceiling fan, it doesn't break

X-ray #4: I am missing two adult teeth. But we knew that already

X-ray #5: I have never yet broken a bone

And those are all the x-rays I have ever had. Yayness. But anyway, my arm wasn't broken, that was good. Well...the next day, Sunday, I finally accepted the fact that I couldn't ride with my arm all stiff (I couldn't bend it at the elbow) and it hurting, so I went and cheered on my friends. I would have been riding Radical, but oh well... Everyone did wonderfully. Hannah won, Maddie was second, and Kristine was third. For the overall championship, Hannah came first, Maddie was second, and Emma third. Yay for everyone!! Except me. Oh well, so I wallowed in a pool of self-pity, took pictures, and was greatly comforted by my wonderful teacher, Miss Soraya, giving me a bag of French mints. Yep, that was Sunday.

So thus ends what could be my last jumping competetion in Cambodia. What did I win? Nothing. What did I lose? My arm (which still won't move) and my dignity. Alas. Well, enough of the self pity-ness. I got some *great* pics!!!

Ok, ttfn, I must be going... Let's hope that my arm actually moves by tomorrow (ok, so it'll move more than it did).... So... yeah. Wow, that was a very...um...whiney[?] post... Ah well, I need to sniffle to somebody, even if it is my never-read blog.

Oh oh oh!! Did I mention that Dad got me falling off on film? Mwahahahaha!! Er, yeah... Oh, and guess what is very good? Even if my arm won't move, my fingers will, so my life is saved. I can type!!!

At Long Last!!

Yes, my friends, I finally jumped on Gabelou without anything dire and disastrous happening!!! Whoohoo!! Of course, I couldn't keep him in a trot and I ended up making the largest circle in the history of circles instead of a medium sized one like I was supposed to... But.... It went well =). The lesson was good, 'cept Hannah fell off... But all in all, a good lesson. Except that Achador decided to completely soak me when I was giving him a shower (Rebecca had to leave early), so I ended up covered in water and with green gunk all over my jodhpurs. Oh joy.

Ok, just a short little update to tell you all that I'm still here and that I finally jumped on Gabelou... Oh yes, jumping competetion this Sat and Sun... Keep an eye out for updates!

Guillermo Del Toro?????

Ok. So it's official. Or something like that (it might just be some rumor that I'm taking way too seriously). Guillermo Del Toro is directing The Hobbit and its sequel. Hm. Panic can now break out. Why should panic break out? Because I know NOTHING about Del Toro!!!!! Eep... People say he's great. But how would I know? *deep breath* Ok...he should be good. Oh no. It's going to be awful.

Alright, look at it this way, no matter how good Del Toro is, I will be unhappy. Why? Because I love The Hobbit. When LoTR came out I was in the middle of reading the books. As I read the books I saw pictures of the characters in the movies (although I didn't see the movies themselves until much later), so I kind of took it for granted that they looked that way. But I have read The Hobbit many times and have very opinionated ideas of what the characters and locations are supposed to look like... And what the plot should be like. If they alter even a single piece of plot sequence I'll--I'll--umm....something. Something drastic. Like. Like...umm...dunno. I'll figure that out later. But as I was saying, if they mess up the plot in order to make it "better" (like they did with LoTR) I'll get mad. Most fans will.

And then we have the casting...Ian Holm must play Bilbo. Ian McKellen must play Gandalf. Orlando Bloom must show up *somewhere* in Mirkwood as Legolas. After all, he is the prince. He doesn't need a huge part (small would be better *cough*), but he needs to be there. John Rhys-Davies would make a wonderful Gloin...but somehow I don't think that actor wants to return. As for Thranduil. They have to get him right. If they don't... *decides to leave threats unspoken* As for the many other characters, they must get them right. The goblins must look like the goblins in LoTR, Andy Serkis has to return for Gollum (pretty please!!!), and the Dwarves must look like Dwarves. Hugo Weaving must play Elrond, the Elves of Mirkwood must be like Elves of Mirkwood--they're Wood-elves, not High-elves! They must be fun, cheerful, they have to sing and laugh and be graceful... But if they end up all solemn... *shiver* As a rule, the Elves of Mirkwood should have dark hair with only a few Elves (such as Thranduil and Legolas) with light hair. Mirkwood must be dark and scary, worse than Fangorn if possible. Beorn must be tall, broad, and bearlike. The ponies must look like ponies. The Shire must look like the Shire. Rivendell must look like Rivendell. The Hall of the Elvenking must be a beautiful twisting and winding cavern--but brightly lit up and decorated with silver, gold, gems, and candle-light, but still with a certain roughness to it. Oh yes, and the Wood-elves must wear headdresses of leaves (both real and cast in silver). Oh yes, we come to a very important character: Smaug. Smaug must be perfect. Of course, the special effects will be good, there's no doubt about that, but whoever does his voice must do it well. It needs to be deep and gravelly, but smooth enough to sound somewhat...snakelike. And Smaug needs to be big. Really big.

Yep, places and people must be done correctly. *sigh* Maybe I should send New Line another letter.... Heh. Like that would help.

Oh well, I'm off. And yes, I know, I didn't talk about the sequel. I'll rant about that later. I wonder when they're going to start casting The Hobbit...hmm... *wanders off mumbling about Smaug*

Comments

Ok people, I love comments. Please feel free to comment on my posts. I'd like to mention that I changed the comment-system-thingy so you can now comment on my posts regardless of whether or not you have a blogger account....

Of course, keep the comments polite and all that. Usual comment rules apply--but if you're reading my blog in the first place you can probably be trusted to keep the comments nice =P. I trust ya. (besides, I can edit things out!)

~Manwathiel

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Books, Competetions, Elf-dress, and the Snake

Hello my dearest readers, I've been away for a while... Busy busy busy and all that--they tell me it's called highschool. Well, you need a re-cap of my life of late, so...let's begin with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Most of you know that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a book in the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, well, Logos International School put on a play of it, and I went. I was very surprised with how well done it was. Those of you who have read the book already know that it involves a ship, dragons, people getting sucked into a painting, and Aslan, the lion. How on earth did a school's drama club put on such a production? Well, it was extremely creative. For the painting they used shadow puppets! It was really great and looked really good. The ship had all sorts of cool stage equipment, the costumes were amazing, the dragon looked great (it was partially made out of cardboard with a person inside), and Aslan was mostly done by a shadow puppet and partially done by a guy in a costume. The Aslan mask was awesome. I don't have time to tell you everything I would like to...but the play was great, the acting was great, Bethany, a friend of mine, played Caspian, and I really enjoyed it. Here are a few pics, although they're kind of hard to see since I couldn't use the flash on my camera. In summary: the play was great!

Onto the books, for school we were reading Betsy and the Emperor a historical fiction novel based on Betsy Balcombe (a real person) and Napoleon Bonaparte. It was really good. So good, in fact, that I read it all in one day. It was supposed to take me a week. Heh... And I won't tell you that it was short either, cause it wasn't. Then I went book-shopping with Mom and ended up with four wonderful books to read. I got Dragondrums by Anne McCaffrey, the third book in a series I'd started (I have the first two), In the Hall of the Dragonking by Stephen R. Lawhead--new series, yay! And I also got Tolkien: A Biography by Something Something...er, White? Well, I can't remember, but I read it already and it was very good. Then, last but not least, my mom surprised me by buying Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Kristine rather comadeered the book, so I'll read it after her. If she ever finishes it.

Ok, competetions....Horseback jumping competetions, of course. We had the first competetion in a series of three. When I got there I was shocked to learn that I was riding Unique. Hm. Well, this might not sound terrible, except for the fact that Unique is a pony and I no longer ride ponies. He is waayyy too small for me... Oh yes, and should I mention that I hadn't ridden Unique in an entire year?? Well. I was mad. I later found out that Miss Soraya had good reasons for putting me on him, but it still wasn't exactly motivating. Everything went pretty well, I was shocked when the announcer actually pronounced my last name right (this must be a first!) and I ended up with fifth place. Out of seven. Blah. Fifth isn't exactly my idea of doing well, but considering that I had barely jumped since last February and that I was riding a pony that I hadn't ridden in a year.... Well, I guess I did ok. I can beat everyone else next week. Hehe... Oh yes, Hannah, my wonderful friend, got first! I was very happy for her. Emma got second and Caroline got third. Well, I wasn't happy for myself, but hooray for Hannah!

Ok, onto the Elf-dress. I finally have pictures!!! Here they are, I'm afraid that I couldn't put up pics of me in the dress because of ye olde rule about putting pics of self on ye internet. Anyway.... Here they are! There are closeups of the sleeves... I love the sleeves =).

Ok, now onto the snake. Yes, the snake. Well....it was a dark and stormy night--er, alright, so it was a little before lunch time, the sun was shining brightly, and Snowy, my rabbit, was playing outside in the yard. Just as I was about to figure out just why that particular math problem with those particular imaginary numbers was causing me so much trouble, Kristine came upstairs and screamed in my ear, "There's a stink in Snowy's cage!!!" I stared at her, thinking how dare she say my rabbit's cage smells bad? when I realized that she wasn't saying stink she was saying snake. My eyes widened and I screamed, "A snake???" I jumped up, math problems forgotten, and ran downstairs and outside. Sopi, our helper, was standing at the door staring at Snowy's cage. The door was wide open and in the cage was a snake. Not a little snake. A big snake. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was over a meter long. Caleb ran up and closed the door of the cage, trapping the snake inside. It curled up and raised it's head up, hissing angrily at us. Then it started to try to get out of the cage, it could stick it's head out of the cage for up to about five inches before it got stuck and had to go back in. It was disgusting and scary. So I did the most logical thing and called Dad (did I mention that it was just us kids and Sopi at home?), well, dad was in a meeting and his phone was off, so I called Mom who was on the other side of town at Lucky Supermarket. Both of my parents hate snakes, by the way, I think I might have inherited that dislike of snakes. Well, I hate snakes when I don't know anything about them. Was this snake poisonous? Could it hurt the rabbits? Would it hurt us? I didn't know. Well, mom called our neighbors who live behind us and Mark came over to look at the snake.... He didn't know what it was and our internet search proved fruitless. Whem mom got home (she really hated that snake), Mark decided that he had to get it out of the rabbit cage and into a basket-box-type thing. He used the end of a hangar and grabbed the snake, pulling it out of the cage and into the basket-thing. Needless to say, it took a few tries. Well, we weren't sure what to do with the snake, so Mark took it home on the back of his motorcycle. Heh. An interesting Cambodian experience, eh? I must confess that I am rather afraid that there might be others in our backyard... But anyway, that is the tale of the snake. I have a pic too, but it's not that great....But hey, it's a pic.

And that, my friends, is the tale of the past week. Oh, did I mention the mounds of schoolwork? Oh yes, and for my Eng class I have a publishing project. It made me laugh. I like to publish stuff, in fact, I do it every month. Heh... Ok, I'm going now.