What do you assign to Mordor?

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

I assign public schools. I hate them, hate them, HATE THEM!! Where is my wonderful open-optional, student-led, RESPONSIBLE education when I need it the most? Oh right, it's four thousand miles away.

I go from one of the best schools in the country to a school in the state with one of the worst education systems (and, as a result, the worst graduation rate) in the country, and my mother tells me it's just as good as my real school. The nerve.

Take me to a place where the subject being taught wasn't something I learnt in seventh grade. I am a senior in high school, I am more intelligent than this for crying out loud! Stop treating me like an infant!

Okay, rant mode off. But seriously, people, this is a result of the most Mordor-assigning-worthy rubbish that has ever happened in my life, which is too personal to post on the internet, of course.

[Galadriel55]

Switching any school is hard. I have some experience with that - I haven't stayed in a single school so far for over 2 years. Hopefully I won't have to switch my high school, because I really like it. I can see myself putting up tantrums if I'm told that I have to go to a different school. If anything, you have all the right to rant.



I assign fake fire alarm drills. In my school there were two (!) today. We had to stand out in the cold for a half an hour just so that the teachers can see that we know where the doors are. It's stupid and annoying, and I missed part of my favourite class. I was lucky enough to have a sweater on, but some people were only wearing t-shirts.

[Mithalwen]

I'll second that.. I spent a term as an assistant matron (housemother) at a Prep school (ages 7-13). I was on sleep in duty in the Girls boarding house when an alarm went off at 3 am. It wasn't a drill and the urgency to get out was increased for me not only because the sleep in room was in the attic so I had furthest to go but because in addition to the regualar boarders who were all 10 -12 and relatively able to take care of them selves we had due to a family emergency a day girl from the nursery school staying for a few days.

So no sooner was I down the attic steps than the senior matron delivered the sleeping child into my arms and I had to make my way down several flights of stairs and across the gardens to the sports hall. Not easy to maintain one's dignity and modesty with such burden and even a slender 4 year old seems heavy and bulky when they are very sleepy and you have to carry them a distance and you are acutely aware that knee length dressinggown and night shirt don't seem long enough when you are about to join a group of near adolsecent boys,,

After that incident I pretty much took to sleeping in clothes when on sleep in duty which was just as well since I always seemed to get the fire alarms....

[mark12_30]

Tasteless and immoral poetry.

[Kath]

The M25. Nuff said.

[Mithalwen]

London's orbital carpark on a Friday night...been there done that.... fun not...

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Going on the downs and finding a lot of your favourite threads revived, only to discover that it is purely spam posts.

[Galadriel55]

Finding out that your school internet system thingy blocks the Downs. Apparently it goes under the category of "games". Ignorant idiots!

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Finding out that your school internet system thingy blocks the Downs. Apparently it goes under the category of "games". Ignorant idiots!

I used to be able to be on the Downs all day long at school. In fact, in ninth grade, I had a study hall for an hour and a half every other day. Aside from running upstairs to bother Lauri, I would spend the entire time on the Downs and not do any of my actual homework.

Now I can't go on the Downs at school because they categorise it as FORUMS/CHAT. Bah. If kids can play flash games at school, I should be able to go on the Downs.

[Galadriel]

Weekends when you need to finish a ton of work and at the same time spend time with visiting family -_-

Edit: I am going to add: getting nasty shocks when you get back essays from your teachers.

[Andsigil]

I assign to Mordor the dystopic phenomenon of people driving with the bass booming in their cars so loudly you hear it inside your house.

It should be legal to sew these cretins into a sack of angry baboons, and then toss the sack into a tank filled with Congolese river fish.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

I assign bratty brothers. My brother threw a tantrum tonight because of ten minutes worth of work. In the process, he ripped my glasses off of my face and hurled them to the floor almost breaking them. He has anger management problems, and he can be seriously injurious in his fits of passion. I just don't know what to do about it besides retaliating with more violence.

[Galadriel55]

The book I was reading fell into a full bathtub yesterday.

A Feast For Crows was sacrificed in an offering to the Drowned God. But after the fan gave it the kiss of life it became kinda usable again, except that it feels weird. The pages don't feel like proper pages anymore.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

The book I was reading fell into a full bathtub yesterday.

A Feast For Crows was sacrificed in an offering to the Drowned God. But after the fan gave it the kiss of life it became kinda usable again, except that it feels weird. The pages don't feel like proper pages anymore.

I seem to have repped you too recently to do it now, but know that your post made me laugh.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

I seem to have repped you too recently to do it now, but know that your post made me laugh.

Seconded. Considering I'm about to start Feast of Crows too

[Galadriel]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Switching any school is hard. I have some experience with that - I haven't stayed in a single school so far for over 2 years. Hopefully I won't have to switch my high school, because I really like it. I can see myself putting up tantrums if I'm told that I have to go to a different school. If anything, you have all the right to rant.

Ohh, my mum was in the same situation because her dad worked for the army. Must be really hard to keep up with friends I don't know what I'd do in your situation, because I'm quite introverted as it is!

I assign fake fire alarm drills. In my school there were two (!) today. We had to stand out in the cold for a half an hour just so that the teachers can see that we know where the doors are. It's stupid and annoying, and I missed part of my favourite class. I was lucky enough to have a sweater on, but some people were only wearing t-shirts.

There were three real fire alarms within two weeks at college last term :/ One was at 2 a.m.

Edit: Did I mention, someone set our oven on fire?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

The book I was reading fell into a full bathtub yesterday.

A Feast For Crows was sacrificed in an offering to the Drowned God. But after the fan gave it the kiss of life it became kinda usable again, except that it feels weird. The pages don't feel like proper pages anymore.

Listen. Way back in 1985 I was reading the Humphrey Carpenter bio of Tolkien in bed while enjoying a nice glass of warm Ribena and I spilled it all over my book. I was pretty upset about the book being forever stained purple but I was more worried about my mum going up the wall at the fact I'd been lying around in bed and spilling blackcurrant all over the sheets. So think yourself lucky

Anyway, I came here to assign bus stop offenders. The ones who stand in front of you when you're waiting for the bus so your view is obscured and you miss the bus. And the ones who sit on the middle of the bus shelter seat so nobody else can sit down and they all have to huddle at the far end while madam luxuriates in having the whole bench to herself. And the ones who will not stand within ten feet of another person, so you get to a bus shelter that should cover fifteen people but one person needs so much personal space that everyone is rammed together in the three feet of space that Princess Touch Me Not allows them.

Of course, this would all be solved if I was not British and consumed with queue etiquette anxiety.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Did I mention that in the summer almost all cellars in Copenhagen got flooded, I still had a few boxes down there (stored item that I did not bring with me to England).

Obviously it was the heavy stuff that was left. . . Heavy = Book/and comic books.

I lost for at least £800 worth, including the Luis Bermejo comic-book version of The Fellowship. . .

I know this is old news, but all this talk of wet books reminded me of the terrible event.

[Pomegranate]

Ha, bath tubs and books remind me of the time, almost ten years ago, when I was a happy little child and had just gotten the hold of a book that would practically change my life (sounds pathetic, but in fact, scarily true), The Lord Of The Rings. My excited self didn't put it down for the week or two it took me to read it, and this did include a trip to a bath. So my dear, dear copy of the book is from midway down double the thickness it is from midway up :/

And I came back to campus less than a week ago, first fire alarm was already before the lectures started and the second was about two days ago. All these new exchange student kids who don't know how to cook.

That is, catered schools that send their students abroad to learn life, and bathtubs, to Mordor with them!

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Listen. Way back in 1985 I was reading the Humphrey Carpenter bio of Tolkien in bed while enjoying a nice glass of warm Ribena and I spilled it all over my book. I was pretty upset about the book being forever stained purple but I was more worried about my mum going up the wall at the fact I'd been lying around in bed and spilling blackcurrant all over the sheets. So think yourself lucky

My story is mild compared to yours.

And that reminds me of the copy of The Sil in my school library. It has a huge sticky brown stain on the back cover that seeped through the last pages. I don't know when or how it got there, but the possibilities are endless. Imagine the story that would make!

[Legolas]

School loan-related debt. Every penny of it.

[Galadriel]

Annoying words that stick in your head and DON'T go away. I'm learning beginner's Italian, and one of the first words I learned was 'il cocktail'. I want to bash myself over the head with a frying-pan because I can't get it out of my skull

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

The book I was reading fell into a full bathtub yesterday.

Wasting beautiful water? Naughty, naughty!

Just kidding

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

Annoying words that stick in your head and DON'T go away.

Ooohhh, I so agree. I always have something stuck in my head. Sometimes it's a song, sometimes a random sentence, and sometimes an even more random word. It just repeats itself over and over again.

Just now I have the word "juxtaposition" bouncing off the walls of my skull. I have no idea why.

Originally Posted by Galadriel

Wasting beautiful water? Naughty, naughty!

Befouling it with ink and paper.

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Befouling it with ink and paper.

*Le gasp!*

[Rikae]

I assign World of Warcraft to Mordor - let Sauron deal with Deathwing. Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, I also assign my half a year or so absence from the 'downs.

[Galadriel55]

I assign French spelling. Seriously, if you want to say "boku", don't write "b-e-a-u-c-o-u-p". And that's not even the worst of it - there's about an infinity of letter combinations that make "eh" sounds. If you want to say ey, so write ey, don't write é, et, es, est, er, ez, ai, ais, ait, aient,, some more that don't come to mind right now, and, worst of all, eaient! Why so many ways to pronounce the same sound, or almost the same sound? Waste of letters.

/rant out.

Also, accents. Never got the point of having so many. Can't even tell the difference between them: é è ê ë, they're all just eh to me. Though Ëonwë would probably disagree with me on this one.

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I assign French spelling. Seriously, if you want to say "boku", don't write "b-e-a-u-c-o-u-p". And that's not even the worst of it - there's about an infinity of letter combinations that make "eh" sounds. [...] Waste of letters.

English isn't exactly in a position to complain about this, you know?
Besides, doesn't it say something about a language that it expresses the notion of "much" or "many" with a word literally meaning "a fair cup"? Which is of cause lost in a strictly phonetic spelling.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Also, accents. Never got the point of having so many. Can't even tell the difference between them: é è ê ë, they're all just eh to me. Though Ëonwë would probably disagree with me on this one.

Äccents åre græt. Äccents åre gôrjeous. We løves 'èm, my prëcious, yés we dó.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Also, accents. Never got the point of having so many. Can't even tell the difference between them: é è ê ë, they're all just eh to me. Though Ëonwë would probably disagree with me on this one.

It's just there to tell you that you're meant to pronounce the vowels separately.
And yes, it's Eönwë.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Äccents åre græt. Äccents åre gôrjeous. We løves 'èm, my prëcious, yés we dó.

*cough*

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

And yes, it's Eönwë.

*cought* Yes, um, I *cough*definitely*cough* know accents, you can tell.

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I assign French spelling. Seriously, if you want to say "boku", don't write "b-e-a-u-c-o-u-p".

FRENCH spellings? English spellings are worse. You can never tell if the 'h' is silent, if the 'c' is a 'c', an 's', or a 'k', if 'ch' is actually 'ch' or just 'k', if the 'x' is actually an 'x' or a 'z'...

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

FRENCH spellings? English spellings are worse. You can never tell if the 'h' is silent, if the 'c' is a 'c', an 's', or a 'k', if 'ch' is actually 'ch' or just 'k', if the 'x' is actually an 'x' or a 'z'...

No, that's English pronounciation.


I guess I see the languages differently because I learn new English from storybooks and new French from the teacher. And when the teacher says, for example, "spell sais", I'm more likely to write c'est or s'est or just plainly ce or se.

In English, though, I'm ok with spelling the words but sometimes have the wrong pronounciation. I still pronounce "treachery" as treechery, not trechery, and "bury" as bury, not bary. Just because I read those words before I heard them.


Or let's put it simpler. I know English, I don't know French.

[Andsigil]

I love the English language, ever since I began studying Latin, Spanish, and Japanese.

This attempt by the Normans to smash the square peg of French into the round hole of Anglo Saxon which began a thousand years ago has become what multilingual, non-English speakers have assured is the hardest language to learn in the world.

I've collected a few quotes about English over the years:

“The word ‘good’ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.”
-G. K. Chesterton

“English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin, a language with which it has precious little in common.”
-Bill Bryson

To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.
—George Orwell

[Galadriel]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

No, that's English pronounciation.

Oops! Yeah, sorry And it's 'pronunciation' I'm usually not bothered by English spellings, but the pronunciation is just...confusing

Or let's put it simpler. I know English, I don't know French.

I wish I knew French.

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

I love the English language, ever since I began studying Latin, Spanish, and Japanese.

I hate getting envious

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

And it's 'pronunciation'

Ooops. Yeah. Well. Umm. Yeah.

That's why it all belongs in Mordor - spelling and pronunciation together!

Originally Posted by Galadriel

I wish I knew French.

Ditto. If I knew it I woudn't have to learn it.

/stupid silly mood

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I assign French spelling. Seriously, if you want to say "boku", don't write "b-e-a-u-c-o-u-p". And that's not even the worst of it - there's about an infinity of letter combinations that make "eh" sounds. If you want to say ey, so write ey, don't write é, et, es, est, er, ez, ai, ais, ait, aient,, some more that don't come to mind right now, and, worst of all, eaient! Why so many ways to pronounce the same sound, or almost the same sound? Waste of letters.

/rant out.

Also, accents. Never got the point of having so many. Can't even tell the difference between them: é è ê ë, they're all just eh to me. Though Ëonwë would probably disagree with me on this one.

But if you simplify the spellings you lose the clues to meaning. the e circonflex usually indicate an s has been lost along the way. Th differences make things easier not harder.

Look at the American simplifications. Why bother changing plough to plow if you continue to spell snow snow....

and on that subject, what I really want to assign to Mordor is that the knee I injured over a year ago and thought healed has is clearly only ok in mild weather - Winter has suddenly and finally kicked in and it has become a highly effective thermometer. I know how cold it is by the degree of pain it gives me. Age creeping up on me...

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

But if you simplify the spellings you lose the clues to meaning. the e circonflex usually indicate an s has been lost along the way. Th differences make things easier not harder.

That's true, spelling enhances the meaning. But it makes learning just that much harder.

Originally Posted by Mith

and on that subject, what I really want to assign to Mordor is that the knee I injured over a year ago and thought healed has is clearly only ok in mild weather - Winter has suddenly and finally kicked in and it has become a highly effective thermometer. I know how cold it is by the degree of pain it gives me.

There's something going on with knees around the Downs lately...

[Mithalwen]

Woulnd't wish it on anyone... but to be fair I have always had wonky knees and now a variety of issues as well as plain old excess wear and tear are factoring in... sometimes it' the mileage not just the years...

[Galadriel]

I assign hypocrites and abandoners. Gosh, I sure do feel like Fëanor at Alqualondë right now!