I assign apple marmalade and toast. It just tastes good.

I assign Hamantaschen. Delicious.

Best of all, prunes (of all things!) are delightful in them. Normally I dislike prunes, but they're great when cooked up properly. Now there's a way to take something that belongs in Mordor and turn it into something wonderful. A Shire deserving item in itself. :)

I assign that particular smell of spring, the earthy, heavy aroma of damp, dank earth, full of dirt and detritus, oozing deliquescent puddles of mud and the last remnants of snow and ice. Earth on the cusp of birth. :cool:

Nice, helpful professors who make you feel better about why you feel stupid in their classes, and can explain (well) why you didn't get the grade you thought you'd get on your paper and can help you understand how to do better next time. Also professors who value your input and are encouraging (to the point of encouraging you to go talk to your other, scarier profs). I like feeling supported! :cool:

Mud.

Springtime mud.

The kind that is caused by melting snow.

The kind that turns the top two inches of your driveway into soup. (Though the ruts that are there when it freezes back up again can go Elsewhere...)

Living on a road with a slight incline, so that you can play in the rivulets that run down the hill across the end of the driveway. *sigh* Such memories...

Brighton beach.

When the weather turns unexpetedly beautiful.

Fish and Chips on the beach.

French exchange students.

Thick coach windows that, due to two reflections, make it look as if there are two suns, or even three.

French people trying to explain the difference between au-dessus and au-dessous to obstinate English children who claim there is none.

Perfect days out that mean you don't have to go to lessons you don't like.

Lovely, succulent French cheeses. Mm, nice.

The following conversation near midnight outside of a bar on a really cold street:

"Sweetie, what are the chances that you can get next weekend off of work?"

"Depends on how hard I try for it. Why?"

"Because I'm taking you home."

"Then I'm going home."

And posting up on the sub-list that you need someone to take your hours and seeing a few hours after that you're covered.

I very happily assign the prospect of going home for the first time in several months.

Lovely librarian's that happily spend half an hour finding all the books that you need for the next few weeks.

What, back to those awful parents of yours? Aren't they in Mordor? ;)

Actually, I miss my dogs. :p

Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

And Mithalwen, for leading me to him.

Proudly afflicted with homesickness (hey, it makes my mom happy...)
 

I second that. Spring break in a week! Home for the first time since Christmas! I get to see my dogs and my kittens who are (sadly) no longer kittens! Plus, a week to lie around, play video games, and complete homework assignments that would typically be allotted a day to finish. However, I refuse to play chauffer to my little brother. Especially when he won't ask nicely.

Oh, I also want to add wireless internet, which deserves a simultaneous assignment to Mordor. I can go anywhere in the building now and continue to compulsively check my email! Although, I can no longer escape the internet in the hallway outside my room and write my papers without distraction. :rolleyes:

Knowing full well that the hour you just spent on a WW post could have been used to do a good couple of pages of your geography coursework, and just not caring!

People who hold the door for other people.

France.

How I'd love to live in a country where people aren't afraid to defend their rights.

I think I'll actually send Germany, too, for similar reasons. I quote my German friend:

"Shopkeepers can't limit the number of schoolchildren entering a shop. It's discriminating and stereotyping. Imagine if they said only three gays could enter at a time."

It is less amusing when the transport workers go on strike with no warning and leave you stranded :rolleyes: Let alone the sheep.... and it is no coincidence that bureaucracy is a French word...... but even so I might go back....

So that means that the shopkeeper is at the mercy of a whole squadron of schoolkids, the numbers of whom are beyond her or his ability to keep an eye on for the threat of shoplifting. How is this a good thing? Or are shoplifters protected under French law too? Can a French shopkeeper "discriminate" against squatters? vandals? spitters in the shop? Or are they all protected by French law too?

Okay, I'm being a bit testy, but this law looks to me like it belongs in Mordor. Doesn't the shopkeeper own the shop? Does the French law actually prohibit the owner of the place from deciding who can be there? :rolleyes: If that's the case, then it's the French gov't that actually owns the shop. I suppose a socialist approves?

I will send the last day of this semester to the Shire. It will be here in about three weeks and then FREEDOM. well...not exactly but close. :D

I'll send the clichèd light at the end of the tunnel... or is it the top of the well? Whatever it is that hits you when you least expect and makes everything exponentially better. That's Shire-worthy if anything is.

Last night, I had an hour and a half conversation with someone completely unexpected, who I have never really had the chance to get to know one-on-one. I have a sneaking suspicion that events like these already exist in the Shire, but I'll send it anyway. :D

You misconstrue me entirely. The assignment is not an attack on the shopkeeper's right to protect their property from thieves or vandals. The assignment is the stereotyping of all young people as pickpockets, the tarring with the same brush. All young people are punished for the actions of a very few. There is, in fact, a rather famous man in the Middle East who felt it entirely legitimate to punish an entire settlement with genocide for one man's failed attack on him.

Note also that the friend was German, not French. :p


I assign discovering prejudices within oneself. It gives motivation to change one's thoughts and ideas and to consciously re-shape oneself.

I also assign Latin. It's pretty.

I assign to The Shire getting first class rail tickets at knock down prices. Lovely, a train ride to London with endless refills of tea and coffee and snacks brought to the table. It almost makes up for the issue of sales and not getting a bargain! :rolleyes:

I also assign knowing you have a week off work coming up. It's that Friday feeling, but all week long! :D

People who try to make you feel better even over the littlest issues.

The feeling of being vindicated after several frustrating minutes of no one listening to you. More so when it's on a subject that you're not supposed to know a lot about (i. e. Calculus).

Knowing that after crawling through two take home exams, two final exams, and two papers...you get two weeks of break.

Then you and I have no disagreement, my dear sir. ;)

How you amuse me. :p

Classic Rock.

There is nothing to compare with the Yardbirds and the resulting bands (Cream, Led Zeppelin, Beck, among a plethora of others), Steppenwolf, Yes, Pink Floyd, etc.

Plus the startled look on older people's faces when they realize the very feminine, 20 year old secretary they like calling "Bunny" knows all the words to songs that were cool before she was born, and has a more-than-half-decent voice, is priceless.

The Smiths



There is no better thing to wake up to than 'Cemetary Gates' or 'Shelia Take a Bow', or to get you out of the blues than 'That joke Isn't Funny Anymore', because there will always be someone who has more right to complain than you.
It always reminds me of the lamenting of Frodo and Gandalf giving him a good lesson in existalist philosophy. Or that of Bilbo.

Anyways, the ability of hobbits to take life as it's served and lament so beautifully upon it gives me reason to say that The Smiths deserve to be held up in Shire worth praise.

Thank you Moz and Marr.


~ Aesthete

What, not Genesis?

And I assign all the music I likes, including that weird and wonderful early Genesis and the fabulous lyrics of Morrissey ("punctured bicycle, on a hillside, desolate...."). Marvellous. ;)

Elempi, please note the et cetera, which denotes all the bands I listen to, but couldn't remember the names of. And I'm going to have to check to see if I've heard of Genesis.


Nope.


But I will add Eagles, Chicago, and Queen. And Supertramp. (Mostly for the Logical Song and the lyric "You know they've gotta have them in Texas/'Cause everyone's a millionaire"

Double...
 

...and this is going to sound very strange.

But I assign having glasses. The world is so...clear. And I hadn't even noticed how fuzzy it had been getting.

I assign woodlice. They're so adorable, the way they curl up when you come near. The way they sort of limp after you accidentally brush them up, thinking them to be rubbish. The way they carefully don't budge until you're out of the vicinity, keeping up the pretence, even though both you and they know that they're not actually little balls.

I second JennyHallu's assignment of glasses. I just got mine on Tuesday and the increased ability to see and decreased headaches are wonderful.

I also second tgwbs' assignment of Latin. It's such a beautiful language and it's just wonderful to sing in. Plus, it can make even mundane things like Madison, Wisconsin seem special by turning them into Madisonenis, Wisconsinenis. (At least I think that's what it was.)

Spelunking. It seems like something Hobbits would enjoy and it's immense fun when the grey sweatshirt and blue pants you wore into the cave come out mud brown and soaking wet.

Robotics competitions. Even when your robot is less than great (it placed 29th out of 34 teams) it's enormous fun. There are silly things, like when all the teams' mascots, including two martians (one with two heads!), a penguin, a knight, a yeti, an apple , and a badger (from my team!) did the Electric Slide. There are exciting things, like winning matches (admittedly, very few of ours). And then there's the amazing feeling of elation that comes from winning the second highest award possible in the regional competition (the Engineering Inspiration Award) which qualifies your team for Nationals (for the second time in the three years the team has been around) and running on to the field to get high fives from all the judges and medals from the referees while waving your team's giant flag. being optimistic enough to think that everything will work out just fine to go to Nationals, even though it means you have about a month to raise somewhere between six and ten thousand dollars (robotics is really expensive), you have to have all of your stuff moved out of your building at the earliest possible date because there's another (paying) ternant for it, so there's no place for your team to work, and your robot is absolutely awful and only really worked when you disabled its one major function (it was actually much better then). I'm completely on cloud nine at the moment because I'm so excited about everything.

This assignment is seconded by the Nearsighted Elves Society. Or at least by the Society's Keeper of the Last Handmade Lens, Lhunardawen.

I just got mine Friday...the only downside is that I keep thinking the frames are strands of hair and trying to brush them out of my face.

And...*shies away from Orumin* The last guy on a robotics team I met made me listen for half-an-hour to an extended discourse on the difference between gears and sprockets! Ahhh! (By which I of course and obviously mean best of luck in Nationals.)


I assign cold pizza for breakfast. Yum yum yum.

I assign Mother's Day! Odd I know since I'm not a mother but being able to make someone happy just by giving them a handmade card is such a nice feeling. Plus it meant we got to go out for lunch and pig out!

Isn't Mother's Day in May?

No it's today. Father's Day can be in May or the end of April.

Mother's Day is an American holiday, occuring in May.
Mothering Sunday, the British holiday, is today. Both, indeed, belong in the Shire.