[Orominuialwen]

I never liked and had barely heard of LotR until I saw FotR somtime in the last week of 2001 with my dad and brother. A few weeks later, my dad bought us copies of LotR and The Hobbit, and we both read them. I took a long time to get through them, owing to the fact that I lost FotR on the bus when I was partway through it and had to wait until we could get another copy. By this time we had 2 copies of The Hobbit and it was to be the beginning of a long history of owning multiple copies of all the books for me and my brother. (At current count, 2 of FotR, 3 of TTT, 4 of RotK, 2 one-volume copies of LotR, 2 copies of The Hobbit, 2 of Silm, and much overlap of the shorter works in various different collections.) We became obsessed with LotR sometime in the spring of 2002 and nobody has been able to stop us since, although many have tried and failed.


I discovered the 'Downs in September or October of 2002, because something on the main part of the site (I'm not sure what) came up when I googled Eowyn. I spent the next seveeral months reading things on the main site, never knowing that there was a forum. I finally discovered the forum sometime in the spring of 2003 and lurked for a bit before actuallly joining in May. In November I finally convinced my brother to join, although his presence is sporadic during the summers and almost nonexistent during the school year. (He mostly spends his spare time playing video games and very graciously allows me to use the internet most of the time.)