[Thengise Greenleaf of Mirkwood]

I'm not completely alone in my house, though I am the only hard-core fan. My dad only read FOTR, but he saw the cartoon hobbit movie and the Lord of the Rings movie. He also saw FOTR in theater with me. He was the one who got me into it, because he loves it. Though I ended up surpassing him(by far!) and he hasn't had the time to read TTT. And he doesn't want to go see the movie until he reads it, which I think is good.

So he sometimes encourages my reading expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien, but sometimes he does think I go a bit to far. He even takes pride in himself for the fact that he was the one who got me into it. My mom liked the movie, but most of the times she just rolls her eyes at me when I start going on and on. The good thing though is that they do buy me Tolkien related stuff!

I also have plenty of friends who adore Middle-Earth and the stories within it. I have about 4-5 hard core friends and like 4 fan friends. But I also have all of you here and I'm very thankful for that.

I know I'm not alone in this and therefore should not be posting here, but I want to encourage you all to never lose interest in what you love just because someone for example called you a freak or you're the only one you know who likes it. I think it's great that despite what everyone else thinks of your obsessions, you just keep on doing what you love to do. And that's wonderful, because nobody should try to change who you are. Because you are all truly great people.

Sorry for rambling on, but I just thought that all of you should be congratulated.