[Lindale]

For more than seven years now, I've been so drawn to Tolkien that I actually majored in Comparative Literature and have thought of thesising on The Silm or some literary theory as applied to the whole Tolkien legendarium.

The most powerful reading of Tolkien for me was Smith of Wooton Major (and ironically the first thing I read of him, back when I was a kid who thought this was simply a nice but weird fairy story) a couple of months ago, in a small dainty university in the city of Baguio up in the Cordillera mountains. The cold winds that a girl from the tropics doesn't feel anywhere else in her homeland, plus the pine-trees and the fog, the Romantic ambiance, made me feel very... strange, or for want of better term, ethereal.

And then my best friend came, sat with me on one of the benches in our university where I was reading this, and suddenly I felt the sadness that I had to leave Baguio because I've been accepted at the main university and I just couldn't let that chance pass. He hugged me tight and just sat silently with me, letting me lean on him while I reread the same fairy story I have loved for years, with tears on my eyes for the first time while reading this very familiar story. All of a sudden kasi, I just realize the... sorrow, for want of better term, of Smith realizing that his meeting with the Queen should be his last journey to Faery.

Needless to say, the city of Baguio is my Faery.