New Members - Introduce Yourself Here

Hi! Call me Valandil. I hope to get to know some of you here and have some interesting discussions. This is my first day here. Recently I missed two weeks of work due to illness. I was so incredibly bored and restless that I decided to read a book, something I haven't done for pleasure since that pleasure was beaten out of me in graduate school. *grins* Well, I've had The Lord of the Rings on my shelf for.... wow, I don't even know.... so I decided to read it to pass the time. I read all 1000 plus pages, and less than halfway through I really couldn't believe I'd never bothered to read it when I was younger. I am sincerely impressed with Tolkien's work. I read The Hobbit (quite quickly... seemed to be a children's book) and now I'm working on The Simarillion (which is the exact opposite of The Hobbit in terms of reading difficulty, as I'm sure everyone here already knows). All the character names and new terms are a bit overwhelming, but I'm intrigued... I feel somewhat like a sponge soaking up very flavorful water. So, I'm happy to be here. Hello to all!