Friday, October 29, 2004

Long Live the Hobbits

Tolkien's world has come to ours. Or at least, someone's discovered a wormhole.

Today's local Times Union proclaims the discovery of a human dwarf species, supposedly 18,000 years old. Their home is the Indonesian Flores Island, home to giant lizards and miniature elephants.

My personal theory? Someone's accidentally stumbled across one of the few colonies of Hobbits established during the escape from the ruin of Beleriand. No one was aware of them at the time, of course, because Hobbits are small and quiet, especially in woods full of large trees. What I don't understand yet is how they came here. If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

In other news. . .

Wednesday night was "Taste of the World", an annual Grace event sponsored by Mu Kappa and featuring tables of cultural samples from twenty-eight different countries. This is only the third or fourth year, and already it attracts hundreds of students and people from the community. Kathleen and I, both in Intermediate German, helped our Austrian professor with her table, serving Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread) on bread and apple juice mixed with mineral water. We took over for our professor and her husband while they went to visit the other tables, and found ourselves scrambling to spread Nutella and fill more little cups, as well as stamp everyone's "passport" with the Austrian seal. When it was our turn, I tried nearly everything -German potato salad, sticky rice, crackers with quince jelly and cheese, authentic Russian torte. Most of the music was coming from the Argentine and Mexican tables, facing each other, where whoever was controlling the speakers seemed intent on outdoing the opposite table in volume.

When my roommate and I got back, we had to race each other up and down the entire hall to calm down.

Thank you for the package, Thainamu! I had just come out of Sociology, where we had not been discussing a pleasant topic. Finding your gift was just the right mix of kind intent and chocolate that I needed then. Yes, I definitely inherited my dad's taste for chocolate and my mom's love for it.

1 comment:

Thainamu said...

Glad you liked the cookies! I hope they were in good condition when they got there. I sent some to my 20-year old son in DC and he sent me back an email: "Thank you for the cookies but they were kind of dry from the trip." Someone go beat that kid on the head for me.

We still have one jar of Nutella left since our German exchange student left. She used to go through it pretty fast. I've discovered it makes pretty good frosting on a few leftover cupcakes.

How was your missions conference? Did you meet some Wycliffe folks?