ToM Dracone

I wonder if the Kanohi Rua would do anything to help with things related to wisdom teeth... ...What? My swelling seems to finally be going down – I still can't close my jaw fully, but I dared to eat solid food today. Half a sugar cookie, of all things. It tasted very good. Still wishing it were next week and all this were over... ~ ToM

Ah, yes, I remember that equation... Fascinating thing, it is, the five mathematical constants all related to each other... ...I really know nothing more to say about this. Except that e annoys me. But I guess I'll get more used to it next year...

I still think the four-year spinny should have been Toa Iruini's Kualsi... Clearly, Norik's head indicates that by having stayed on BZP for four years, you are old and wise!

I should mention that my wisdom teeth were still far from coming in – under the gums, still in the bone, and in the case of my uppers, with no room in the slightest to come in. They also seemed to be obstructing some of my twelve-year molars from coming in (I've always gotten teeth late), and I would have had to have them removed anyway, so... My sympathies, Nikira! :annoyed2: And to all who have to have wisdom teeth removed... And yes, I do have chipmunk cheeks. If anyone's wondering.

Ow... As I announced yesterday, I got my wisdom teeth extracted today. All four of them. It hurts. They gave me this type of anesthesia that left me conscious throughout the whole thing, but with no memory at all – something I'm actually quite thrilled with. One, I don't remember the procedure (just getting fillings is traumatizing enough), and two, I have no memory at all of the "recovery" phase because it was still in effect. Which means that, coupled with a copious and constant supply of painkillers, I have yet to feel any excruciating pain from this whole ordeal. But that doesn't prevent a constant background ache, hurting whenever I try to close my jaw. :annoyed2: I want it to be this time next week, when everything should have healed and I can eat solid food again. I haven't eaten anything all day; no appetite... *crawls off to have some tomato soup and then go lie down on the couch again* I envy all those who either have no wisdom teeth at all or have mouths big enough to fit them. ~ ToM

One of the many reasons I like 2001 and 2 best of the Bionicle years is the sound of the names, either borrowed from or based on Maori. (Ignore the fiasco resulting from the former for the moment.) 2001 established the Pacific islander sound, and 2002 added the terminal k and silent h's that completed the general sound and appearance of the names. 2006 and 2007, however, changed this. The general phonetics remain, but now there are all manner of new consonants and consonant combinations, and the names sound far more like English than Maori. Maxilos. Spinax. Hydraxon. Carapar. Mantax. Zakaz. Zyglak. You see? Even if the name isn't specifically English-derived, it's anything but Maori. It makes perfect sense – Bionicle has changed enormously, and the tropical island feel has been completely lost, and as we're going to new places we find new styles of names. But all Matoran speak the same language, so one thing I'd like to keep constant is the orignal sound – or close to it – for Matoran names... like the Kanohi. The Mahri's Kanohi names are one thing I specifically dislike. I don't mind anglicized names for other stuff (besides Matoran themselves), but I would rather the Kanohi adhered to the original sound of Bionicle. Faxon – Kanohi Faso :: There were almost no x's at all, so that became an s, and "on" is a distinctly non-Maori ending. So it became o. Arthron – Kanohi Araho :: "Th" is another sound absent from early Bionicle (but h was very common), and three consonantal sounds in a row was something unheard of on Mata Nui. The only time there were even two consonants in a row was a diphthong like "ng" in Kongu, so those were separated, and, in th case of the second r, dropped. Tryna – Kanohi Tanau :: This I just made up because I thought the name Tryna sounded too weak for such a powerful mask as Matoro has. Tanau is a much stronger word. Y was also not to be found as a vowel early on... Zatth – Kanohi Zatahu :: Augh! Z was another almost absent sound early on, but there was at least the Krana Za, so I kept that. But a combination like "tth" is just illogical anyway, hard to figure out how to pronounce literally, and above all absolutely nothing like Maori on more than one level. Kanohi Garai :: I like this one. Simple, no consonantal diphthongs, only a vowel one, which is very common in Bionicle. I also think it has an earthy sound to it, fitting for a mask of gravity. Kanohi Volitak :: While I'm not thrilled with the name, it at least follows all the rules established in 2001 and 2... So there you have it. My thoughts on the names of the Mahri's Kanohi, since I prefer the Maori feel of 2001 to the English feel of 2007... Additionally, I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. Aaaaugh! *tries not to panic* To those of you who have had them out already, how long does it take to heal afterward? And what about eating? *runs around in circles* ~ ToM

Um, I've known what song this is all along. But that doesn't mean I'm familiar with the song itself more than a couple lines. Regardless, you still have a feminine adjective with a neuter noun, which just doesn't work. Ever. You could make it crusta, even if then it would more strictly mean "pie crust" than just "pie," but you just can't have an adjective that doesn't agree with its noun. The problem here is that English has no grammatical gender, but Latin does, and the relevant imposition of a gender in English doesn't match with the grammatical gender in Latin...

Happy birthday, Lady D! So tell me, what do you get to do at 18 over there in Singapore?

Yesterday was the last day of school for me – getting exams back, then listening to Senior Study Project presentations, and finally the Honors Convocation, or in other words awards assembly. It was a wonderful day for me. First, I got a 100 on my Latin final, which shocked me – I had gotten fere mixed up with forte, but Dr. Jones accepted my translation of it, and I thought I had gotten some other stuff wrong... (I got an 89 on English, which was better than I had hoped... and an 88 that became an A with the curve on Algebra. Eh. Those were my two lowest.) I also finally learned that I got a gold medal in the National Latin Exam... Then, in the honors convocation, I was given the Latin prize! There are a bunch of academic recognitions (followed by miscellaneous awards), and... I got the Latin one! *boing* I also spent most of the day with Katie, Sam, and also Juhi, two juniors and a senior respectively. Which is usually not possible because I'm a sophomore. They're always fun. Katie got one of the awards (she also got the Latin prize last year), and in the presentation speech Dr. Jones described her as "She cuts through nonsense like a bazooka through a Teletubby." Which is hilarious. Penultimately, I acquired BL7 today. My reaction to it can be summed up as "... Woah." And finally, I love Idris's set almost as much as I love Hahli in general. I wish she were sold by herself. ~ ToM

Mais c'est très simple! Si tu as jamais besoin d'aide, demande-moi...

I voted that I didn't care. While it would be cool to know, provided it actually sounded good, whenever I hear "Makuta" I just think of Makuta himself. But if there's a scene between two Brotherhood members, it makes sense that they would refer to each other by name, so I wouldn't mind it being revealed. But it would have to be dramatic. A dark chamber, two Brotherhood members talking in secret, plotting... That sort of thing. Say, maybe they could refer to one another by the place they rule, like people did in older times – like addressing the King of France or Duke of Albany as "France" or "Albany." (Yes, I am thinking of King Lear.) That could get around revealing his name. I don't so much want his name kept in the dark as I simply don't actively want to know it. If it's revealed, cool, if not, cool as well. I'll still just call him "Makuta" anyway... (P.S., Takatu – check the entry about Anette... )

Bwahaha. English has no regularity at all between spelling and pronunciation. Which makes it, I'm fairly certain, the hardest western language to learn. I would love to sit in on a class where it was being taught... (And yet those who do become fluent in it as a second/third/fourth language speak it so much better than native speakers, because they actually learn the grammar, which the average anglophone might never actually do.) I love it.

Of the Three Witches and Lady Macbeth, who is more awesome? Scales or fur? Or feathers over both? What is your opinion of Thursday? Is Ninjo away because he's being held hostage by Clikits? Who is your favorite of the nine Muses?

I always sketch first – usually a very rough, light outline to get the pose and proportions right, and jot in a few details, and then I go over that in harder pencil. I almost never ink stuff unless I'm going to color it with colored pencils... Leaving it in pencil gives me the opportunity to change it if I want to.

*drags up oldish entry* Finally heard Eva in full – it sounds just as cool as Nightwish usually does. No one can truly match Tarja, but I think Anette will be a suitable replacement. Tarja was more individual in her sound, I think, but Anette still sounds really great. Plus Eva is a great song in general...

What? My blog looks a lot like Le-Wahi... Yesterday was my four-year anniversary of joining BZP! Yes, leave it to me to be late. I spent the end of yesterday afternoon and evening first writing a new short story – there was a thunderstorm and I was inspired to write about the Inika – and then watching Dead Man's Chest. So I didn't get around to posting here. I guess you could call listening endlessly to the Le-Koro party music (without having the MNOLG open!) my celebrations. That and finally updating my avatar and banner. I prefer the celebration music from the end of the Lewa vs. Onua video, but there isn't a separate file for that... I've also toyed with the idea of redoing my blog design in MNOLG-style images of Le-Wahi. But I dunno. Maybe I'll do that for the blog's birthday... So... woot! I originally joined BZP just to participate in the Vahi giveaway in 2003... And I still have yet to obtain an orange one. Hm. ~ ToM

Emphasis on "down here." When I lived in Houston, we got out in the middle of May... and started in the middle of August. Up here, we start in September and get out in the middle of June...

Finals are ovah. Yes, with an h. French was pretty easy yesterday – apparently I got a 93. Then history was really easy, but took so long that I finished after the full two hours were up. By scribbling the end of my essay as the teachers were going around collecting. Today, Algebra 2x was remararkably straightforward. Almost easy – there were no surprises, nothing obscure and insanely complicated, just stuff that we had gone over in review. Not even all the stuff on the review sheet was on it, which was quite thrilling. (Though Henry got us all panicked beforehand by trying to remember how to solve the inverse trigonometric function of a different trig function, like Arcsin(cosx), something we hadn't done.) I know I got one question wrong by mixing up inconsistent and dependent systems, but otherwise I may have gotten everything right, because I checked almost all of my answers on my calculator... Latin was, of course, easy. I guessed on two words, one I had seen but didn't remember the meaning of, and another I had never seen but guessed correctly to mean "relatives." Woot! *listens to The Memory of Trees and relaxes, only one day, Monday, of school left* ~ ToM

Bio exam: really easy. Entirely multiple choice. Almost all the questions were unchanged from the tests during the year, so I remembered a lot of the answers just by that... English: AAUGH. Utopia. Utopia! Too many questions about it! It was the first book we read this semester, and I have barely any notes on it. I was flipping through it for review during the few hours between exams and by chance found what turned out to be the answer to one of the short answer questions, but on another one I had absolutely no idea what the answer was. Then I thought one of the passage identifications was Ariel speaking to Prospero in The Tempest, but it turned out to be Pospero addressing the audience in the epilogue. In other words I got it completely wrong. So there go ten points right there. Aaaaaaargh. I also spent about half the day with a random hair clip in my hair because Leigh Ann picked it up and decided to stick it there... It was an interesting experience. ~ ToM

I neither know the song nor have the time to translate it back, but it looks great. Except for one noticable thing – would the title not be Americanum Crustum? Given that crustum is a neuter noun, the adjective modifying it must be neuter as well. Your name needs to be ablative! Aanchire Rachira Temporis... I've heard about the Latin banquet before, from my mom, interestingly, who had one at her school... But my school doesn't have one. (Not enough people, for one thing.) I have mixed feelings on whether or not I would want to partake in one, but it must be fun to attend...

Thunder rolls; birds flee Branches are torn down by wind And the rain begins At last! *goes out and basks in the rain* ~ ToM

Luckyyy. My school doesn't give exemptions...

Je vais faire bien, monsieur Trunn. Oui, je parle français – mon père est belge, alors le français est plus ou moins ma ... première langue et demi. Ce que je ne fais pas si bien est écrire en français. For history, general European history from the Congress of Vienna up to the beginning of the Cold War is on the final...

You're probably getting exasperated with the incessant stream of Tohunga in this blog, so I'll get to the non-Tohunga news first ( ), that I have final exams next week. I may have English and History switched, but I think this is how they go: Tuesday: Biology – Not hard. Entirely multiple choice, but some can be tricky... English II – Mm... harder. Because a lot is written answers, and though I know the texts pretty well, there are a lot of them... Wednesday: French IIIe – Pah! C'est du français. C'est facile. World History II – Lot to know, but it looks like aside from that and being a lot longer it's like our usual tests... Which are time-consuming more than they are hard. But I always wind up forgetting something on History exams... Thursday: Advanced Algebra – AAAUGH. My hardest class ever. I hate vectors. A lot of the stuff I've had to re-learn because we haven't used it in ages... I just know I'm going to panic and forget how to do something or make a mistake something really basic. Latin III – Easiest final of all. Even more so than French. Very last final, and during the conflict exams slot, so there's barely anyone in the gym with me... It's pretty much a relaxing experience. Then just one more day of school on Monday, to get exams back and listen to a variety of presentations and speeches and award-giving, and then it's summer vacation! Now, Tohunga! Toromaga in a tree! There's actually a real Tohunga like this in the MNOLG, but I realized today it's a perfect Tohunga form for Toro. So it became such! Hanging from a different branch... Aaaand falling out of the tree. Takua in a different willow tree than Hahli, the sun behind him On the railing, shining in the sun A scene from the MNOLG episodes from 2002, with Takua, Nuparu, and Kongu plotting against the Nuhvok in Le-Wahi Lord Beckett: "You're mad!" Jack: "Thank goodness for that, 'cause if I wasn't, this would probably never work." ~ ToM

There's a Blue Moon tonight... Second full moon in a month, for those who don't know – a rare occurence. Some calendars will list this full moon as being on June first, but they lie. The full moon occurs this evening, making it the second one in May! It's getting near the end of being a real Blue Moon for me over here on the east coast, but those further west still have time to go and bask in its majesty. (If they're interested in such things.) It figures, of course, that there's heavy cloud cover over here tonight... Not that the moon is actually blue. But it's still cool. The Witch's Datebook describes it as a potent time for spellcasting, and that spells case by the light of one Blue Moon are said to last until the next. Fitting, of course, being a full moon in the first place, and augmented by being the second in the month... Good time for the Astrologer to be doing something... I could easily see her at the Ta-Wahi cliff with the telescope focused on the blue moon, the night cold and still around her, power in the air... ~ ToM