June 7, 2002
12:56 p.m.

A few days ago I found myself in the AV room at work bawling my eyes out. I was going through a bit of a spiritual crisis at the time; one of the unfortunate occassions when I was fed up with my sin and myself. I must have looked quite strange there, a teary-eyed snotty-nosed woman lost among scores of dusty cables, wires, and equipment.

That's one of the strangest, most inexplicable aspects of what makes up Talia Thomas. I am inherently unemotional and suffer from long bouts of apathy. I'm often frustrated by my inability to make myself feel the way I think I should, or to feel anything at all. This frustration is amplified in matters of faith where I'm simply unable to grasp the feelings of joy and peace it's supposed to bring me. Yet I know I'd be even more miserable without my faith because I'm unable to be the person I was.

Then there are moments when emotion comes rushing out uncontrollably. Usually this is associated with my anxiety problems, when I'm caught up in some bit of hysteria. However, since my anxiety is pretty much under control now, so are such outbreaks. Perhaps I'm finally becoming a normal person.

Whatever that is.

I finally found an affordable copy of Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. I've been wanting to read it for a long time because the idea of a 12-year-old criminal mastermind intrigued me. It was quite good. I can't wait to get my hands on the second in the series.

The book deals not only with young Artemis, but also an underground world of fairies and other magical creatures referred to as the People. The language of the People is called Gnommish and it's made up of symbols, like hierglyphics. One of the chapters has a graphic representation of a Gnommish message with Artemis' translation on the next page. At the time it seemed strange to me. I wondered why they didn't save ink and just print the translation alone. There were also Gnommish symbols printed on the bottom of each page, which I thought was mere decoration.

Then I read that the author created the Gnommish language and included a message in the book. If the reader cracked the code then the message could be translated. I knew that I could probably hop on the internet and find a translation, but I couldn't pass up the challenge of doing it myself.

It took me half the afternoon to decipher the symbols and grammatical rules. After that, translating the message was easy because I was so familiar with the symbols. It was almost as easy as reading English. I won't ruin the message for you, but it was a pretty interesting part of the book. I had lots of fun reading Gnommish, so I do believe that Artemis Fowl will be my new obsession.

I'm such a nerd.

I decided to copy off Yvette:
My Bloginality is ISTJ!!!