Difference between revisions of "Eniara Kisharad"

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==Senior Member Interview==
 
==Senior Member Interview==

Revision as of 04:34, 8 June 2016

Eniara.jpg
Eniara Kisharad
Real Name Shannon
Location Auckland, New Zealand
Birthday August 10
TarValon.Net Information
Affiliation Brown Ajah
Rank Aes Sedai
Title Asst. Director of Research
Join Date September 7, 2002
Bonded to Ciaran al'Trystan
Link to Forum Profile

Tower History

Tower Involvement

Current

Previous

Awards

Members' Choice Award 2007: Walking WoT Encyclopedia

Merits

Template:2017-09-MembershipGold

Gold

Membership Merit Gold 300.png Membership Merit Gold 300.png Senior Membership Merit Gold 300.png Senior Membership Merit Gold 300.png Committee Head Merit Gold 300.png Staff Merit Gold 300.png Editing Merit Gold 300.png


Silver

Events Attendance Merit Silver 300.png Participation Costume Merit Silver 300.png Participation Trivia Merit Silver 300.png Members Choice Award 300.png


Tower Relationships

Bonding

Bonded to Ciaran al'Trystan, Gaidin of Mahdi'in d'ma Dieb: February 15, 2006 - present

Mentoring

Mentor

Aeris al'Ozarai, Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah

Mentees

Other Tower Relationships

Official Event Attendance

Senior Member Interview

updated December 10, 2015

  • What is your Tower name?

Eniara Kisharad

  • When were you raised to Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah?

August 2003, and it's been so long I had to go look that up.

  • Why did you choose Brown?

I picked Brown for a very frivolous reason...long before I joined TarValon.net. I was very entrenched in my identity as a Brown by the time I came here so I just went with what was familiar. But for all of my stripes and tending to consider myself more Rainbow Ajah than anything, Brown is still foremost among those many shades in my personality.

  • Are you like the Browns in the books?

A lot of the time, yes. I've always been a voracious bookworm and am addicted to learning new things. While studying at Michigan State I worked for the university library and now I work for the University of Auckland Library on a very Brown project where I scan and digitally process the national archive of heritage maps. I think we're closing in on 22,000 sheets this year.

  • Do you love books and do you daydream a lot?

Yes and yes. I've always wanted to write my own insanely complicated book series but awesome as it may be in my head, I don't have the patience and pacing to finish a book.

  • Do you have a favorite Brown Ajah character from the novels?

This is a no-brainer I think. Verin Mathwin totally wins the Brown Ajah Award of the Age for Awesomeness. If this includes former Browns, however, then Martine Janata (Setalle Anan) runs a very close second.

  • How was your time as Citizen/Novice/Accepted?

I'm enough of an oldie that I remember when we got together and decided it was time to create the city. Once upon a time it was going to be this massive interactive graphic interface thing, but that never fully materialized. Since I was already a senior member by then, I was never a citizen. I honestly don't remember much about being a novice or Accepted. At the time I had a lot of my energy directed into other online communities, leaving me mostly lurking here. I do remember it took me almost a year (that felt like forever) to be raised to Aes Sedai here because the Hall turned me down the first time I was put forward. Too few in the Hall then knew who I was.

  • How long have you been a member of TV.net?

A lifetime. I first met Eleyan and company at Dragon*Con 2002 and joined as soon as I returned home from the event.

  • What things do you do for TV.net?

I've been serving as the Assistant to the Director of Research and Records for about six years, and I've just been appointed Events Historian as well. I'm the one who steps in when the Director needs random miscellaneous stuff. I'm still waiting for someone to ask for help taking over the world. I've also served as Treasurer, multiple times as an Events Committee head, and three terms as Sitter for the Browns. I try to contribute to the fandom in obscure ways as well. One summer I somehow convinced my mother to slave for months sewing me 3' x 5' flags of the fifteen Westlands nations; to my great pleasure those still get lots of use at Jordan Con each year. I'm also heading up a new project through TheGreatHall.org to document the history of the Wheel of Time online fandom (Annals of the Ages).

  • How long have you been a fan of The Wheel of Time and how did you get to read the Series?

In the spring of 1998 I was a lonely freshman who'd recently changed high schools. Unfortunately for me -- being the bookworm that I am -- the only English class with space available was full of students who didn't have an affinity for literature. Most of them hated reading and writing and anything associated with either of those. So there I was, about a month into a daily routine of killing my brain cells with boredom, when we were assigned an end-of-year book report. We were encouraged to challenge ourselves by picking a book more than 100 pages and a month later present a written and an oral report. I ran to the school library and immediately found the fattest fiction book on the shelf. I fully admit it was a very immature and snobbish attitude on my part, but I picked it largely to demonstrate my superior intellect to my peers. The book I checked out that day was a beat-up copy of The Eye of the World. My fantasy experience at that point had been limited to Narnia and the Chronicles of Prydain, but the plot synopsis looked interesting so I decided to give it a go. The teacher was sceptical and tried to talk me out of it, but in the end she relented. I chewed through tEotW like candy and was hooked so fast I went back for The Great Hunt before the week was out. The look on my peers' faces when I plunked down not just one, but two 800-page books and proceeded to do a report on both was priceless. And, by the time I gave that report, I was already devouring The Shadow Rising. The rest is history. My attitude, thankfully, has matured leaps and bounds since then but I still live and breathe The Wheel of Time. I quit counting my re-reads after the 13th time I started tEotW. At hte moment I'm almost to the middle of my first re-read for several years and I'm still picking up details I missed before!

  • Who is your favorite hero?

Moiraine has been my hero and crush since I was fourteen, and she likely always will be. It was agony waiting more than a decade for her to come back, jumping for every book to find her yet again absent! Siuan runs a close second and Thom, perhaps, a distant third.

  • Favorite bad guy/gal?

This is tougher. I think I'll have to pick Graendal. There's a little piece of me that would love to let loose and be totally hedonistic and power hungry. Especially if I could get away with it.

  • Favorite book and scene?

Book is a toss up between New Spring and The Fires of Heaven. My favorite scene used to be when Rand reads the letter from Moiraine after she sacrificed herself fighting Lanfear. I'm always a sucker for the greater good, giving up everything to protect someone else scenarios. Now I think my favorite scene is Moiraine, Thom, and Mat at the campfire immediately after her rescue.

  • If you were set down in Randland, who/what would you see yourself as? An Aes Sedai? Innkeeper? Seanchan Captain?

I think after so many real life years spent as an Aes Sedai, there would be no other path for me besides the White Tower (assuming I could channel). If not that I would've been Aiel, probably Far Dareis Mai turned Wise One.

  • How did you find TarValon.Net and what convinced you to stay and become a Senior Member?

I was first exposed to TarValon.net when a small group of members attended Dragon*Con 2002 and I was presenting on an "Amyrlins" panel with Eleyan. I was running my own site at that point, but after I'd met her there was no way I couldn't join.

  • To whom are you bonded, if you're bonded?

I've been bonded to Ciaran al'Trystan since 2006. He and I originally met in chat and clicked over our mutual love of highland cows. It's only gotten weirder through the years since and I don't know what I would do without him. Our 10-year bondiversary is coming up in a couple of months!

  • Who is your mentee, if you have one?

Alas, I've never had an official mentee at TarValon.net. I've trained a couple of sidekicks, though, and been a big sister to at least one Brown-guesting Accepted.

  • Have you ever attended any Real Life Functions? Did you like them if you did, and why?

I'm going to assume this is just official functions so I don't have to list all of the minor parties I've attended and/or hosted. I was at every Dragon*Con between 2002 and 2008. I was also at the inaugural JordanCon in 2009 and Comic Con 2005 (the year Robert Jordan was there promoting New Spring). Add to that list Fall Ball '04 (Albuquerque), 5th Anni (Corpus Christi), Fall Ball '06 (Toronto), and most recently 10th Anni (Charleston). I have yet to go to a party that I regretted attending. Some have been completely fantastic, some have had major drama, and at some I've had minor meltdowns. That being said, they're like big family reunions and I love going and will continue to attend any opportunity I can. Now that I'm in New Zealand my US attendance is limited to the five-year milestone anniversaries, but I'm hoping we have a South Pacific party soon.

  • What kind of music do you enjoy listening to?

I'm an eclectic audiophile and like pretty much everything, with the exception of most gangsta rap and heavy metal. Most often on rotation of late are Blackmore's Night, Enya, Evanescence, and Adele.

  • What do you do in "real life?"

I do lots of things. I am paid to be a Geo-graphics Technician at the University of Auckland. I'm also a full-time wife to Ayendra Sedai, a member of the Half Shell Productions film crew, a gamer (primarily LOTRO and Morrowind these days), and a SCAdian. I read, watch movies, webmaster several websites, and go out hiking when the weather is good. I also started learning to kiteboard, but a herniated disk and lumbar fusion surgery have interrupted for now. New Zealand is a fabulous place for outdoor pursuits!

  • What is the craziest/stupidest thing you've ever done?

I work really hard to not act stupid so I'm not sure how to answer this. Does dedicating the bulk of the last 16 years to living and breathing a fantasy book series and its associated communities count? Or maybe more crazy would be embracing my inner wanderlust and moving to foreign countries.

  • Do you have a pet?

Yes, we have two adorable rescue cats. Asha'man is a solid, all black boy, who is quite lazy and vain enough to match his namesake, but is really very sweet and will start purring at merely a look. His sister Egwene is a more dainty little tortoiseshell, who tends to be very skittish until she decides she likes you, but then she's all over you as if you're her personal love seat. Sometimes she'll just sit there staring as us for hours with this creepy look of rapture on her face.

  • What languages do you speak?

Alas, only English. I'd love an intensive course in Scottish Gaelic, but that's hard to find if you can't relocate to Scotland for a year or two. I have tried teaching myself piecemeal over the years but never got very far.

  • Aside from The Wheel of Time, what are a few of your favorite books/series?

Let's see...a small sampling would be A Song of Ice and Fire, Mistborn, Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel/Naamah sagas, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Avalon books, Brent Weeks' works, and I still adore The Chronicles of Narnia. My Warder turned me onto the Malazan books, but while I like them they've been a very slow grind. Outlander is also a bit of indulgent fun.

  • What profession did you want to have when you were a kid?

When I was little I wanted to be pharaoh. When it became clear that wouldn't happen, I decided to be a veterinarian. Unfortunately, two years into uni I realized that the small salaries and long hours that come with large animal medicine wasn't really enough to compensate for the expense and difficulty of veterinary school. Plus, I was in a trans-oceanic relationship and hated math classes. So I switched gears and got degrees in Fisheries & Wildlife and Geography instead. Now I'm hoping to make a career of historical GIS and digitisation. I've also considered getting a qualification to teach history. If someone wants to pay me to do something WoT-related, though, I'd drop everything else in a heartbeat.

  • Seanchan or Shara?

Considering both are pretty hard on channelers, how about neither? Instead I'll choose to spend time with Shara Sedai.

  • Board games or computer games?

I love both. Computer games win out most of the time because I can play those solo, but nothing can beat a rainy day with a pot of hot tea and a good board game with friends.

  • Coke or Pepsi?

Let's go with neither. I don't drink soda except the occasional diet of whatever. My vote lies with unsweet iced tea!

  • A short bio about yourself.

I'm 32, Michiganian by birth, Texan by marriage, and Kiwi by choice. I currently live in Auckland, New Zealand, and I'm very happily married to Ayendra Sedai, also of the Brown Ajah. I hold a Bachelor's degree from Michigan State University in Fisheries and Wildlife and a Post-graduate Diploma of Science from the University of Auckland in Geography/GIS. I'm currently studying part-time for my master's, also in geography. I adore traveling and try to get out and go whenever I can, but work and finances when you're an adult get in the way of that much of the time. I've lived and studied on three continents, I once lost a cassette tape between my teeth, my favourite television shows are Bad Girls and Xena: Warrior Princess, and I make a mean sun-dried tomato dip.

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