Difference between revisions of "Eniara Kisharad"

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

Revision as of 12:26, 18 February 2015

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

Gold

Membership Merit Gold 300.png Senior Membership Merit Gold 300.png Committee Head Merit Gold 300.png Staff 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 February 15, 2006 - present

Mentoring

Mentor

Jorryn Gaille Varna

Mentees

Other Tower Relationships

Official Event Attendance

Senior Member Interview

updated July 5, 2014

  • What is your Tower name?

Eniara Kisharad

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

August 2003, and 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 as a Brown by the time I came here so I just went with what was familiar. It stuck and here I am. I tend to consider myself more Rainbow Ajah than anything, but Brown foremost among the other stripes.

  • 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. While studying at Michigan State I worked for the university library and I now work for the University of Auckland on a very Brown project where I digitise and process thousands and thousands of heritage maps.

  • 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.

  • 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 materialised. 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 a year (that felt like forever) to be raised to Aes Sedai, and that the Hall turned me down the first time I was put forward because too few people knew who I was.

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

Forever. I first met Eleyan and company at Dragon*con 2002 and joined as soon as I returned home.

  • What things do you do for TV.net?

Right now I'm serving as the Assistant to the Director of Research. I'm there when the DoR needs me for random miscellaneous stuff. Most of my time in that position so far has brainstorm assistance and some library editing. I'm still waiting for him to ask for help taking over the world. I've also served as Treasurer, an Events Committee head for several official parties, and served three terms as Sitter for the Brown Ajah. I try to contribute to the fandom in obscure ways as well. One summer I convinced my mother to slave for months sewing me 3' x 5' flags of the fifteen Westlands nations, and to my great pleasure they still get lots of use at Dragon*Con and Jordan Con each year.

  • 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 lowly freshman who'd recently changed high schools. Unfortunately for me -- being the bookworm that I was -- the last English class with space available was a period with students who were not blessed with, shall we say, "language affinity." Most of them hated reading, writing, and anything associated with either of those. So there I was, about a month into a daily routine of feeling my brain cells scream in protest and die of boredom, when we were assigned an end-of-year book report. We were encouraged to challenge ourselves by picking any book more than 100 pages and a month later present both a written and an oral report. I ran to the school library and immediately found the fattest fiction book available. I fully admit it was a very immature and snooty attitude on my part, but I was determined to demonstrate my superior intellect and show off. The book I checked out that day was a beat-up copy of The Eye of the World. I hadn't ready any major fantasy at that point, 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 gave her approval. I chewed through tEotW like candy and was hooked so fast I went right back for The Great Hunt. 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 was history. My attitude has matured leaps and bounds since then, but I'm still hooked on WoT and quit counting my re-reads after the 13th time I started tEotW.

  • Who is your favorite hero?

Moiraine has been my favorite book character from day one, and she likely always will be. It was agony waiting more than ten years for her to come back, jumping for every book to find her yet again absent!

  • Favorite bad guy/gal?

This is tougher. I think I'll have to pick Graendal. There's a little piece of me that would like to go totally hedonistic and power hungry and get away with it, just like her.

  • Favorite book and scene?

This is a toss up between New Spring and The Fires of Heaven. My favourite scene is 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.

  • 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. For a long time, though, it would've been a toss up with an Aiel.

  • 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 sat on an "Amyrlins" panel with Eleyan. 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.

  • 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 ComicCon 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 notable exceptions of gangsta rap and heavy metal.

  • 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, part of the Half Shell Productions film crew, and a gamer (primarily LOTRO and Stronghold 2 these days). I read, watch movies, webmaster several websites, and go out hiking when the weather is good. I've also started learning to kiteboard, but on-going issues with a herniated disk have interrupted that to a degree. 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 crazy or 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 sibling 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 if you merely look at him. Egwene is a more dainty little tortoiseshell, who tends to be very skittish until she decides she likes you, and then she's all over you as if she owns the place.

  • What languages do you speak?

Alas, only English. I'd love an intensive course in Scottish Gaelic, though. I have tried teaching myself piecemeal over the years but I have never gotten 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, The Lord of the Rings, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon books, Brent Weeks' works, and I still adore The Chronicles of Narnia. My Warder turned me onto the Malazan books, but they've been very slow going, and I recently finished one of the Outlander books and really enjoyed it.

  • 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 became determined to be a veterinarian. Unfortunately, two years at uni made me realize 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. 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.

  • 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 playing both. Computer games win out most of the time because you 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 Dr. Pepper or Diet Vernor's. My vote lies with unsweet iced tea!

  • A short bio about yourself.

I'm 30, Michiganian by birth, Texan by adoption, and Kiwi by choice. I currently live in Auckland, New Zealand, and I'm very happily married to Ayendra Kisharad, 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 3 continents, I once lost a cassette tape between my teeth, my favourite band is Evanescence, my favourite television show is Xena: Warrior Princess, and I make a mean sun-dried tomato dip. I think that says enough.

Back to The Brown HQ

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