NotW #76 Raiden

[Raiden]

Who are you?

Spoiler

Tell us about yourself! Where are you coming from, what languages do you speak, what do you do, how old are you, tell us a few words about your family, work etc. This is the job interview part. :D

The name's Raiden.

I come from Hillsboro, Oregon in the United States. I was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but I moved here when I was a baby.

Languages? I speak Japanese fairly well still, despite not having had much practice for two years. As for Na'vi, not so great, yet. When I have spare time I do what I can, but said time is not easy to come by for me.

I am a 22 year old male attending a community college and transferring to Oregon State University at the end of this year, majoring in Wildlife Biology. I currently work at a pet store in my city, and act as the reptile/amphibian and fish specialist. I live with my family, consisting of my sister and two parents; however, I am likely moving into an apartment or similar living space by the end of this year for school.

Why are you here?

Spoiler

What brought you here to the Learn Na'vi forum in the first place? Did you fall in love with the language? With Pandora? With a character? Did someone invite you? Or did you stumble upon this site? Once here, why did you decide to stay? How much time do you spend here every day?

My main place of residence is Tree of Souls, but I spend a fair amount of time here as well. I have friends here that also spend more time here than elsewhere, and so I switch between the two sites fairly frequently.

Where do your alias and profile pic come from?

Spoiler

Do they have a special significance? Is you alias a translation of your real name, or just a bunch of random letters thrown together? Is that you on your profile pic?

My profile name is a translation of my real surname into Japanese.

Raiden is a weather god in Japanese folklore, and is responsible for thunderstorms and lightning. When I realized the connotations this had, I started playing around with it, and eventually made up a character with which to represent myself on the internet and within online gaming networks.

I have been working on drawing him, but again, that requires free time, and that is something I do not have much of these days. This brings me to my profile image; that robot is not Raiden, but a mech named Alteisen from a video game series I enjoy playing. It's my favorite one in the game, so I'm using it for profile images and signatures, until my project with Raiden is complete.

Srak nga tsun nìna'vi pivlltxe?

Spoiler

How well? Why did you start to learn it? What is your ultimate goal with the language? Do you have specific methods/tools you use in learning the language? How did your friends, family, or colleagues react to your interest in learning Na'vi? Have you told them at all? Have you converted any of them?

Nobody knows.

I'm a very secretive person at times, and Avatar is one thing that my friends and family know that I like, they just don't know how much I like it.

I do not speak it very well. When I learn languages, I tend to keep from attempting to speak them much until I have a firm grasp of how to form sentences and construct things that make sense.

I met up with Txonä Unìl Stä'nìyu Rolyusì over the summer and he got me going with some basic things. Once I get a decent chunk of time to expand upon them, things will change in a hurry.

What's you favorite Na'vi word? Did you incorporate it (or others) into your everyday vocab?

Fwaki.

I am an insect aficionado, and the idea of a large mantid-like insect is appealing to me. I also like the way the word sounds, as well as the idiom it is incorporated into.

In your opinion, what are the top three user-created content on the LN website?

Spoiler

Anything from the main site, the wiki, or the forum including language docs, threads, quotes, literary works, images, etc.

Dictionary
Na'vi in a Nutshell
Navi Workbook

All three are quite useful and those who constructed them deserve the utmost praise.

Have you made any contributions to the LN community that you're particularly proud of?

Spoiler

What made you make those? Do you plan on contributing (again) in the future? How?

No.

There isn't much a Biology major can do for a website, unless we're talking about spiders.

What is it that you liked/hated the most about Avatar ?

Spoiler

How many times have you seen it? How big of an Avatard are you? Prove it! :D

Hmm.

I've seen it perhaps a dozen times. I don't watch movies for no reason, especially movies that are emotionally compelling.

What I liked about it requires a more complicated answer...

When I was about 5, my mother started taking me for walks around my neighborhood.

I live on a long residential street that gives way to a larger road leading towards a small city on one end and to wilderness and agricultural land at the other. At the end of the road is a park.

One day me and my mother went to the park. I was obsessed with fish and snakes and other animals already (my first book was called "snakes are hunters"), and when I found that this part had a stream and a forest, I was delighted. I found newts, salamanders, snakes, raccoons, mushrooms, wildflowers, butterflies, frogs, owl, squirrels, and many, many other things on my walks in that forest.

Eventually, a few years later, I was allowed to go for walks on my own. I spent many hours in the forest, watching and learning from the plants and animals that lived there. They taught me compassion, and they taught me to respect the other creatures that I share this world with.

Then, when I was about ten, I entered the treeline like I usually did and began down one of the many footpaths. But something was wrong.

It was silent. Not the usual silence, interspersed with insect chirps and bird calls, but the silence the accompanies death. I walked deeper into the forest, and I started to get worried.

Then, before my very eyes, the trees opened up into a much different sight. Dozens of bulldozers were carving away at the earth, like great yellow maggots. Other machines cut trees down or carried lumber to trucks to be butchered and turned into plywood too shocked to do anything, I ran home in tears. My forest, within twenty-four hours, was reduced to a thin rind of trees surrounding an earthen pit.

Soon, framework rose from the ground, and the empty space was filled with cheap housing.

That event made me promise to myself that I would do something in return for what the forest gave me. I became embittered by the event, and it seemed like nobody else around me really cared. They didn't care that the salamanders were crushed under the cold steel treads of the bulldozers, or that the fish in the stream died from the increased runoff pollution, or that the wildflowers were trampled, all for a little bit of green paper.

A decade or so later, and I'm still bitter. I'm surrounded by droves of the same people.Then, one night in April, I decide to go see a movie with my father. It was called "Avatar".

I had heard a lot about it, but I didn't pay much attention. I sat down for the movie, and saw the mining pit in the beginning. My jaws clenched out of anger, and I didn't know it, but I was hooked.

By the end of the movie, I was dazed. I was expecting to walk out of the cinema and find myself in the jungle, and I was acutely disappointed when I felt the cold embrace of concrete slapping against my shoes instead of delicate mosses and saplings brushing against my legs.

Fast-forward to now, and Avatar has shown many, many people the things I've been trying to say for years. That is the main reason why I liked it, and why I still like it.

Has Avatar  changed your life in any way?

Spoiler

Are you trying to become a Na'vi? How and to what extent? Do you live on a tree? Do you wear your hair in a long braid? Or are you just simply blue? Do you bond with animals? Is Gaia on your contact list? Did you have your photo 'shopped?

Yes.

I have long been of the opinion that love is a waste of time.

Avatar forced me to look at love when it is pure and unsullied by the likes of business and money, and what I saw shook the foundations of my opinions regarding it.

If you could ask Frommer or Cameron three movie or language related questions what would they be?

Spoiler

You can make requests specific words/expressions too.

1) Will there be more variety in the creatures shown in other works?

2) Will there be more Avatars in other works?

3) Will there be a second alien race in other works (besides the Na'vi)?

What else do you do in your free time?

I enjoy playing video games, but I also enjoy building models, and drawing.

I am also a certified scuba diver, and I go on trips every few summers to Washington state to go diving.

Finally, I enjoy keeping reptiles, fish, invertebrates, and amphibians in captivity. More on that later...

Name your top three favorite Earth animals from most favorite to least. Why those? What's the animal you're most terrified of?

This is very difficult...there are many that I like...

Hmmm...

1) Varanus giganteus, the perentie. A very large species of Australian monitor lizard, and one of the smartest lizards in the world.

2) Dynastes hercules, the Hercules beetle. Scarabid beetles are awesome. These little fellas are built like tanks, and large specimens can lift things many times their own size.

3) Mastacembelus erythrotaenia, the Fire Eel. Not a true eel, but related to seahorses. They reach lengths of greater than four feet, and are inquisitive and interesting aquarium inhabitants.

Pirate, ninja, zombie, or robot?

Spoiler

Something else? Maybe a combo? Exactly what subtype? Why? (For those of you not so versed in trash tropes, this question basically amounts to asking "What superpowers would you like to have?")

Robot.

Or, more specifically, a permanent suit of biomechanical armor.

What three items would you take to a desert island and why?

Spoiler

Anything from books, movies, games, instruments, music, sporting equipment, etc. You'd be provided with means to fully utilize the chosen items – electricity, MP3 player, etc. –, but you couldn't use them for anything else. Escape is not possible. :D

1) Jet fuel.

2) Pilot helmet.

3) A jumbo jet. Do I win a prize?

If you could travel to anywhere in space and time (including fictional universes), where would you go and why?

I dunno...

Zebes, Tallon IV, or Pandora.

If you were granted one single wish what would it be?

A suit of biomechanical armor with integrated weapons systems.

What is a question you'd ask yourself? How would you answer it?

Q: What reptile do you want to keep next?

A: A Veiled Chameleon.

True or false?

Spoiler

Write three statements about yourself, the more extravagant the better. At least one of them must be true. At the end of the week, you'll have to tell which ones were truthful and which made up.

1) I have spent time with a Pacific Giant Octopus at 70 ft.

2) I have a bleeding disorder called Von Willebrand's disease.

3) I'm friends with a fish named "Prince".

What is the funniest, weirdest, or most embarrassing Na'vi or Avatar  related thing that has happened to you?

Spoiler

Something along the lines of a MLIA short.

No, not really.

I keep to myself with the Avatar stuff. Although, I hung out with Txonä Unil Stä'nìyu Rolyusì over the summer, and we went to a fair. At the fair was a stand selling colored feathers...we're both cosplaying as Na'vi at the next meetup, so we were looking at the feathers. All the people running the stand were women, and they were giving us strange looks. -___-'

...

Spoiler

Do you have any pets? .

I said I'd say more about this later, didn't I?

Herpetoculture is the husbandry of reptiles and amphibians in one's home. I like animals quite a bit, and I've been keeping ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) since I was six or seven.

http://i.imgur.com/Wxf5J.png

http://i.imgur.com/UeGNm.png

http://i.imgur.com/JFXKI.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Cw07B.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7rdUP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/HInmQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bILgz.png

http://i.imgur.com/N2uqn.png

http://i.imgur.com/3FHhA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iuWo0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UYS2f.jpg







Not a ectotherm, but she's cool anyway:

http://i.imgur.com/MVN7H.jpg

This is why I don't have that much free time.

They're a lot of work, but coming home from a crappy day to be greeted by a few dozen smiling faces is pretty damn rewarding.

If you want to ask questions about them, go ahead. Telling you about all of them would take another thread. :P

Mod edit: you had the number wrong

[AketuanNavi]

Congratulations Raiden! 

By the end of the movie, I was dazed. I was expecting to walk out of the cinema and find myself in the jungle, and I was acutely disappointed when I felt the cold embrace of concrete slapping against my shoes instead of delicate mosses and saplings brushing against my legs.

well said, similar here.


I really think you have the most awesome selection of creatures I've seen.


Let's see here....     T/T/F

[Txonä Unil Stä'nìyu Rolyusì]

WOU!!! Ma Raiden nga lu Na'vi kintrrä srak? Txantsan!!!! 

Srak nga tsun nìna'vi pivlltxe?

Spoiler

How well? Why did you start to learn it? What is your ultimate goal with the language? Do you have specific methods/tools you use in learning the language? How did your friends, family, or colleagues react to your interest in learning Na'vi? Have you told them at all? Have you converted any of them?

Nobody knows.

I'm a very secretive person at times, and Avatar is one thing that my friends and family know that I like, they just don't know how much I like it.

I do not speak it very well. When I learn languages, I tend to keep from attempting to speak them much until I have a firm grasp of how to form sentences and construct things that make sense.

That is actually going to hinder your learning. Like I tell everyone, zene fko tskxekeng sivi fte nivume. I'd never be at the level I'm at now if I didn't practice. When I was starting out I would use every little bit that I knew and try to construct all the sentences I could. I encourage you to do the same. If you have to use the dictionary for every word, so be it. Would you believe that there was a time when I did that? Just give it a try, don't fear being wrong about something, making mistakes is a part of learning. There are plenty of people here on LN ready and willing to help if you have questions

What is it that you liked/hated the most about Avatar ?

Spoiler

How many times have you seen it? How big of an Avatard are you? Prove it!

Hmm.

I've seen it perhaps a dozen times. I don't watch movies for no reason, especially movies that are emotionally compelling.

What I liked about it requires a more complicated answer...

When I was about 5, my mother started taking me for walks around my neighborhood.

I live on a long residential street that gives way to a larger road leading towards a small city on one end and to wilderness and agricultural land at the other. At the end of the road is a park.

One day me and my mother went to the park. I was obsessed with fish and snakes and other animals already (my first book was called "snakes are hunters"), and when I found that this part had a stream and a forest, I was delighted. I found newts, salamanders, snakes, raccoons, mushrooms, wildflowers, butterflies, frogs, owl, squirrels, and many, many other things on my walks in that forest.

Eventually, a few years later, I was allowed to go for walks on my own. I spent many hours in the forest, watching and learning from the plants and animals that lived there. They taught me compassion, and they taught me to respect the other creatures that I share this world with.

Then, when I was about ten, I entered the treeline like I usually did and began down one of the many footpaths. But something was wrong.

It was silent. Not the usual silence, interspersed with insect chirps and bird calls, but the silence the accompanies death. I walked deeper into the forest, and I started to get worried.

Then, before my very eyes, the trees opened up into a much different sight. Dozens of bulldozers were carving away at the earth, like great yellow maggots. Other machines cut trees down or carried lumber to trucks to be butchered and turned into plywood too shocked to do anything, I ran home in tears. My forest, within twenty-four hours, was reduced to a thin rind of trees surrounding an earthen pit.

Soon, framework rose from the ground, and the empty space was filled with cheap housing.

That event made me promise to myself that I would do something in return for what the forest gave me. I became embittered by the event, and it seemed like nobody else around me really cared. They didn't care that the salamanders were crushed under the cold steel treads of the bulldozers, or that the fish in the stream died from the increased runoff pollution, or that the wildflowers were trampled, all for a little bit of green paper.

A decade or so later, and I'm still bitter. I'm surrounded by droves of the same people.Then, one night in April, I decide to go see a movie with my father. It was called "Avatar".

I had heard a lot about it, but I didn't pay much attention. I sat down for the movie, and saw the mining pit in the beginning. My jaws clenched out of anger, and I didn't know it, but I was hooked.

By the end of the movie, I was dazed. I was expecting to walk out of the cinema and find myself in the jungle, and I was acutely disappointed when I felt the cold embrace of concrete slapping against my shoes instead of delicate mosses and saplings brushing against my legs.

Fast-forward to now, and Avatar has shown many, many people the things I've been trying to say for years. That is the main reason why I liked it, and why I still like it.

Wow, that's deep man. That's really cool that you were able to connect with Avatar on such a level as this.

Has Avatar  changed your life in any way?

Spoiler

Are you trying to become a Na'vi? How and to what extent? Do you live on a tree? Do you wear your hair in a long braid? Or are you just simply blue? Do you bond with animals? Is Gaia on your contact list? Did you have your photo 'shopped?

Yes.

I have long been of the opinion that love is a waste of time.

Avatar forced me to look at love when it is pure and unsullied by the likes of business and money, and what I saw shook the foundations of my opinions regarding it.

Once again, that's deep.

What else do you do in your free time?

I enjoy playing video games, but I also enjoy building models, and drawing.

I am also a certified scuba diver, and I go on trips every few summers to Washington state to go diving.

Finally, I enjoy keeping reptiles, fish, invertebrates, and amphibians in captivity. More on that later...

I still want to go scuba diving with you sometime!

True or false?

Spoiler

Write three statements about yourself, the more extravagant the better. At least one of them must be true. At the end of the week, you'll have to tell which ones were truthful and which made up.

1) I have spent time with a Pacific Giant Octopus at 70 ft.

2) I have a bleeding disorder called Von Willebrand's disease.

3) I'm friends with a fish named "Prince".

Imma say T/F/T

What is the funniest, weirdest, or most embarrassing Na'vi or Avatar  related thing that has happened to you?

Spoiler

Something along the lines of a MLIA short.

No, not really.

I keep to myself with the Avatar stuff. Although, I hung out with Txonä Unil Stä'nìyu Rolyusì over the summer, and we went to a fair. At the fair was a stand selling colored feathers...we're both cosplaying as Na'vi at the next meetup, so we were looking at the feathers. All the people running the stand were women, and they were giving us strange looks. -___-'

Squeeeeee I got a mention! Lol. Yeah I remember that, they were like 'WTF are these guys for real?' Yeah, I'm for real....a for real Avatar geek buying accessories for my Na'vi costume LOL!

...

Spoiler

Do you have any pets? .

I said I'd say more about this later, didn't I?

Herpetoculture is the husbandry of reptiles and amphibians in one's home. I like animals quite a bit, and I've been keeping ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) since I was six or seven.

http://i.imgur.com/Wxf5J.png

http://i.imgur.com/UeGNm.png

http://i.imgur.com/JFXKI.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Cw07B.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7rdUP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/HInmQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bILgz.png

http://i.imgur.com/N2uqn.png

http://i.imgur.com/3FHhA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iuWo0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UYS2f.jpg







Not a ectotherm, but she's cool anyway:

http://i.imgur.com/MVN7H.jpg

This is why I don't have that much free time.

They're a lot of work, but coming home from a crappy day to be greeted by a few dozen smiling faces is pretty damn rewarding.

If you want to ask questions about them, go ahead. Telling you about all of them would take another thread.

Mod edit: you had the number wrong

Tewti txantsana ayrel! Tse ngeyä kintrr sivunu ngaru ma tsmukan

-Txonä Rolyu

[Ekirä]

Congrats, Raiden! I love all your animals, they look amazing. I can't say this honestly without ever having met them, but I think Kenobi's my favorite.

Guessing True, False, True.

Enjoy your week.

[Syulang]

Congrats ma Kaiden!  I guess T/F/T.

[Txonä Unil Stä'nìyu Rolyusì]

Srak nga tsun nìna'vi pivlltxe?

Spoiler

How well? Why did you start to learn it? What is your ultimate goal with the language? Do you have specific methods/tools you use in learning the language? How did your friends, family, or colleagues react to your interest in learning Na'vi? Have you told them at all? Have you converted any of them?

Nobody knows.

I'm a very secretive person at times, and Avatar is one thing that my friends and family know that I like, they just don't know how much I like it.

I do not speak it very well. When I learn languages, I tend to keep from attempting to speak them much until I have a firm grasp of how to form sentences and construct things that make sense.

I met up with Txonä Unìl Stä'nìyu Rolyusì over the summer and he got me going with some basic things. Once I get a decent chunk of time to expand upon them, things will change in a hurry.

*Keytsyokx* I totally didn't see that. I'm glad I could get you started, just remember to keep practicing

-Txonä Rolyu

[Human No More]

Congratulations - you deserved this for a long time.

I'd already heard your story, but still makes me sad

I didn't know you dived... but based on that, I'm going to answer:
Ng/Ts/Ng

PS. It says on the island question that escape is impossible - otherwise my choices would have been a GPS receiver, a satellite phone and a flaregun

[Alyara Arati]

Congratulations.  I'm glad that you're feeling less embittered and more open towards love.  I've always believed that hope engenders change.

Anyway, wild guesses here, T/T/F.

[Seze Mune]

Tewti, Raiden!  I enjoyed reading about your reptiles.  As a little one, I used to catch garter snakes every chance I got.  I  let them go in my backyard...til Dad ran over 'Buddy' with the lawn mower. Sad day, that was.

One big surprise I had was opening my grass-lined shoebox the morning after I caught one garter snake, only to be greeted by the sight of a tangle of little snakes around the big one.  That shocked me.  I didn't know any snakes had live births, but that was one cool way to learn!  And yes, I let them all go immediately.

[archaic]

こんにちは ma Raiden.

I sympathize, none of my RL friends know I'm here either. And my Na'vi sucks too!
Good luck with you're studies. Wildlife Biology, a broad and interesting subject, any plans on where to go with that after college? And good luck too with the apartment/whereever!

OK, so my T/F guesses .....
1. True, I hope this is true, would have been awesome.
2. True, Von Willebrand's disease is not that uncommon.
3. True, seems perfectly possible.

[Swoka Ikran]

Congrats, ma Raiden. Your story is quite depressing

I'll guess Ng/Ts/Ng.

[Yayo]

Aw yeah Raiden,
Perenties pwn, you got that correct. Your writing style is very engaging, that I must say.

As for the T/F:
Ng, Ng, Ng.

Enjoy your week!

['Oma Tirea]

Week's over, ma 'eylan.

Ma Raiden, please tell us the answers to your True/False questions and close the thread.

EDIT: to do this, hit "reply" and make sure "lock this topic" is checked.