Who, exactly, is PaedragGaidin? What does the name actually
mean? Well, PaedragGaidin is the online moniker for Patrick Michael Hayes, namely,
me. I've been using PaedragGaidin since the late spring of 2000. Concerning the origins of the name itself...if you
really want to know,
click here to read the full story.
I'm a 28-year-old college junior attending
Wichita State University, studying
history,
political science, and
geology, and I've lived in Wichita, Kansas my entire life. I was born seven weeks premature on one cold, icy March morning way back in 1979, in the Bad Old Days when preemies as little as myself generally did not survive for very long. In fact, at the time I was the littlest preemie who did survive birth at Wesley Medical Center, which was then on the very cutting edge of
neonatology. Both I and my mother very nearly didn't make it through the day. The doctors told my parents that I would most likely die within a few hours, due to my prematurity and its associated severe effects. That afternoon, I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, christened Patrick Michael, and given the Last Rites...
...and here I am, all those long years later, somehow still alive and kicking. I attribute my survival to the excellent doctors, nurses, and other medical staff at Wesley, to my parent's unfailing love and confidence in my chances, and more than anything else to the grace and mercy of God. It's been a long and somewhat harrowing journey through the rest of life, so far, but here I am, nonetheless.
If you're interested in my ethnicity, by most definitions I am of mixed race, half Lebanese and something like half Irish with a little English and Scottish thrown in for good measure (as I'm fond of saying, I'm half-Celt, half-Arab, and all-Crazy). Politically...in a city dominated by a split citizenry of conservative Republican and liberal Democrat, I am a moderate Libertarian. Religiously I am Roman Catholic, and I consider myself a moderate in that sphere as well, albeit an orthodox one. [For religious and political elaborations, please see my
faith and
politics pages.] In a place where driving at the age of sixteen is considered a divinely-bestowed right and one step short of a qualification for citizenship, I have never driven and nor do I plan to learn. With bars and liquor stores all over the map, I don't drink. Putting those last two together, I also don't drink and drive, which is more than I can say for a third of the city's populace on your average Saturday night.
My hobbies include reading, writing, webdesign, eating at Chinese buffets, listening to goth metal, and being moody. I don't have much a social life, and never have, so the Internet has become the place where most of my friendships have formed. I am a history nut, especially with regards to ancient Rome, and I'm also inordinately fond of the Habsburgs and their various empires. I'm a notorious Trekkie and fantasy literature geek, and I have a rather strange taste in music.
I first signed on to the now-defunct Pages of Prophecy chatroom in May of 2000 as one Paedrag su Hazadred, the names being my real name cleverly adapted to take a
Cairhienin-sounding form. Anyway, in short order I was
Bonded, and proceeded through two Bondings to arrive at my third, now entering into its third glorious year. Being Bonded, I took the ancient
Warder's title of
gaidin and added it to my name. My lovely
Aes Sedai is the incomparable Kinarra Sedai, who I've known since that first summer long ago when I was newly a netizen. [If you don't know what Cairhienin, Bonding, Aes Sedai, or Warder means, I'll assume you haven't read Robert Jordan's
The Wheel of Time series. You should. But for your convenience I have created a
mini glossary of the terms.]
Gaidin literally means "brother to battles" in the
Old Tongue, and is the formal title for a Warder. As for "Paedrag," not only is it the ancient Irish form of my given name, but in the Wheel of Time books, one of the renowned Heroes of the Horn is one "Paedrig the Golden-Tongued Peacemaker," who moreover was known as "Patrick" in other Ages. This was simply too good an opportunity to pass up, so I changed one letter and "Paedrag" was born.
Over the ensuing years, various online friends shortened Paedrag into several nicknames, including Paed, Peed, and Pea. Later, I adopted three other enduring online names, The Sleepless Wonder (the origins of which necessitate a long story), Asmodean, and Shaidar Haran, the latter two of whom are my favorite evil characters from the Wheel of Time. Concerning Shaidar Haran:
It has been said that all Myrddraal are virtually alike, but at least one variation from the norm has been sighted. It is a Myrddraal unlike all others. Its very name, Shaidar Haran, meaning "Hand of the Dark," is in the Old Tongue, rather than in the Trolloc language like the names of all other Halfmen. Where most Myrddraal are the height of a tall man, Shaidar Haran stands taller by several feet, towering head and shoulders above man and Halfman alike. Its demeanor is one of arrogance, rather than servitude, even to the point of commanding Forsaken, and it has evinced a definite dark sense of humor, something previously unknown among Myrddraal.
World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
And as for Asmodean:
Probably the man among the Forsaken with the most unusual reason for turning to the Shadow is Asmodean. A dark-eyed, dark-haired, handsome man, Joar Addam Nessosin was an acclaimed composer before the War of the Shadow. Born in the small port city of Shorelle (location unknown), he was a child prodigy, in both composition and performance on a wide range of instruments.... It is reliably reported that his reason for dedicating his soul to the Shadow was the promise of immortality. With eternity at his disposal, surely he would reach [the] greatness and, perhaps even more important, the recognition of it that had eluded him. It is believed that he never held any field commands, though he did take part in a number of battles on some level, and he served as a governor of conquered areas.
World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
Yes, I fully realize that most of this probably seems silly to some, but I really don't care. At least I have tried to be somewhat original in picking online "screen names," unlike the masses who concoct such things as "JoeBlow1986" and "SexxxyTeenChick." I pretty much try to keep the online and "real-life" personae as close as possible, except where Shaidar Haran's "evilness" is concerned. I'm no great actor, and nor do I ever hope to be, and I see little use in extensively masking my real personality when I engage in online conversations. I will say that I am much more outgoing online than I am in real life, where my social life is virtually nonexistent.
