Raising My Wand in Support.

Happy last day of July, everybody!

It's Harry Potter's birthday today, and I felt that it would be appropriate to have this blog be centered around how much the boy wizard means to me.

How much does Harry Potter mean to me? Well, he means the world to me.

I would not be the avid reader I am today if it weren't for the Potter series. Before I started reading Potter, I certainly enjoyed reading, but it wasn't until after I started reading the series that I would often be found with my nose buried in a book.

A lot of people I know write the series off as one for kids, as something silly, as a poorly-written excuse for a kids novel. They don't get it. They don't get that it's real for me and for so many others. The Harry Potter series taught me many of the crucial lessons and skills people need in their lives. Harry taught me to be brave, to not give up on my friends and to be accepting of all people - that everyone has something to contribute, even't if it doesn't appear that way initially. Hermione taught me that it's okay to be smart. Neville taught me to believe in myself, to not give up and try my best. Ron showed me what it was to be loyal, never giving up on your friends. Above all, the series taught me that you're stronger united than divided, and that good will triumph over evil.

Harry Potter isn't just a character in a book - he's my friend. And he's many other people's friend too. We've all grown up with him: laughed with him, suffered through the awkward teenage years when nothing is right with him, cried with him, grown up with him. And he's always been there when we needed to cry or escape from the world. All we needed to do was open a book and be transported to a fantastic land of wizards and dragons and a magical school.

Without Harry Potter, I do not know if I would have the love of English and books that I do today. I would be a lot sadder than I am. Thanks to Harry and JK Rowling, I know that if I need a pickmeup, I can just crack open one of seven amazing books and instantly be transported away.

So, thank you, Jo Rowling. Thank you for everything.

Cicadas are the soundtrack of my summer

Alrightio. I think this is try number.....five hundred forty-seven or something to get a regular blog going. It's actually only try four or five, but it feels like it's try number five-four-seven.  I know I can do this, I just have to remember to do it. I always remember at awkward hours, like 2am on a Thursday night or while I'm at work or taking a shower or something, always times that I can't get to a computer and write up a blog post. Regardless of all my excuses for not blogging since May 15th (all the excuses consisted of I forgot/I was too busy watching shows on Netflix/stalking tumblr), I'm going to try to blog more. I'm definitely going to try for once a weekend, and maybe another post during the week if I have something I want to say/write something I really like and want to share it and get feedback.

Anyway. My life has been very busy since I last blogged over two months ago. I graduated high school, went to DestinationImagination Global Finals to support my sister's DI team, I flew down to Texas the next week for my best friend's graduation from high school, and then I worked a bunch until I went to Ithaca, NY the beginning of July to help my sister Dariana look for apartments and a job, as she and her roommate Kim will be moving there this weekend. In addition, I spent a week down in Florida for LeakyCon 2011, where I met many of my friends from the MuggleCast Fan Forums - all of whom I have been friends with since my freshman year of high school, but I just met a couple of weeks ago.

LeakyCon was, in a single word, insane. It was very poorly organized, leading to me choosing to spend plenty of time hanging out with my friends instead of going to programming. Of all the programming, I only went to the wizard rock shows Thursday and Friday night, and the last ten or fifteen minutes of the Luna, Percy and the Kids keynote on Saturday. I would have gone to more of it, but Saturday was my only chance to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, so I chose the themepark over the Luna, Percy & the Kids event. I didn't officially meet Evanna Lynch, but I saw her on multiple occasions: she was up on stage during The Remus Lupins' set, the Whomping Willows' set (She danced her Nargles dance during 'I Believe in Nargles! It was adorable and amazing.), Draco and the Malfoys' set (I think), and she played bass during one of Harry and the Potters' songs. Seeing her there in front of me was so surreal; this person who I knew as Luna and only saw her on the screen was this real person who is just as big of a Potter fan as I am. It was amazing.

I could probably write an entire blogpost about the themepark, but I think I'll save that for another post - maybe one of my midweek posts. There's a lot more I want to say in this post. To finish the LeakyCon section (ugh, terrible transition. Good thing this isn't a conclusion paragraph. Well, it is, but it's not a concluding paragraph for the entire post. Just for the LeakyCon section.), I'll just say that all my friends are completely lovely and I really hope that we can meet up in Chicago some time this upcoming school year, as I won't be able to make it to Wrockstock and I don't know if I'll be able to make it to Ascendio/LeakyCon next summer (if LeakyCon 2012 happens, that is). I really hope I'll be able to make it to a Con next summer, because I really want to be able to see my friends again. LeakyCon just reminded me how much I cherish my online friends, and I'm so glad I joined the MCFF back in seventh or eight grade. 2007 or 2008. Wow. Have I really been friends with these people for five years? It hasn't felt like that long at all.

Moving on from LeakyCon/MCFF reminiscing, we're up to now, where I have been working a ton to help my parents pay for college. College has been a whole 'nother ball of stress. I start at Knox in a little over five weeks, and I honestly can't believe it. I'm definitely ready to move out of Fairfield and experience what life outside my little protected bubble is like, as well as be completely independent and make decisions for myself - what I eat and when I eat, when I sleep, when I go to class - but at the same time I'm extremely nervous. I'm used to relying on my parents for everything, and very soon I'll have to rely on me to take care of myself. It's a scary thought, but I'm looking forward to it.

I also selected my courses I'll be taking in the fall, or at least I chose the courses I'd like to take, regardless of what class period they'd be in (all of which seemed to be sixth period, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Not helpful.). For my first-year preceptorial, I chose the Learning to See Water one - discussions about what is invisible to us in the world around us, much like water is invisible to a fish. For the other two classes, I chose an Introduction to Literature course and a Philosophy course - Creative Reasoning. I'm quite excited for Intro to Lit: Knox's English department is fantastic, and I love English, literature and everything to do with it. The Philosophy course should be quite interesting as well - it'll basically be a course in critical thinking, which I desperately need. And Philosophy is just fascinating in itself. I'm excited. We'll see what courses I'll get when I arrive for freshman orientation on September 3rd. I can't wait to go to college.

I'll probably post more once I start college, since I'll probably be posting the stuff I write for my Intro to Lit course. I don't know. We'll see.

This thing is starting to wind down, and I really want to start watching Battlestar, mainly so Keith will get off my back for watching it, but also because I do genuinely want to watch it. And, don't get me wrong, I love Scrubs, but it's starting to feel a little repetitive, and Dr Cox is the only character who really has any development - the other characters do, but it's not as noticeable as Dr. Cox's development. I'll definitely still finish the series though - I'm 3.5 seasons in, and I want to watch the rest of it. I'll just watch Battlestar on the side.

Alrighty. Goodnight, blogger. I'll post again on Sunday. Hold me to it if I forget!!

Allons-y, Alonso.

LeakyCon....LineCon....LOLCon...Whatever you want to call it-Con.

Alrighty. Hello again, Blogger. Yes, it's been a while. Over two months. So much for weekly blogposts, eh? I'll try and start regular posts again on Sunday, but for now I'd like to share my top five favorite LeakyCon moments. 
In no particular order:

1) Meeting everyone from MCFF who I’d been friends with for 3-4 years but I hadn’t met yet. Meeting them was everything I had hoped it would be and even more. And I’m really glad that our friendship translated to irl as well as it does online. 

2) Everything about the park. The Forbidden Journey, going in all the stores, Ollivanders, the fact that Moaning Myrtle screamed at you from the bathroom…. everything. Everything was just brilliant. It was a Harry Potter geek's dream.

3) The movie. Oh my goodness the movie. Seeing it for the first time with all my best friends was absolutely perfect. I can't imagine what it will be like seeing it again without them.

4) Being independent for a week. Choosing when I slept, when I ate, what I do, etc. gave me a taste of what college will be like next year, and made me that much more excited for it. 

5) Going on a spiel at Alex Carpenter about how much Summer ‘09 sucked and how miserable I was and how his music kept me going and it was the one thing that made me somewhat happy that summer, and thanking him for everything and actually starting to cry a bit, and then him ending it with hugging me super tightly for a long time and saying “I am so glad we’re friends.” (Run-on sentence is extremely run-on. I do not care.) I don’t care WHAT anyone says about that man, he is one of the sweetest and most genuine people I’ve ever met, and he actually cares about his fans. He’s so amazing and I just love him so much. 

…. number five was not supposed to be that long. Whatevs, whatevs. I have no regrets.

Okay. Hopefully will be back in a couple days for a regular post. We'll see. Until then.

Allons-y, Allonso.