for when I need a Pensieve

If you don't know what a Pensieve is then you need to read Harry Potter right now. But really, bookmark this post and get on Amazon. Right now. And then you'll have thorough knowledge of the Pensieve.

So, you're back from reading all of Harry? Great. So by now you know that the Pensieve is that nifty tool of Dumbledore's that he uses to guide and organize his thoughts. As Dumbledore himself puts it, "One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin [Pensieve], and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form."

If I had a Pensieve hanging around my bedroom, I would take a moment and extract all my half-collected thoughts about what I still need to do for Christmas: what I still need to buy, to make, and to send. I think it would be so much easier to make decisions about what projects to abandon and which to stick to if I could gaze at them all in the Pensieve.

Then I would tackle everything related to our Christmas trip. Last night I spent a solid hour making to-do lists and packing lists and figuring out the calendar this week. Then Josh surprised me by taking Friday off as well, so now I'll have a minion husband to help me with cleaning and toddler duty. Every time I travel now, I'm overwhelmed by all that I have to remember to bring for the boy. It's insane. Pensieve, where are you when I need you?

Then I'd siphon off all my 2014 resolutions so I could examine them when my world calms down a little. I think I'll actually have a list of goals this year, and I can't remember the last time I approached a new year that way.

If I had time after all that rigmarole of Pensieve-ing, I'd revisit some old Christmas memories, remembrances of what it was like to believe in Santa, that year we announced we were pregnant, the year we spent in Canada, the year we were snowed in, the last year with my Grandma. That would be nice.

So. Clearly I need a Pensieve stat. And whoever gets on that, can you figure out apparition too? That would be great.

weekend plans

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Obviously.

HP + YouTube

We went to see the first part of the seventh Harry Potter installment on Friday. And I loved it, naturally. I thought it did an excellent job of staying true to the book, which perhaps lent itself to a bit of slowness, but really, I absolutely loved it.

My favorite HP trailer.



My reason for wishing I was back at BYU last Friday:



Happy Harry Potter film, readers. You know I just loved every second.

my favorite part

I listed many good things I love about my internship, and I feel the need to expand on my favorite good part: the other interns.

From day one we were friends. We have a standing lunch appointment every day for anyone who wants to come and we have inside jokes and laugh about the magazines' idiosyncrasies. Many of us also ride the bus together. I often ask them to read over pieces I've written for input and editing. We have a camaraderie that makes work more fun.

Within the first month or so of the internship we discovered a mutual love(infatuation) for Harry Potter (I know--you're thinking I've found my soul mates). So in celebration of Harry's birthday (last Saturday), we dubbed today Harry Potter day at work and all subtly dressed up as various HP characters.

From left to right: Rachel (Madam Hooch), me (Bellatrix), Breanna (Hermione, though she had another obligation today that trumped dressing up for HP day), Diane (Professor Trelawny), Holly (Professor Umbridge), and Tom (Harry--obviously). Not pictured: Whitney (Lavender Brown).

We just have a lot of fun. I think I'm going to miss them a lot.

snapshot

A snippet of texting conversation between Emily and me.

Me: How do wizard/witch children learn how to read, write, and add? Harry, growing up as a Muggle, had an advantage that way. Are there primary schools for magic children, or are their parents responsible for all of their non-magic education?

Emily: I've given a lot of thought to that matter. I would expect there to be primary schools with plenty of home instruction thrown in. The Weasleys probably couldn't afford primary school, though, so they likely learned at home.

The conversation didn't end there.

Preparation

Emily and I are both unemployed and decided to take advantage of an otherwise bummer situation. We watched all five Harry Potter movies in one week. We initially wanted to watch one a day Monday through Friday, but come Friday, we had a crazy day and couldn't. Saturday was crazy. But Sunday let us finish our HP goal.

We critiqued each movie and made comparisons of the film adaptations to the books, which both of us know freakishly well. I felt incredibly dorky, but it was fun. Here are our summarized opinions:

• HP 1, Sorcerer's Stone: Pretty low quality. Acting pretty poor but hilarious. Dumbledore awesome. Quidditch pretty cool. Hogwarts warm feel.
• HP 2, Chamber of Secrets: Still kind of low quality. Acting a little better but still. Dumbledore still cool. Basilisk pretty cool. Lockhart hilarious.
• HP 3, Prisoner of Azkaban: Lamest one. Too fast. Creepy Rastafarian head in Knight Bus. Not such a fan of Sirius. Trelawny (Emma Thompson) hilarious. Dumb way of portraying werewolf. Lupin pretty good. Dementors pretty good. New Dumbledore--adjustment. Glad when it ended.
• HP 4, Goblet of Fire: By far better than 3. Fast paced but not too fast. Quidditch World Cup awesome. Death Eaters scary. Cedric Diggory dreamy. Dragon sweet. Voldemort frightening. Overall awesome movie.
• HP 5, Order of the Phoenix: Super super awesome. Loved it. Kept the viewer involved. Umbridge nasty. DA cool. Harry-Cho kiss impressive. Dumbledore and Voldemort's duel pretty awesome. Harry's possession by Voldemort well acted. Stellar movie.

We're ready for HP 6, Half-Blood Prince. Ha this is what continued unemployment brings--ultimate HP freakishness.

how about a filtering system?

I've had an account with goodreads.com for a while but haven't really done anything with it until now. In short, I love it. Of course. It's like a not-stalkerish facebook for cool people who read. It's incredible. Over the weekend I spent undisclosed amounts of time perusing the pages and pages of quotes, which was way fun, but I did find one thing slightly unsettling: several quotes per page were from the Twilight books. Granted, I have read the Twilight books, and I enjoyed them for the basic story line. (I even posted about it last summer.) However, the writing is truly deplorable. When I told Mom this afternoon about goodreads catering to Twilight quotes, she responded with "What can you quote from Twilight?!" Yup. I refuse to add those quotes to my favorite quotes list; you will not see Twilight quotes on my goodreads sidebar. Ever. (Harry Potter quotes will grace my goodreads quotes rotation. Obviously.)

I vote for implementing a filtering system: any proposed quotes to be added to the goodreads quotes archive, just pass it by me. I'll sign off. Then we can avoid travesties like this one: however enthralling sparkling vampires are--and I admit to reading all of them and enjoying the concept--Twilight is literary kitsch, not literature. No way.

Elitist? Maybe.

"I can't help it, baby; this is who I am"--Jimmy Eat World.

back to Hogwarts

Technically I'm going back to BYU, but given the fact that I will be listening to HP for at least the next week, I think it's safe to say that Hogwarts is my real destination.

Good morning, Charlotte--I'm your migraine

That's how I woke up this morning. Throbbing pain in the left side of my head, nausea, attempting to squash my pain by digging my head deeper into the pillow. Up and at 'em, right?

Semi-remedy: pop a couple of heavy painkillers, crawl back to bed and listen to Harry Potter for a hour, feel somewhat better, get up, get to class late.

Traces of the headache are still there, unfortunately. I've been flaky all day: I forgot the textbook I needed for my oral presentation today in editing, I forgot to print up my final draft for my editing news blurb, I didn't have time to finish my Jane Eyre reading.

I'd rather have the flu.

a summer morning

For most of the summer (with the exception of the drug den job) I've had at least my mornings free. With my lack of regular full time work, most mornings this summer have been pretty laid back and chill. I don't usually have a car to go anywhere (until I got this great-day-Sashco job), and usually John and Sarah are home. Most of my mornings are pretty much the same, and I really don't have too much to complain about.

I get to sleep in until scriptures, or if we don't read scriptures in the morning, I sleep in until about 8:30 or so. Then I get up and shower (if I need to) and leisurely get ready while listening to Harry Potter on my iPod. Usually I proceed to have a bowl of cereal while reading my book, and then I turn all the fans upstairs to blow out air out of the house and I shut the windows to keep any trace of cool air inside the house. I then head downstairs and write articles (if I have a batch to work on), watch a TV show or two on the DVR, or read. Today I mixed up some banana chip bars before I left for work. It's pretty quiet and having just me and the kids usually isn't so bad. It's a great time to read my scriptures and have quiet, meditative time--I take the mornings for me-time. When I get home, that's when I like to be around people and help out and be in the hubbub of things. The mornings are for me.

There are a couples of cons, however, to this having-the-mornings-off thing. Being in charge of Sarah is exhausting. I don't like it that Mom works in the morning and is home in the afternoon, while I am home in the morning, but work in the afternoon. Sometimes it's too quiet and lonely, and I'd really just like to have someone around. Sometimes I have a hard time being productive and motivated. When I have only a few hours in the morning to get stuff done, it's hard to find the drive to start things, because I think, "Well, I have to leave for work in an hour, anyway."

All things considered, though, my schedule isn't too bad. For money reasons, I'd love to be working full time, but I really feel like this Sashco job is a blessing and the job I should be working. It pays a lot, and I have accepted that I won't be able to save everything I need to for the next school year, so stressing out about that is pointless, since I won't be able to save it all anyway. I'm trying to just take advantage of this laid back summer schedule, because I probably won't have another summer like it (or another laid back schedule, period) for a while.

mediocre monday

Several people today have asked me how my weekend was, and my answer has been a solid "mediocre." The past few days have just not been exciting, and I've been in a serious state of The Blahs. I'm burned out with school (I could do another round of classes?! What was I thinking?!), I'm sick of the Physics Department, I'm bored with my ward (however, I am doing my very best to fulfill my calling as 2nd counselor in the RS), I'm sick of Provo in general, I'm ready to check out of my super small apartment, and I'm so ready to go home for the summer. It also doesn't help that we're studying Shakespearean tragedy right now--that's a spirit-lifter. Only 18 more days and I'll be home, so that's great, and I'm sure the time will fly by pretty quick--I still can't believe that spring classes are almost over, because it seems like they just barely started. I think this weekend, my apartment is going to celebrate my birthday (because my birthday isn't until August, we decided to celebrate it early so I can have a b-day celebration with some of my Provo friends), so that hopefully will come through.

I'm trying to improve my attitude, or at least just suck it up. I started reading a leisure book last week (The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck--it's incredible and I'm only 50 pages in). Over the weekend, when I was particularly melancholy, I pulled out my scrapbook stuff and created a bit, which was quite cathartic. Church yesterday was pretty good, which helped out with my morale. I went to Target today, which is always a pleasant experience.

However, despite all these seemingly enjoyable things, I'm still lacking in energy and motivation; I've started listening to Harry Potter in the mornings, which I've realized is a clear indication of my attempt to momentarily escape my own really not-bad-at-all reality. (Note: I haven't completely retreated to HP land quite yet--I do listen to music more than I listen to HP. That's good.) Maybe I can chalk some of the melancholy up to PMS . . .

**Ha, I just read through this and realized that the title of my new leisure book probably doesn't seem like it would be a good thing for me to be reading right now, but it really is a good book.

flying solo

I think it's a blessing and a curse to have a solitary nature; I've always been content with staying at home, having a peaceful night in. When I was in high school, I spent many a Friday night at home with my family eating popcorn for dinner and watching the newest movie from NetFlix. This tendency to stay in didn't leave me once I came to college and before I had real friends last year, I spent many a Friday night eating Wendy's, cleaning my room, and watching a movie on my computer. (In the dorms it was much more pathetic than it is in an actual apartment). I was completely content with that arrangement, and once Katelyn and I became best friends, we'd stay in together at least as much as we'd go out. Even if we'd go out to dinner, we'd often go back to the dorms and crowd around a tiny computer screen watching a Blockbuster rental. This year, things haven't changed too much in the recluse regard; Katelyn and I are usually happy to make ramen for dinner and watch an entire disc of Gilmore Girls. Sometimes though, my lack of social initiative means I can lose out on great socializing; I usually need to be asked to do something, otherwise, I'll probably just stay in. Actually, this semester I have been more social, but tonight I find myself alone. Point being, I'm good at being by myself, and most of the time enjoy it--not all of the time--but most of the time.

So, with Katelyn leading a particularly flirty, date-filled, and social life this semester, roommates who take full advantage of all the activities on campus, and no male companion of my own at the moment, on nights like tonight, I'm sure glad I have a knack for entertaining myself. When Katelyn's date picked her up around 7 tonight, I contemplated for a moment about what I should do with a night all to myself . . .




. . . after a quick walk to the Creamery I returned with eggs, butter, and mint chocolate chip ice cream, and proceeded to make brownies while watching Harry Potter on ABC Family.

Mmm--chocolate!

Cooling brownies!

Ridiculous broken lazy susan door that our landlord already had to fix once. We should probably call him soon (it only broke again a few days ago).

So, I turned on the TV to watch the movie, whipped up a batch of homemade brownies, typed up a paper for grammar (it's supposed to be a group project, but one girl couldn't meet today because she goes skiing every weekend. The assignment is due Monday. Good grief.) Anyway, here is more documentation of my Saturday night in:

So, we'll see how the rest of my night goes. I'll probably finish watching HP, read some out of the new Ensign, read some more of The Aeneid for class on Monday, and wait up for Katelyn. Are you good at being by yourself? Am I weird for my reclusive nature? Sometimes I wonder.

progress

So, here's an update on the homesick situation. Things are way better. The weekend was a good turning point, and I haven't cried since Thursday. One of the things I decided to do--and while it sounds dorky, it's true--was to not listen to Harry Potter all the time. It's definitely an indulgence thing, but I thought I'd had enough indulgence and so I've been mixing HP listening with upbeat, boosting music. It's been working. I've been keeping myself busy and productive, and I am so thankful for Katelyn who has been so helpful and supportive while I've been ridiculously emotionally unbalanced. So, yeah. Things are good. I'm feeling good about school and church and life. I really want to enjoy this semester, not just endure it, so that's what I decided to do. At the beginning of the week, I told myself, "Charlotte, get over it. Suck it up and enjoy your life." It didn't have immediate effect, but it's slowly been working its way through my system.

I've been listening to my Pretty Much You Rock My Socks mix, the High School Musical 2 soundtrack, and John Mayer. It's been good. So, onto another subject, school is going well this semester; I already have midterms next week, so that's no fun, but at least January is almost over. I'll have to do a celebratory post about the end of January when it comes. Well, off to write more articles and do some homework, and then par-tay away the rest of the weekend!