17.11.11
10.11.11
29.10.11
20.10.11
The Cliffs of Insanity!
I've reached them, folks. It's almost November, and if you've been paying attention to my facebook, my google+, the sidebar on this blog, or the crazed look on my face, you'll remember that November means NaNoWriMo.
For those [unlikely few] of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is November. It is also the name of an event put on by the Office of Letters and Light, a Not-for-Profit organization that supports, encourages, defends, and champions reading and writing and literacy programs around the world, in schools, libraries, and homes. I love it, and I love its people (those whom I know) and I love its annual Month of "Literary Abandon."
NaNoWriMo stands for a lot of things that are important to me, as an enthusiast of education and of books, and a firm believer in a person's need to communicate and express themselves. Because of this, I am putting aside my blue-chip safety dance and strapping on the Lonsword of +5 to risktaking.
On the sidebar of this page, you'll see a big green "Donate!" button. The following are the rules for using said button.
Certainly anyone is allowed to donate free of nefarious connotations: just go to the page and donate and I'll be happy, and you'll be happy, and writers around the country and world will be happy, too. Everyone wins.
But if you're of a more competitive spirit, or you don't think I can do what I say I'm going to do, or if you want to keep me honest, then let's set up a little wager, shall we?
There are many benchmarks for NaNoWriMo that we could put some money on. There's the obvious one, 50K by the end of the month. There're also the challenges of getting 1,667 words/day, or 11,669 words/week, or staying above someone else's daily word count, i.e. Chris Baty (the head of NaNoWriMo.org). The wagers set thereon would work as follows:
You bet, say $50, that I don't make the 50K by the end of the month. If I do, then you donate that $50 to NaNoWriMo. If I don't, then I donate it to an organization of your choosing. Any organization: NaNoWriMo, the NRA, Scientology, or even your own checking account.
The same goes for any benchmark. I'm going to ask that there be a $0.50 maximum wager made for every 1,000 words expected for the benchmark, because I'm not made of money, and I'm sure you're not either.
If you accept any of these wagers, or if you want to donate just for the good of the cause, let me know in a comment below, or an email, or a text, or via facebook, or any other of the numerous ways people can reach me these days. I won't necessarily accept all of the wagers, but I may accept some--the more interesting, the better--and I will consider all of them.
Happy Thursday! And Happy National Novel Writing Month!
<3 spadeALLcross
For those [unlikely few] of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is November. It is also the name of an event put on by the Office of Letters and Light, a Not-for-Profit organization that supports, encourages, defends, and champions reading and writing and literacy programs around the world, in schools, libraries, and homes. I love it, and I love its people (those whom I know) and I love its annual Month of "Literary Abandon."
NaNoWriMo stands for a lot of things that are important to me, as an enthusiast of education and of books, and a firm believer in a person's need to communicate and express themselves. Because of this, I am putting aside my blue-chip safety dance and strapping on the Lonsword of +5 to risktaking.
On the sidebar of this page, you'll see a big green "Donate!" button. The following are the rules for using said button.
Certainly anyone is allowed to donate free of nefarious connotations: just go to the page and donate and I'll be happy, and you'll be happy, and writers around the country and world will be happy, too. Everyone wins.
But if you're of a more competitive spirit, or you don't think I can do what I say I'm going to do, or if you want to keep me honest, then let's set up a little wager, shall we?
There are many benchmarks for NaNoWriMo that we could put some money on. There's the obvious one, 50K by the end of the month. There're also the challenges of getting 1,667 words/day, or 11,669 words/week, or staying above someone else's daily word count, i.e. Chris Baty (the head of NaNoWriMo.org). The wagers set thereon would work as follows:
You bet, say $50, that I don't make the 50K by the end of the month. If I do, then you donate that $50 to NaNoWriMo. If I don't, then I donate it to an organization of your choosing. Any organization: NaNoWriMo, the NRA, Scientology, or even your own checking account.
The same goes for any benchmark. I'm going to ask that there be a $0.50 maximum wager made for every 1,000 words expected for the benchmark, because I'm not made of money, and I'm sure you're not either.
If you accept any of these wagers, or if you want to donate just for the good of the cause, let me know in a comment below, or an email, or a text, or via facebook, or any other of the numerous ways people can reach me these days. I won't necessarily accept all of the wagers, but I may accept some--the more interesting, the better--and I will consider all of them.
Happy Thursday! And Happy National Novel Writing Month!
<3 spadeALLcross
16.10.11
Random things in my life right now...
I spent most of this weekend home alone. My house was quiet, empty, and I was happy with that. I haven't spent much time alone--like where I felt like I was alone all around me, like no matter what I did, no one would get in the way. It's not like the people in my life often get in my way, but it was a novel feeling, and I'm not even sure when the last time I felt like that was. It could have been painful or lonely or any number of other unpleasantnesses, but it was welcome this weekend.
***
In procrastinating writing a couple papers, I came across this thing I wrote in a letter to someone once. It resonated with me and I wanted to share it with you.
I remember when I would have a bad dream at night, I would be too scared to get up and go to my mom, because I’m deathly afraid of the dark. You probably know this… So anyway, I’d yell for her, “Mom! Mommy! Mahhhhhhm!” and I’d hear her hurried footsteps, and I’d just pray over and over again that the monster or burglar or maniac killer wouldn’t jump into my room and close the door before she could get there. I never realized that, if any of those things was lurking outside my room, she would fall prey just as much as I would. I just thought she was too strong for them, that they would be scared of her immense power.
My mom always seemed powerful to me. She was above everything. And she would come in and take me out of my crib and sit with me on the couch that was in my room and we’d point out pictures in the shadows on the wall cast by the streetlight outside my room, or by the cars as they drove by. And when I was older she would come in and sit on my bed, and if I was really frightened, she would hold me as I cried and then sometimes I would ask her to sleep in my bed with me so if I had another bad dream she could be there right away. And I always fell asleep and stayed asleep after that, and then I’d wake up in the morning and she’d be gone.
My mom always seemed powerful to me. She was above everything. And she would come in and take me out of my crib and sit with me on the couch that was in my room and we’d point out pictures in the shadows on the wall cast by the streetlight outside my room, or by the cars as they drove by. And when I was older she would come in and sit on my bed, and if I was really frightened, she would hold me as I cried and then sometimes I would ask her to sleep in my bed with me so if I had another bad dream she could be there right away. And I always fell asleep and stayed asleep after that, and then I’d wake up in the morning and she’d be gone.
***
My sister wrote me on Friday. I haven't written her back yet. But I intend to soon. I like our pen-pal-ship. I'm happy it's still afloat (badumchhh).
On her blog, she wrote this. It resonated with me, too.
I tried to remind myself this morning that God told the world that he was pleased with his son without him even having to do anything. I couldn’t seem to remember that it also applies to me. I don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love. I don’t have to do anything at all to be the apple of his eye.
I am who God has made to me to be. It is not so far away.
***
On Thursday night, Ben and I stayed up late watching Star Trek: Voyager and making granola. I spilled oil on a chair in his dining room and he put more honey in than he wanted to. Now I'm sitting with my bowl of that granola on my lap...and the raisins keep rolling around and look like bugs out of the corner of my eye. But I love the granola and the making-of-it experience anyway.
That's my life right now...this moment anyway.
Hope yours is swell!
<3 spadeALLcross
My sister wrote me on Friday. I haven't written her back yet. But I intend to soon. I like our pen-pal-ship. I'm happy it's still afloat (badumchhh).
On her blog, she wrote this. It resonated with me, too.
I tried to remind myself this morning that God told the world that he was pleased with his son without him even having to do anything. I couldn’t seem to remember that it also applies to me. I don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love. I don’t have to do anything at all to be the apple of his eye.
I am who God has made to me to be. It is not so far away.
***
On Thursday night, Ben and I stayed up late watching Star Trek: Voyager and making granola. I spilled oil on a chair in his dining room and he put more honey in than he wanted to. Now I'm sitting with my bowl of that granola on my lap...and the raisins keep rolling around and look like bugs out of the corner of my eye. But I love the granola and the making-of-it experience anyway.
That's my life right now...this moment anyway.
Hope yours is swell!
<3 spadeALLcross
29.9.11
So...what's next? [Me: Part V]
So now...the exciting part. Where do I go from here? What do all these changes mean to me, and how will they affect me?
Well, my desire to travel has opened up new avenues for me, but because I'm still a little cautious about, in my fervor for adventure, getting in over my head, I'm starting small. I've wanted to visit Asia for years now, and now that I've been to England, which I thought was my first love, I feel like Asia is next. I found a company that works with college students, recent graduates, and other like-minded people to install them as English teachers in China and Mongolia for a one- to two-year periods. They also happen to do a summer camp program in the same countries for a shorter amount of time. I checked my summer school schedule and my other engagements for next summer, and I found out that it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to take part in that sort of experience. So...that's on my short-term dream list.
As I've been through the teachers' education program at Calvin, I've learned that I, like many upper-middle class white kids from the suburbs, struggle with stereotypes and prejudices, and I've seen how important it will be for me to break those down if I want to be an effective teacher. So part of my goal in traveling to China is to immerse myself in another culture, to feel stereotyped, to need to defer to other people and lose myself in the attempt to assimilate. I had a taste of that in England, and it was eye opening. I don't think it's healthy to do that, to try to dis-identify with the parts of your life that made you who you are, but I do think it's what many classrooms ask students to do (even students of the racial and ethnic majorities) and I want to better understand the challenges in resisting that so that I can aid my students later on in life.
But I don't want to stop with China. I want to start there because I'm fascinated by Eastern philosophy and cultures, so the actual transitions and logistics of living there may be more enjoyable for me. But I want to then move to places I'm both less comfortable and less experienced. There are other international teaching opportunities in Central America and Africa, and I would love the opportunity to get involved there. I haven't found any available in the Middle East, but there may be other short-term options that I can look into.
Realistically, the timing is not great. I don't actually have all the time in the world; I have a life in the US I'm excited about living, people I don't want to leave behind for so long, and a teaching certificate that will probably not get shinier the longer I'm away from the US school system. So I'm definitely still working out the kinks in my plan. But these are the things I'm excited about.
On a similar note, I don't believe that I can teach to American children without knowing more American children than I already do. I want to get involved in US cultures and societies vastly different from the ones I grew up learning. My school has what they call "living-learning residences" on and off campus. In my freshman and sophomore years, I lived on the Honors floor, which was one of those communities. There are other dorm floors like my old one--the creation care floor which is involved in environmentalism and the grass roots floor which is involved in social justice and racial and ethnic equality--and there are off-campus houses called Project Neighborhood houses, which are rooted in the community around Grand Rapids, especially the urban communities of downtown. Many of the houses pair with churches or schools and the residents are required to get involved in those pairings through volunteer opportunities. They are also "intentional" (a sort of Calvin buzzword) about creating community within each house, with house dinners and communal food...stuff like that. More than simply six college students living in a house together and sometimes going out for pizza. It can be really meaningful if the students want it to be, and that's something I think would benefit from. (If only because I'm a kind of hopeless nerd and I need more social interaction if I ever want to function well in groups of people.)
I love where I'm living now and the people there, but I've been silently frustrated for a while now that my whole community will be changing after this year as so many of my friends graduate and get jobs and maybe even move away, while I'm left here, still in classes. Not all of my friends are going to leave, certainly, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of my close friends, including my boyfriend, went off to grad school and I was left to fend for myself. Project neighborhood would keep me involved with people whether I liked it or not, which would be really helpful and maybe even necessary. I don't know yet; I'm still thinking.
Basically, I just wanted to share that I have some new goals for my life, that my newfound desire to travel and my re-found desire for divinity has given me an excitement for worldly adventuring, from teaching overseas, to living in diverse and different communities, to branching out to people I don't know, to being a generally more open and inviting human being. None of these things interested me (practically) in the slightest eight months ago. Some of them haven't interested me for more than a couple days, some for more than a couple hours. I wanted to share this with you because it's all thrilling to me, and I want to explore it. As most of the people who read this blog are people I care about and who care about me, I really want to explore it with you most. Even if you think I'm crazy, even if you're worried that I'm becoming someone you don't want to care about anymore, I want to hear from you if you have something to say.
Stay cool. You're 2Good2Be4Gotten. Don't ever change. And all that stuff.
But really, just live your life. In the best way you can think of. If I were someone who tried to literally bless people, like a CRC minister, that's what I would leave you with.
Tune in next time when I'll talk about...maybe cheese.
<3 spadeALLcross
Well, my desire to travel has opened up new avenues for me, but because I'm still a little cautious about, in my fervor for adventure, getting in over my head, I'm starting small. I've wanted to visit Asia for years now, and now that I've been to England, which I thought was my first love, I feel like Asia is next. I found a company that works with college students, recent graduates, and other like-minded people to install them as English teachers in China and Mongolia for a one- to two-year periods. They also happen to do a summer camp program in the same countries for a shorter amount of time. I checked my summer school schedule and my other engagements for next summer, and I found out that it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to take part in that sort of experience. So...that's on my short-term dream list.
As I've been through the teachers' education program at Calvin, I've learned that I, like many upper-middle class white kids from the suburbs, struggle with stereotypes and prejudices, and I've seen how important it will be for me to break those down if I want to be an effective teacher. So part of my goal in traveling to China is to immerse myself in another culture, to feel stereotyped, to need to defer to other people and lose myself in the attempt to assimilate. I had a taste of that in England, and it was eye opening. I don't think it's healthy to do that, to try to dis-identify with the parts of your life that made you who you are, but I do think it's what many classrooms ask students to do (even students of the racial and ethnic majorities) and I want to better understand the challenges in resisting that so that I can aid my students later on in life.
But I don't want to stop with China. I want to start there because I'm fascinated by Eastern philosophy and cultures, so the actual transitions and logistics of living there may be more enjoyable for me. But I want to then move to places I'm both less comfortable and less experienced. There are other international teaching opportunities in Central America and Africa, and I would love the opportunity to get involved there. I haven't found any available in the Middle East, but there may be other short-term options that I can look into.
Realistically, the timing is not great. I don't actually have all the time in the world; I have a life in the US I'm excited about living, people I don't want to leave behind for so long, and a teaching certificate that will probably not get shinier the longer I'm away from the US school system. So I'm definitely still working out the kinks in my plan. But these are the things I'm excited about.
On a similar note, I don't believe that I can teach to American children without knowing more American children than I already do. I want to get involved in US cultures and societies vastly different from the ones I grew up learning. My school has what they call "living-learning residences" on and off campus. In my freshman and sophomore years, I lived on the Honors floor, which was one of those communities. There are other dorm floors like my old one--the creation care floor which is involved in environmentalism and the grass roots floor which is involved in social justice and racial and ethnic equality--and there are off-campus houses called Project Neighborhood houses, which are rooted in the community around Grand Rapids, especially the urban communities of downtown. Many of the houses pair with churches or schools and the residents are required to get involved in those pairings through volunteer opportunities. They are also "intentional" (a sort of Calvin buzzword) about creating community within each house, with house dinners and communal food...stuff like that. More than simply six college students living in a house together and sometimes going out for pizza. It can be really meaningful if the students want it to be, and that's something I think would benefit from. (If only because I'm a kind of hopeless nerd and I need more social interaction if I ever want to function well in groups of people.)
I love where I'm living now and the people there, but I've been silently frustrated for a while now that my whole community will be changing after this year as so many of my friends graduate and get jobs and maybe even move away, while I'm left here, still in classes. Not all of my friends are going to leave, certainly, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of my close friends, including my boyfriend, went off to grad school and I was left to fend for myself. Project neighborhood would keep me involved with people whether I liked it or not, which would be really helpful and maybe even necessary. I don't know yet; I'm still thinking.
Basically, I just wanted to share that I have some new goals for my life, that my newfound desire to travel and my re-found desire for divinity has given me an excitement for worldly adventuring, from teaching overseas, to living in diverse and different communities, to branching out to people I don't know, to being a generally more open and inviting human being. None of these things interested me (practically) in the slightest eight months ago. Some of them haven't interested me for more than a couple days, some for more than a couple hours. I wanted to share this with you because it's all thrilling to me, and I want to explore it. As most of the people who read this blog are people I care about and who care about me, I really want to explore it with you most. Even if you think I'm crazy, even if you're worried that I'm becoming someone you don't want to care about anymore, I want to hear from you if you have something to say.
Stay cool. You're 2Good2Be4Gotten. Don't ever change. And all that stuff.
But really, just live your life. In the best way you can think of. If I were someone who tried to literally bless people, like a CRC minister, that's what I would leave you with.
Tune in next time when I'll talk about...maybe cheese.
<3 spadeALLcross
25.9.11
Why am I different? [Me: Part IV]
After all of these changes that have happened to me, where I was more or less a passive attender, at least to most of them, I knew that I had to start taking an active role in my own life. So the next important step along my new path was reflected a little in my post from August, where I talked about addictions. I didn't have a set agenda of "here are the things that I don't like about myself that I think I need to change otherwise my soul is doomed to eternal damnation," but at the same time, I knew that the way I was living my life was not compatible with what God wanted for me, and I wanted to change.
Why? For people who aren't religious or are anti-religious, that's probably a pretty serious question. I know that, for me, the question has cropped up more than once, "If God exists, loves me unconditionally, and made no mistakes when he made me, why would he want me to change who I was for him?" And, similarly, I have been asked the question, "Why would you want to let God control your life with a list of dos and don'ts?" I think I can answer in a way that we can mutually understand, even if we don't agree on the existence or importance of God. Let me know if I'm wrong about that.
I think the answer to the first question is rather simple, but I say that as a Christian, so I may be wrong. Humans essentially are animals with a more complex societal structure. We have physical bodies that have physical and emotional needs, like food, water, sex, relationships, etc, like most animals do, but we also have dynamic cultural groups that help us determine the best and right ways to fill those needs. Our parents, friends, teachers, random crickets and other societal buddies develop our conscience: they teach us, directly and indirectly, what foods are suitable to eat, how much water to use for what tasks, what kind of sex to have and when, what healthy or effective relationships look like, and so on. Sometimes our animal instincts fight against our social structures: my mom tells me to eat my peas because she knows they're good for me, but I don't like peas, so it makes sense that I wouldn't eat them. The USPS is socialized in order to reach more people, but I really just want to send my package quickly so I can go take care of other things. My hormones wouldn't mind me having sex when I'm 13, but my body doesn't realize the harm that could befall it if I made that choice.
Christians believe that it is our complex societal structure was created as "the image of God"; it's the divinity in us, and literally what separates us from the animals. Christians believe that, when functioning at top form, our societal structure should reflect God's perfect design for humanity. So, in those moments when our physical and emotional needs fight against of social upbringing, it's kind of like a battle between our divinity and humanity. What non-Christians call a conscience, Christians call the Holy Spirit. God wanted us to be humans seeking divinity, which is why we were created with flaws that would force us to struggle against ourselves. Everyone has internal struggles, and Christians don't even necessarily have more than non-Christians. They're just sometimes of a different nature.
On to the second question. While we don't want to completely disown our humanity, because it was given to us for a reason, we believe that God has a more holy call for us, one that does not always allow us to indulge in our physical and emotional desires. Our faith tells us that God's plan is better than one we could make for ourselves, and that it will meet our physical and emotional needs, just not necessarily in manners or timeframes we expect. In order to partake in God's perfect plan for our lives, we need the Holy Spirit to be in control of our humanity, so that we'll be in the right place at the right time, so to speak. Christianity is not a list of rules you must follow in order to get into heaven, it's a description of the kind of person whose conscience controls their humanity in such a way that they are a perfect conduit of divinity traveling from God to earth.
Certainly, if you are not a Christian, you don't believe that God is something you want to deliver to the earth, but you have other things, agendas, goals you want to deliver to the world around you, and you probably believe that, in any situation, there are correct and incorrect ways of delivering those agendas. It's the same thing, it's just that my agenda is God's.
In my post from early August, I talked about addictions and how they're present in places other than just illicit substances. Overcoming addictions is one of the big parts of being a Christian: the first commandment is "God is the only God. Worship no other idols." Anything that I could put before God, hold higher on my priorities than following God's plan for me, is a sort of idol. I need to eschew all other idols, because they distract me from my real goal. So, over the summer, that's what I started to do.
That's a whole other post right there, and a bit of it is quite personal, so I'm not going to go into detail. Plus, this post is already dragging on, and I'm quite pleasantly surprised you've willingly come this far. All I really want to say on this point is that I am struggling daily with things I've never bothered to struggle with, simply because the struggle was too hard. The struggle is exciting, though, and I'm really enjoying myself in what I swear is a completely non-masochistic way. I just mean, at this stage in the game, I'm feeling immediate relief, and seeing that change is really energizing. At some point, the immediacy of results will taper off and the excitement will be harder to find, but as this stage strengthens my resolve and my faith, I feel confident that I will be able to stick it through. I'm not alone, after all: I believe in a God who will be with me through everything, who does not put me into situations and leave me there, and who doesn't let me get in over my head.
So this leads me up to this point. In my next post, the probable conclusion to the "About Mary" mini-series I've been constructing, I'll talk about my goals for the future...which are really the only reason I started this whole blog project in the first place...way back in Freshman year.
Goodnight and goodluck.
<3 spadeALLcross
Why? For people who aren't religious or are anti-religious, that's probably a pretty serious question. I know that, for me, the question has cropped up more than once, "If God exists, loves me unconditionally, and made no mistakes when he made me, why would he want me to change who I was for him?" And, similarly, I have been asked the question, "Why would you want to let God control your life with a list of dos and don'ts?" I think I can answer in a way that we can mutually understand, even if we don't agree on the existence or importance of God. Let me know if I'm wrong about that.
I think the answer to the first question is rather simple, but I say that as a Christian, so I may be wrong. Humans essentially are animals with a more complex societal structure. We have physical bodies that have physical and emotional needs, like food, water, sex, relationships, etc, like most animals do, but we also have dynamic cultural groups that help us determine the best and right ways to fill those needs. Our parents, friends, teachers, random crickets and other societal buddies develop our conscience: they teach us, directly and indirectly, what foods are suitable to eat, how much water to use for what tasks, what kind of sex to have and when, what healthy or effective relationships look like, and so on. Sometimes our animal instincts fight against our social structures: my mom tells me to eat my peas because she knows they're good for me, but I don't like peas, so it makes sense that I wouldn't eat them. The USPS is socialized in order to reach more people, but I really just want to send my package quickly so I can go take care of other things. My hormones wouldn't mind me having sex when I'm 13, but my body doesn't realize the harm that could befall it if I made that choice.
Christians believe that it is our complex societal structure was created as "the image of God"; it's the divinity in us, and literally what separates us from the animals. Christians believe that, when functioning at top form, our societal structure should reflect God's perfect design for humanity. So, in those moments when our physical and emotional needs fight against of social upbringing, it's kind of like a battle between our divinity and humanity. What non-Christians call a conscience, Christians call the Holy Spirit. God wanted us to be humans seeking divinity, which is why we were created with flaws that would force us to struggle against ourselves. Everyone has internal struggles, and Christians don't even necessarily have more than non-Christians. They're just sometimes of a different nature.
On to the second question. While we don't want to completely disown our humanity, because it was given to us for a reason, we believe that God has a more holy call for us, one that does not always allow us to indulge in our physical and emotional desires. Our faith tells us that God's plan is better than one we could make for ourselves, and that it will meet our physical and emotional needs, just not necessarily in manners or timeframes we expect. In order to partake in God's perfect plan for our lives, we need the Holy Spirit to be in control of our humanity, so that we'll be in the right place at the right time, so to speak. Christianity is not a list of rules you must follow in order to get into heaven, it's a description of the kind of person whose conscience controls their humanity in such a way that they are a perfect conduit of divinity traveling from God to earth.
Certainly, if you are not a Christian, you don't believe that God is something you want to deliver to the earth, but you have other things, agendas, goals you want to deliver to the world around you, and you probably believe that, in any situation, there are correct and incorrect ways of delivering those agendas. It's the same thing, it's just that my agenda is God's.
In my post from early August, I talked about addictions and how they're present in places other than just illicit substances. Overcoming addictions is one of the big parts of being a Christian: the first commandment is "God is the only God. Worship no other idols." Anything that I could put before God, hold higher on my priorities than following God's plan for me, is a sort of idol. I need to eschew all other idols, because they distract me from my real goal. So, over the summer, that's what I started to do.
That's a whole other post right there, and a bit of it is quite personal, so I'm not going to go into detail. Plus, this post is already dragging on, and I'm quite pleasantly surprised you've willingly come this far. All I really want to say on this point is that I am struggling daily with things I've never bothered to struggle with, simply because the struggle was too hard. The struggle is exciting, though, and I'm really enjoying myself in what I swear is a completely non-masochistic way. I just mean, at this stage in the game, I'm feeling immediate relief, and seeing that change is really energizing. At some point, the immediacy of results will taper off and the excitement will be harder to find, but as this stage strengthens my resolve and my faith, I feel confident that I will be able to stick it through. I'm not alone, after all: I believe in a God who will be with me through everything, who does not put me into situations and leave me there, and who doesn't let me get in over my head.
So this leads me up to this point. In my next post, the probable conclusion to the "About Mary" mini-series I've been constructing, I'll talk about my goals for the future...which are really the only reason I started this whole blog project in the first place...way back in Freshman year.
Goodnight and goodluck.
<3 spadeALLcross
20.9.11
You got a friend in me...
I'll continue with my rant about myself later. Right now I just want to thank you.
If you're reading this blog, you're probably a friend of mine, and, if I am remembering correctly, the majority of you are rather close friends. I have recently come to re-realize that I would be nowhere and miserable without all of you. Thank you for being with me and for me.
<3 spadeALLcross
If you're reading this blog, you're probably a friend of mine, and, if I am remembering correctly, the majority of you are rather close friends. I have recently come to re-realize that I would be nowhere and miserable without all of you. Thank you for being with me and for me.
<3 spadeALLcross
15.9.11
Who do I want to become? [Me: Part III]
Hey again. See, I'm good at this keeping up now. Don't get used to it.
Last post, I talked about how same in myself and lots of dark, depressing feelings forced me to change the way I look at my future. I decided to take "the high road," if you want to be cliché about it. I like to think of it more as the road personally mapped out for me specifically by God, a road that no one else can take.
The first step of that road was to get beyond the shameful experience that had brought me there. Shame, guilt, fear...they're all very useful emotions and shouldn't be discounted or avoided simply because they're unpleasant, but they can cripple us if we let them. So I had to let them go for now. In order to do that, I had to begin again with my timeless mantra of "you're special, you're wonderful, you're perfect," but that wasn't going to work now. I knew that I wasn't perfect, I knew that I had failed. How could I be loved when I was a failure? That's the opposite of what I've believed my whole life.
Almost immediately, I realized that love doesn't work that way. Maybe I knew that before, but it had never meant to me then what it does now. My mother and my brother especially, but others as well, showed me that I was special and perfect and important because I was loved, not the other way around. It was their love that made me who I was.
But that's...not ideal. My mother is an amazing woman and I wouldn't trade my brother for any other brother in the world, but they are just as flawed as I am. There is a chance--slimmest of the slim, and I only believe this as a philosophical theory of general human nature, not of the love of these people--that something could cause them to stop loving me, and then where would I be? Back exactly where I was. I had to find a source of love that was beyond fault, beyond beginnings and endings, that was big enough to cushion me when I failed again, as I would, and strong enough to hold me when no one else would.
And there it was. My new faith.
I've always believed in God's love, and I've always known in my head that I needed it. But kind of like you can't describe to someone what it feels like to attempt to balance yourself on a bicycle, when that someone has never ridden one, I did know know what it felt like to believe I needed God's love. Like I said, up until my realization of my own brokenness, I thought that I was good enough to be loved by God, not that God's love was constantly overcoming my not-good-enoughness.
Again, the transformation sounds like I went from point A to point A, when really it's just...really complicated. I'm sure there's a lot of psychology or religious jargon that I could toss in here to help my explanation make sense, but I don't know the jargon, and I'm just hoping that there are enough people out there who have been where I was that they will just innately understand. If you don't understand, please contact me and I can try again. It's as important to me to learn how to articulate myself in this matter (I am training to be an English Teacher...so...) as it could possibly be for you to understand what I'm saying, so if you're interested enough, please let me know.
Thanks for sticking with me this far. I hope you're getting something out of reading this as much as I am by writing it and processing it. But really, if you have questions, concerns, etc., talk to me about them.
<3 spadeALLcross
Last post, I talked about how same in myself and lots of dark, depressing feelings forced me to change the way I look at my future. I decided to take "the high road," if you want to be cliché about it. I like to think of it more as the road personally mapped out for me specifically by God, a road that no one else can take.
The first step of that road was to get beyond the shameful experience that had brought me there. Shame, guilt, fear...they're all very useful emotions and shouldn't be discounted or avoided simply because they're unpleasant, but they can cripple us if we let them. So I had to let them go for now. In order to do that, I had to begin again with my timeless mantra of "you're special, you're wonderful, you're perfect," but that wasn't going to work now. I knew that I wasn't perfect, I knew that I had failed. How could I be loved when I was a failure? That's the opposite of what I've believed my whole life.
Almost immediately, I realized that love doesn't work that way. Maybe I knew that before, but it had never meant to me then what it does now. My mother and my brother especially, but others as well, showed me that I was special and perfect and important because I was loved, not the other way around. It was their love that made me who I was.
But that's...not ideal. My mother is an amazing woman and I wouldn't trade my brother for any other brother in the world, but they are just as flawed as I am. There is a chance--slimmest of the slim, and I only believe this as a philosophical theory of general human nature, not of the love of these people--that something could cause them to stop loving me, and then where would I be? Back exactly where I was. I had to find a source of love that was beyond fault, beyond beginnings and endings, that was big enough to cushion me when I failed again, as I would, and strong enough to hold me when no one else would.
And there it was. My new faith.
I've always believed in God's love, and I've always known in my head that I needed it. But kind of like you can't describe to someone what it feels like to attempt to balance yourself on a bicycle, when that someone has never ridden one, I did know know what it felt like to believe I needed God's love. Like I said, up until my realization of my own brokenness, I thought that I was good enough to be loved by God, not that God's love was constantly overcoming my not-good-enoughness.
Again, the transformation sounds like I went from point A to point A, when really it's just...really complicated. I'm sure there's a lot of psychology or religious jargon that I could toss in here to help my explanation make sense, but I don't know the jargon, and I'm just hoping that there are enough people out there who have been where I was that they will just innately understand. If you don't understand, please contact me and I can try again. It's as important to me to learn how to articulate myself in this matter (I am training to be an English Teacher...so...) as it could possibly be for you to understand what I'm saying, so if you're interested enough, please let me know.
Thanks for sticking with me this far. I hope you're getting something out of reading this as much as I am by writing it and processing it. But really, if you have questions, concerns, etc., talk to me about them.
<3 spadeALLcross
13.9.11
Who am I? [Me: Part II]
So, last poast, I talked about January through June. This week, I'm going to talk about July through...well...July. It was a very complex month for me, even outside of Harry Potter. And it started out with a bang.
At the end of June, events transpired that threw all of this over-time development, all of my personal growth and goals into sharp relief, and I got my first real dose of self-induced shame. And this is where both disaster struck and the light at the end of the tunnel appeared. Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
All my life, I've been told that I was special, that I was great, that the world could tell me that I was flawed, tell me that I had no merit, but that none of that mattered because I was loved in a way that I should never forget. My mother instilled this belief in me for years, and it was reaffirmed by my Church and my brand of Christianity (which primarily revolved around "God loves me, he's gone to great lengths to show me that, and his love for me is all that matters."). The only thing wrong with this belief was that I thought (completely subconsciously, in unchangeable ways) that I was loved because I was special, because I was great, and that when the world told me I was flawed and had no merit, the world was unquestionably wrong on all counts. That is a very dangerous worldview, and at the end of June, I realized how dangerous it had made me as a person.
I'm not going to tell you, Internet, what happened in June, because it's not important to this conversation. But essentially, I finally did something that, in my mind, was "bad" enough to make me feel ashamed. Really ashamed. Not the shame that I've felt before because someone is telling me I should, like when, in junior high and high school, I felt like I was fat and was ashamed that I wasn't able to lose weight and wear clothes like other girls did. Not the shame I feel when my standards are too high, like when I wanted to take AP physics even though I had no designs for a scientific career or any need to sweat through an entire year of a killer class, and when doing so would hurt me in the other subjects I actually excelled at and wanted to better understand. Not shame that is in anyway connected with an outside source or something beyond my control. Shame that I had done something seriously wrong, and now I had to live with the consequences. Shame that no one I told about my situation would have any reason to feel pity for me; I had brought this upon myself.
Whether what I did was actually as bad as I thought it was at the time, I can't say. Whether the worst punishment I could have reasonably deserved for it was anything life shattering or shame-worthy, I don't know. What's important is what I felt in that moment, because that's what changed everything.
The "you're special, you're great, don't ever change" mantra that had been playing on repeat for my whole life sort of skipped for a moment. Suddenly, I looked at my life, my faith, my relationships, and everything I did and thought and said in a completely new way. And it was not refreshing. What I saw was brokenness, complacency, and a dangerous habit of doing what I want because I want to, and then expecting things to work out in my favor regardless. Most of my life had been shame-free, and it was only this one instance that made me see things this way, but I saw laid out ahead of me two paths branching out from one decision: either I could take my situation seriously and really reflect on what it meant to me and how I wanted to proceed, which would probably involve pain and loneliness and challenges I felt unprepared for, or I could pay the minimum penalty and revert back to comfort and safety where things were exactly where I expected them to be and I could count on my instincts to see me through.
The first path didn't lead out very far. I couldn't see the whole way down. But kind of like a real road on a really foggy night, when you can see the glow of the street lights even though you can't see what they're falling on, I could see the satisfaction in that road. I could see spots of darkness, but I saw a comfort that went beyond the shallowness of my previous comforts. More than just making myself happy and trying to get to oases of pleasure, walking down that first road would create oases where there were none, would find comfort in places I didn't think it existed, and would end with the happiest, most satisfying destination I could have, though I don't yet know what that is.
I could see farther down the second path, but then it too turned foggy, even foggier than the first path. It looked easy and familiar, not much different than the path I was walking down already. But the streetlights were not welcoming. If I had screwed up already, (and such a small screw up had affected me this much), I was bound to do it again, and there was a huge chance that it would be worse in the subsequent times. There was no guaranteed warmth down this road and no assumption of a happy ending. That didn't mean there wasn't one, but just that I wasn't as sure of it.
It sounds cheesy with all the analogies. But I guess describing my self-reflection during this time is like trying to describe a dream. Since dream worlds are not the same as the real world, you have to change some details to make the dream explicable. Since my mind works differently than yours, I have to make analogies to help you understand. It wasn't cheesy at all when I went through it. It was very real and actually very scary. But my decision was easy. Of course I took the first road.
So that where I was in July. Tune in next time for the continuation of my journey, which concludes summer.
<3 spadeALLcross
At the end of June, events transpired that threw all of this over-time development, all of my personal growth and goals into sharp relief, and I got my first real dose of self-induced shame. And this is where both disaster struck and the light at the end of the tunnel appeared. Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
All my life, I've been told that I was special, that I was great, that the world could tell me that I was flawed, tell me that I had no merit, but that none of that mattered because I was loved in a way that I should never forget. My mother instilled this belief in me for years, and it was reaffirmed by my Church and my brand of Christianity (which primarily revolved around "God loves me, he's gone to great lengths to show me that, and his love for me is all that matters."). The only thing wrong with this belief was that I thought (completely subconsciously, in unchangeable ways) that I was loved because I was special, because I was great, and that when the world told me I was flawed and had no merit, the world was unquestionably wrong on all counts. That is a very dangerous worldview, and at the end of June, I realized how dangerous it had made me as a person.
I'm not going to tell you, Internet, what happened in June, because it's not important to this conversation. But essentially, I finally did something that, in my mind, was "bad" enough to make me feel ashamed. Really ashamed. Not the shame that I've felt before because someone is telling me I should, like when, in junior high and high school, I felt like I was fat and was ashamed that I wasn't able to lose weight and wear clothes like other girls did. Not the shame I feel when my standards are too high, like when I wanted to take AP physics even though I had no designs for a scientific career or any need to sweat through an entire year of a killer class, and when doing so would hurt me in the other subjects I actually excelled at and wanted to better understand. Not shame that is in anyway connected with an outside source or something beyond my control. Shame that I had done something seriously wrong, and now I had to live with the consequences. Shame that no one I told about my situation would have any reason to feel pity for me; I had brought this upon myself.
Whether what I did was actually as bad as I thought it was at the time, I can't say. Whether the worst punishment I could have reasonably deserved for it was anything life shattering or shame-worthy, I don't know. What's important is what I felt in that moment, because that's what changed everything.
The "you're special, you're great, don't ever change" mantra that had been playing on repeat for my whole life sort of skipped for a moment. Suddenly, I looked at my life, my faith, my relationships, and everything I did and thought and said in a completely new way. And it was not refreshing. What I saw was brokenness, complacency, and a dangerous habit of doing what I want because I want to, and then expecting things to work out in my favor regardless. Most of my life had been shame-free, and it was only this one instance that made me see things this way, but I saw laid out ahead of me two paths branching out from one decision: either I could take my situation seriously and really reflect on what it meant to me and how I wanted to proceed, which would probably involve pain and loneliness and challenges I felt unprepared for, or I could pay the minimum penalty and revert back to comfort and safety where things were exactly where I expected them to be and I could count on my instincts to see me through.
The first path didn't lead out very far. I couldn't see the whole way down. But kind of like a real road on a really foggy night, when you can see the glow of the street lights even though you can't see what they're falling on, I could see the satisfaction in that road. I could see spots of darkness, but I saw a comfort that went beyond the shallowness of my previous comforts. More than just making myself happy and trying to get to oases of pleasure, walking down that first road would create oases where there were none, would find comfort in places I didn't think it existed, and would end with the happiest, most satisfying destination I could have, though I don't yet know what that is.
I could see farther down the second path, but then it too turned foggy, even foggier than the first path. It looked easy and familiar, not much different than the path I was walking down already. But the streetlights were not welcoming. If I had screwed up already, (and such a small screw up had affected me this much), I was bound to do it again, and there was a huge chance that it would be worse in the subsequent times. There was no guaranteed warmth down this road and no assumption of a happy ending. That didn't mean there wasn't one, but just that I wasn't as sure of it.
It sounds cheesy with all the analogies. But I guess describing my self-reflection during this time is like trying to describe a dream. Since dream worlds are not the same as the real world, you have to change some details to make the dream explicable. Since my mind works differently than yours, I have to make analogies to help you understand. It wasn't cheesy at all when I went through it. It was very real and actually very scary. But my decision was easy. Of course I took the first road.
So that where I was in July. Tune in next time for the continuation of my journey, which concludes summer.
<3 spadeALLcross
8.9.11
Where do I think I'm going? [Me: Part 1]
Yup. As per usual, as most of you expected, it has been a while since I last updated here. That's not for lack of trying, believe me. It's just that, between my list of goals I wanted to complete over the summer, my time spent unavoidably (if not welcomely) separated from my computer, the revision of my personal priorities, and the onset of school this week, every time I had something to blog about, I was convinced that there was some better use of my time elsewhere, and I was not often wrong.
The unfortunate consequence to this is that I now have a lot of stuff to say, while you have not developed some über stamina that would allow you to read it all in one sitting. So consider this the first installment in a long line of get-to-know-Mary posts. Because that's what they'll all have in common: "About Mary."
We'll start with the beginning. These past eight months have been the most renewing months of my life. They have been the most unstable, the most disappointing, the scariest, and the most wonderful time I have ever spent doing anything. Throughout the four months I was in England, I became much more like the person I've always wanted to be; I became more confident in myself, less reliant on the affirmation of others, and more open and willing to try new things and take real risks. I struggled, especially against myself, while I was there--I was homesick very often, out of my element with almost every step I took, and fully aware 98% of the time that I was less than perfect in many significant ways. My semester abroad was not different or special in comparison to anyone else's semester abroad. It changed me, certainly, like any new experience would, and it showed me who I really was, and sometimes that reflection made me cringe. But I think that's what those sorts of programs are designed to do. And if not, they still manage to more often than not, in my experience.
Fourish months removed from that time, I think I can safely say I've finally gotten around to processing it, and I think the most noticeable development it started in me was my newfound desire to travel. I've always wanted to be a "world explorer," meeting new people and traveling to exciting places, just so I could see the world. But now that I've had the smallest taste of that, and I know at least some of the downsides to that kind of an adventure, I feel like when I say, "I want to travel the world," I mean it now. I know what's at stake, where I didn't before, but I also know what glorious things can happen as a result, and that prospect is exciting more to me than the fears are scary.
Then the summer started. There was undeniable culture shock as I moved back to the US, even just from England (which is not all that different), and that experience further opened my eyes, showing me what I felt I needed to change about my lifestyle, that, in some cases, it just wasn't a choice anymore. It's one thing to say something is important to you, it's another thing to realize that you simply cannot live your life without it. My transition back to the states, back to things, relationships, and interests that once felt comfortable to me made me see more clearly which pieces of myself I needed to put the effort into preserving, and which pieces I needed to weed out. The process is ongoing and challenging, but as I said, I simply can't stop. I believe there are certain foundational pieces of my personality and my life that, if I neglected them simply because they were hard, I would be lying to myself about who I was, which would make my life hard to live anyway. It's a lose-lose, in a [pessimistic] sense, but I think the intentional, challenging way is the more sustainable and rewarding way.
So that's where I was around the middle of June. Tune in next time to hear about July.
<3 spadeALLcross
The unfortunate consequence to this is that I now have a lot of stuff to say, while you have not developed some über stamina that would allow you to read it all in one sitting. So consider this the first installment in a long line of get-to-know-Mary posts. Because that's what they'll all have in common: "About Mary."
We'll start with the beginning. These past eight months have been the most renewing months of my life. They have been the most unstable, the most disappointing, the scariest, and the most wonderful time I have ever spent doing anything. Throughout the four months I was in England, I became much more like the person I've always wanted to be; I became more confident in myself, less reliant on the affirmation of others, and more open and willing to try new things and take real risks. I struggled, especially against myself, while I was there--I was homesick very often, out of my element with almost every step I took, and fully aware 98% of the time that I was less than perfect in many significant ways. My semester abroad was not different or special in comparison to anyone else's semester abroad. It changed me, certainly, like any new experience would, and it showed me who I really was, and sometimes that reflection made me cringe. But I think that's what those sorts of programs are designed to do. And if not, they still manage to more often than not, in my experience.
Fourish months removed from that time, I think I can safely say I've finally gotten around to processing it, and I think the most noticeable development it started in me was my newfound desire to travel. I've always wanted to be a "world explorer," meeting new people and traveling to exciting places, just so I could see the world. But now that I've had the smallest taste of that, and I know at least some of the downsides to that kind of an adventure, I feel like when I say, "I want to travel the world," I mean it now. I know what's at stake, where I didn't before, but I also know what glorious things can happen as a result, and that prospect is exciting more to me than the fears are scary.
Then the summer started. There was undeniable culture shock as I moved back to the US, even just from England (which is not all that different), and that experience further opened my eyes, showing me what I felt I needed to change about my lifestyle, that, in some cases, it just wasn't a choice anymore. It's one thing to say something is important to you, it's another thing to realize that you simply cannot live your life without it. My transition back to the states, back to things, relationships, and interests that once felt comfortable to me made me see more clearly which pieces of myself I needed to put the effort into preserving, and which pieces I needed to weed out. The process is ongoing and challenging, but as I said, I simply can't stop. I believe there are certain foundational pieces of my personality and my life that, if I neglected them simply because they were hard, I would be lying to myself about who I was, which would make my life hard to live anyway. It's a lose-lose, in a [pessimistic] sense, but I think the intentional, challenging way is the more sustainable and rewarding way.
So that's where I was around the middle of June. Tune in next time to hear about July.
<3 spadeALLcross
3.8.11
I am not a doctor...and I don't play one on TV
(This post is not written by an expert in anything. These are opinions and theories based on experience, not facts based on evidence. If you have a problem with anything said here, please begin a discussion, as I would rather be convinced that my theories are wrong than have someone think they're wrong and not tell me.)
So, it's 6:21 am CDT, and I am awake. This is an anomaly: do not be fooled into thinking I am a morning person. No, I'm waiting for the registration to open pottermore.com. There's been a window of about a half hour every day since Sunday, and the windows will officially close for a few months after Saturday, so I've dedicated the early mornings of the past couple days to waiting around for my opportunity to register for the site.
Yesterday was the first day I purposefully woke up early. I got to the site, found the clue, realized I didn't have my copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban, where the answer to the clue could be found, so defaulted and used the audiobook, since iTunes just happened to be open. (If I had had to open iTunes, it would have taken about five full minutes, if not more, and I think I would have imploded due to the building pressure.) I solved the clue, got to the website where the quill was supposed to be, and couldn't find it. Registration had closed. So I shrugged wistfully, yawned, and went back to sleep.
On Sunday, registration opened at 3 am in my time zone, on Monday, it opened at 4 am, and on Tuesday it opened at 5 am. So, I set my alarm this morning for a little before six and hopped online to wait around. Well...obviously, since it's 6:27 now, the trend has changed. It irks me a little and I find it unsettling that whoever is in charge of this website is making the fans jump through so many hoops to get to it. If it's just because they want the most dedicated fans to get on the site for this early registration dry run, I can maybe understand that, although I must point out that "Harry Potter Fan" does not directly translate to "Internet-Savvy, Scavenger-Hunt Extraordinaire" and that there are probably people getting on to Pottermore who were more intrigued by the process of getting there than they will be by the website. But if the reason for the manipulations comes from the fact that, Harry Potter being what it is to so many people, this is one fan base who would put up with almost anything, and this sort of registration process is more fun for the people in charge...that's just sick and they should stop. People are staying up egregiously late in some time zones, or waking up entirely too early, skiving off summer school or work...seems wrong to me. Dumbledore wouldn't let this happen.
Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about really.
In the excess time that I've been awake when pottermore hasn't been open (it's 6:35 now) I've been browsing the internet. It started on twitter where, since I'm following Pottermorefans, I was already sitting waiting for some news, perhaps on why regsitration wasn't open yet. I perused the past tweets, the @replies, etc, and I noticed a fervent energy present in every bit of the online conversations that revolved around this twitter account. People excited for pottermore opening, people preparing for each clue by quizzing themselves with similar clues they've made up themselves, people speculating about how access to the site is actually going to work, people sharing stories about the ridiculous things they've done for Harry Potter in the past, comparing Houses, etc. To some degree, it reminded me of the sort of energy I always felt at Harry Potter midnight showings, the energy that kept me coming back to the cinema every year, even though I didn't like the movies anymore.
But I started following links, and looking at other Harry Potter fandom things, and I remembered a book I saw for sale called Dear Mr. Potter which is filled with letters from people to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, telling them their stories about how Harry Potter made their life better in some way. A lot of them were touching, some were similar to mine, but a few of them sort of scared me in a way, and I stopped wanting to read them.
I've been called a nerd on several occasions, it feels like my mom calls me an "addict" every time I do anything for more than an hour for two days in a row (right now, this includes my obsession with ST:VOY), and I've gotten numerous questioning looks and scoffs, and even the odd demoralizing attack on my sanity from people who think I get "too" into things. Most of the time, these things are fandoms like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Twilight, and others. A few people have made fun of my T-shirt collection, but that's rare (because my t-shirt collection is universally awesome). Some people say I'm too Christian, too, but that's a different matter from my perspective, if not from theirs.
Harry Potter is different, because it is the one series I constantly return to. With others, I go through phases: I don't feel the same awe when I watch the Lord of the Rings movies as I did when I was in Junior High, I don't wish Lt. Commander Data were a non-fictional artificial lifeform anymore, and I certainly hate Bella Swan and her entire creepy family. But I've always loved Harry Potter, from the time I read the first book to the moment the credits rolled on the eighth movie, a timeline of almost fifteen years, my love for the series has developed from a phase-based infatuation into a sort of foundational love. Harry Potter is definitely a part of my life, and I'm sure I wouldn't be the same person if I hadn't read it. This is not true of all the other fandoms I've been a part of, including Twilight, Star Trek, Eragon, or The Matrix: take those experiences away, and the change in my character and person would be minimal.
The other fandom that captured my heart so thoroughly was The Lord of the Rings. I was in fifth or sixth grade when the first movie came out, and it took me a year to read the first book, but after that and until I got into high school, I was beyond obsessed. But it was not the same kind of obsession I had with Harry Potter. 2001, the year the movie came out, was a pretty hard year for me. It was a pretty hard year for the country, which certainly contributed to my year sucking. 2002 and 2003 were not much better. For this period of three years, I didn't have very many friends, my family life was more complicated and painful than I was used to, and I was doing terribly in school. The only thing that was going right, I thought, was The Lord of the Rings. Between reading the books, watching the movies, and obsessing over the details of both, I could easily occupy my mind with things other than my own life, and for the most part, that's exactly what I did for three years. I checked out of reality for the better part of Junior High, forgoing relationships with people around me, a better understanding of myself, and a first-hand knowledge of the world because there were things in my life that upset me and The Lord of the Rings allowed me to get away from them.
Sure, I turned out all right in the end, and yes, being a "fan" doesn't necessarily mean you're an escapist, and no, escapism is not always the same as hard drugs: sometimes it's just a coping mechanism, an outlet to plug in and recharge, and none of that scares me or bothers me. But reading some of those letters to Rowling and hearing the way those people were talking about the series as if it "saved" them from their terrible lives because they were able to read it long enough to wait out their problems and not have to deal with them every day...it feels dangerous to me.
Dumbledore himself said, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." Wishing Hogwarts is real, that you had friends like Hermione or Luna, that you could be a part of something special and important like Dumbledore's Army, that makes sense and I imagine is a natural response to a series that garnered so much love and attention for so long by so many. But I think that believing the books changed your life when all that happened was that you lived them instead of it is just incorrect. If thirteen years of your life you dwelled on Harry Potter, hoping it was real, living as if it was, and skipping out on what was actually happening around you, even if it was too terrible for you to live with, the series did not save you: it allowed you to lose thirteen years of your life that you will never get back.
I'm pretty sure I'm reading more into those letters than is there, since even my bout of living outside reality wasn't that deep or detrimental. But I wanted to voice my opinions about escapism, I guess, because I do think it's dangerous, and I do believe it's similar to, if not the same as an addiction. Some addictions are obviously unhealthy, and the family and friends of the user notice the signs and urge the user to seek help. Some addictions are less noticable, either because they are easily hidden (pornography and x-rated romance novels, anorexia and bulimia, etc) or because they are socially acceptable (caffeine, nicotine, etc). Some are more physically damaging than others (heroine, alcohol, etc) while some are more emotionally or psychologically damaging than others (eating disorders).
But all addictions are the same in that they give the addict a crutch to get through life, and the longer a person uses the crutch, the more the rest of their faculties atrophy due to lack of use or dependence. A person can become addicted to anything if they let that thing control their desires, dictate how they spend their time, or keep them from doing other things they used to enjoy or taking care of their responsibilities. The phrase "The more _____ you own, the more your _____ owns you" is not just a pithy attack on materialism. When someone goes camping and goes through television withdrawal, it's not just a useful metaphor. I'm not a psychologist, but in my personal experience, if there's anything in your life that you do regularly often without thinking, or because you "can't help yourself," or because you think it makes your life easier/simpler/better, you're forming a habit, and habits can easily become addictions.
The Lord of the Rings was my addiction. It didn't kill me, and I don't even necessarily regret it, but I do sometimes wonder what would have been different about my Junior High and high school experience if I had had a more healthy relationship with the books and movies. The difference, from what I can tell, is in the control. If you honestly determine when, where, and how you do something, if you really can stop any time, then you're in control. The moment you start feeling like you have to, like you can't afford not to, like it would be too hard to not do something, things start getting scary.
Aaaand I just went to the pottermore blog and realized that I didn't have to wake up until 22 minutes ago (it's 8:22 now) because they announced that registration would open sometime between 2 pm and 6 pm BST. Ugh. Obviously, I'm an example of an Internet-Idiot Harry Potter fan. But evidently, those in charge of pottermore don't really want me anyway.
I'm going back to bed. I hope I didn't offend anybody, but if I did, please tell me why. I'm just postulating throughout all of this: as I said, I'm not a psychologist and most of my experience with addiction diseases is second-hand, so I am not an expert.
If, though, you think there are things that control you more than you'd like them to, my amateur suggestion would be to tell someone you believe can help you: not necessarily a friend or family member, but someone you think will have the wisdom and guts to help you work through it. A counsellor, a mentor, a religious leader, a teacher...someone who either knows you or would know how to help you with your situation.
<3 spadeALLcross
EDIT: Wow...this post takes quite the journey. Probably reads a little strangely. I should edit it at some point, and I probably will later.
So, it's 6:21 am CDT, and I am awake. This is an anomaly: do not be fooled into thinking I am a morning person. No, I'm waiting for the registration to open pottermore.com. There's been a window of about a half hour every day since Sunday, and the windows will officially close for a few months after Saturday, so I've dedicated the early mornings of the past couple days to waiting around for my opportunity to register for the site.
Yesterday was the first day I purposefully woke up early. I got to the site, found the clue, realized I didn't have my copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban, where the answer to the clue could be found, so defaulted and used the audiobook, since iTunes just happened to be open. (If I had had to open iTunes, it would have taken about five full minutes, if not more, and I think I would have imploded due to the building pressure.) I solved the clue, got to the website where the quill was supposed to be, and couldn't find it. Registration had closed. So I shrugged wistfully, yawned, and went back to sleep.
On Sunday, registration opened at 3 am in my time zone, on Monday, it opened at 4 am, and on Tuesday it opened at 5 am. So, I set my alarm this morning for a little before six and hopped online to wait around. Well...obviously, since it's 6:27 now, the trend has changed. It irks me a little and I find it unsettling that whoever is in charge of this website is making the fans jump through so many hoops to get to it. If it's just because they want the most dedicated fans to get on the site for this early registration dry run, I can maybe understand that, although I must point out that "Harry Potter Fan" does not directly translate to "Internet-Savvy, Scavenger-Hunt Extraordinaire" and that there are probably people getting on to Pottermore who were more intrigued by the process of getting there than they will be by the website. But if the reason for the manipulations comes from the fact that, Harry Potter being what it is to so many people, this is one fan base who would put up with almost anything, and this sort of registration process is more fun for the people in charge...that's just sick and they should stop. People are staying up egregiously late in some time zones, or waking up entirely too early, skiving off summer school or work...seems wrong to me. Dumbledore wouldn't let this happen.
Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about really.
In the excess time that I've been awake when pottermore hasn't been open (it's 6:35 now) I've been browsing the internet. It started on twitter where, since I'm following Pottermorefans, I was already sitting waiting for some news, perhaps on why regsitration wasn't open yet. I perused the past tweets, the @replies, etc, and I noticed a fervent energy present in every bit of the online conversations that revolved around this twitter account. People excited for pottermore opening, people preparing for each clue by quizzing themselves with similar clues they've made up themselves, people speculating about how access to the site is actually going to work, people sharing stories about the ridiculous things they've done for Harry Potter in the past, comparing Houses, etc. To some degree, it reminded me of the sort of energy I always felt at Harry Potter midnight showings, the energy that kept me coming back to the cinema every year, even though I didn't like the movies anymore.
But I started following links, and looking at other Harry Potter fandom things, and I remembered a book I saw for sale called Dear Mr. Potter which is filled with letters from people to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, telling them their stories about how Harry Potter made their life better in some way. A lot of them were touching, some were similar to mine, but a few of them sort of scared me in a way, and I stopped wanting to read them.
I've been called a nerd on several occasions, it feels like my mom calls me an "addict" every time I do anything for more than an hour for two days in a row (right now, this includes my obsession with ST:VOY), and I've gotten numerous questioning looks and scoffs, and even the odd demoralizing attack on my sanity from people who think I get "too" into things. Most of the time, these things are fandoms like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Twilight, and others. A few people have made fun of my T-shirt collection, but that's rare (because my t-shirt collection is universally awesome). Some people say I'm too Christian, too, but that's a different matter from my perspective, if not from theirs.
Harry Potter is different, because it is the one series I constantly return to. With others, I go through phases: I don't feel the same awe when I watch the Lord of the Rings movies as I did when I was in Junior High, I don't wish Lt. Commander Data were a non-fictional artificial lifeform anymore, and I certainly hate Bella Swan and her entire creepy family. But I've always loved Harry Potter, from the time I read the first book to the moment the credits rolled on the eighth movie, a timeline of almost fifteen years, my love for the series has developed from a phase-based infatuation into a sort of foundational love. Harry Potter is definitely a part of my life, and I'm sure I wouldn't be the same person if I hadn't read it. This is not true of all the other fandoms I've been a part of, including Twilight, Star Trek, Eragon, or The Matrix: take those experiences away, and the change in my character and person would be minimal.
The other fandom that captured my heart so thoroughly was The Lord of the Rings. I was in fifth or sixth grade when the first movie came out, and it took me a year to read the first book, but after that and until I got into high school, I was beyond obsessed. But it was not the same kind of obsession I had with Harry Potter. 2001, the year the movie came out, was a pretty hard year for me. It was a pretty hard year for the country, which certainly contributed to my year sucking. 2002 and 2003 were not much better. For this period of three years, I didn't have very many friends, my family life was more complicated and painful than I was used to, and I was doing terribly in school. The only thing that was going right, I thought, was The Lord of the Rings. Between reading the books, watching the movies, and obsessing over the details of both, I could easily occupy my mind with things other than my own life, and for the most part, that's exactly what I did for three years. I checked out of reality for the better part of Junior High, forgoing relationships with people around me, a better understanding of myself, and a first-hand knowledge of the world because there were things in my life that upset me and The Lord of the Rings allowed me to get away from them.
Sure, I turned out all right in the end, and yes, being a "fan" doesn't necessarily mean you're an escapist, and no, escapism is not always the same as hard drugs: sometimes it's just a coping mechanism, an outlet to plug in and recharge, and none of that scares me or bothers me. But reading some of those letters to Rowling and hearing the way those people were talking about the series as if it "saved" them from their terrible lives because they were able to read it long enough to wait out their problems and not have to deal with them every day...it feels dangerous to me.
Dumbledore himself said, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." Wishing Hogwarts is real, that you had friends like Hermione or Luna, that you could be a part of something special and important like Dumbledore's Army, that makes sense and I imagine is a natural response to a series that garnered so much love and attention for so long by so many. But I think that believing the books changed your life when all that happened was that you lived them instead of it is just incorrect. If thirteen years of your life you dwelled on Harry Potter, hoping it was real, living as if it was, and skipping out on what was actually happening around you, even if it was too terrible for you to live with, the series did not save you: it allowed you to lose thirteen years of your life that you will never get back.
I'm pretty sure I'm reading more into those letters than is there, since even my bout of living outside reality wasn't that deep or detrimental. But I wanted to voice my opinions about escapism, I guess, because I do think it's dangerous, and I do believe it's similar to, if not the same as an addiction. Some addictions are obviously unhealthy, and the family and friends of the user notice the signs and urge the user to seek help. Some addictions are less noticable, either because they are easily hidden (pornography and x-rated romance novels, anorexia and bulimia, etc) or because they are socially acceptable (caffeine, nicotine, etc). Some are more physically damaging than others (heroine, alcohol, etc) while some are more emotionally or psychologically damaging than others (eating disorders).
But all addictions are the same in that they give the addict a crutch to get through life, and the longer a person uses the crutch, the more the rest of their faculties atrophy due to lack of use or dependence. A person can become addicted to anything if they let that thing control their desires, dictate how they spend their time, or keep them from doing other things they used to enjoy or taking care of their responsibilities. The phrase "The more _____ you own, the more your _____ owns you" is not just a pithy attack on materialism. When someone goes camping and goes through television withdrawal, it's not just a useful metaphor. I'm not a psychologist, but in my personal experience, if there's anything in your life that you do regularly often without thinking, or because you "can't help yourself," or because you think it makes your life easier/simpler/better, you're forming a habit, and habits can easily become addictions.
The Lord of the Rings was my addiction. It didn't kill me, and I don't even necessarily regret it, but I do sometimes wonder what would have been different about my Junior High and high school experience if I had had a more healthy relationship with the books and movies. The difference, from what I can tell, is in the control. If you honestly determine when, where, and how you do something, if you really can stop any time, then you're in control. The moment you start feeling like you have to, like you can't afford not to, like it would be too hard to not do something, things start getting scary.
Aaaand I just went to the pottermore blog and realized that I didn't have to wake up until 22 minutes ago (it's 8:22 now) because they announced that registration would open sometime between 2 pm and 6 pm BST. Ugh. Obviously, I'm an example of an Internet-Idiot Harry Potter fan. But evidently, those in charge of pottermore don't really want me anyway.
I'm going back to bed. I hope I didn't offend anybody, but if I did, please tell me why. I'm just postulating throughout all of this: as I said, I'm not a psychologist and most of my experience with addiction diseases is second-hand, so I am not an expert.
If, though, you think there are things that control you more than you'd like them to, my amateur suggestion would be to tell someone you believe can help you: not necessarily a friend or family member, but someone you think will have the wisdom and guts to help you work through it. A counsellor, a mentor, a religious leader, a teacher...someone who either knows you or would know how to help you with your situation.
<3 spadeALLcross
EDIT: Wow...this post takes quite the journey. Probably reads a little strangely. I should edit it at some point, and I probably will later.
26.7.11
The time is coming [the walrus anticipates]...
What? Yes! Please!
So much excitement, I can't even.
<3 spadeALLcross
19.7.11
The time has come, [the Walrus said]...
It's been a few days since I saw HP 7.2, and I now feel solid enough in my opinion of it to review it. Not in-depth, as I don't think anyone who reads this blog really cares about the play-by-play of a movie they could easily watch themselves, but at least enough to discuss the parts that struck me the most.
WARNING: Spoiler City up in hurr.
I walked into the theater last November for the midnight showing of HP 7.1 with very low expectations. I've been to every midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie since Prisoner of Azkaban as a tradition, but have never actually liked the movies. But after HP 7.1 was over, I was incredibly and pleasantly surprised by its quality. The filmmakers had definitely made choices that I didn't understand, like not including the invisibility cloak, rushing through an introduction of Bill Weasley, and skipping over so much of Harry's Dumbledore-related angst. But the movie did a much better job than its predecessors of staying true to the depth, vision, and feeling of the book. Things were dark, scary, and hopeless, and the comic relief came in short bursts of smiles before nail-biting drama struck again.
So Thursday night, my expectations were high for a Harry Potter film for the first time in seven years. And when the credits rolled, I was less disappointed than I could have been. I think the movie did as good a job adapting the book as it could have, given the circumstances. Ending a series beloved by so many people and trying to include all of the bits that audience would expect--"The Prince's Tale," Molly-Bellatrix dueling scene, Neville's defeat of Nagini, many of the priceless bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout, etc.--while still creating an enjoyable movie that wasn't absolute Hell to sit through is a task that I do not envy.
Because the job was such a hard one, I'm quite happy with the way the movie turned out. It does, however, solidify in my mind that the books outstrip the films in every way that counts.
The movie didn't really include anything about the Hallows at all. It registered their existence and sort of nodded to the fact that Harry possessed all three by the end of the war for Hogwarts, but it didn't show the struggle that Dumbledore had faced, like so many others within and -out of fiction have faced, throughout his life of trying to use them to overcome death. Dumbledore's ascension to the position of Hogwarts' Headmaster and decline of the position of Minister of Magic was hardly mentioned, if at all. Harry's choice not to try to beat Voldemort to Dumbledore's tomb and take the Elder wand didn't happen. Voldemort's fear of death was downplayed in favor of his fear of defeat. These choices changed the entire point of the Harry Potter story. The saga went from a relatable tale of young people overcoming internal and external obstacles by learning to think for themselves while still relying on others, a tale of friendship and bravery, of unity and mutual respect, of trusts lost and regained, to a coming-of-age story that no one can ever identify with, since it's set in a fictional world whose struggles are nothing like ours.
In the first book and movie, Quirrell/Voldemort says, "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too weak to seek it." This is the theme of the Deathly Hallows; the internal battle between action and inaction, the conscious decisions Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort each make in their separate quests to "win," and each person's individual definition of what "winning" means.
All three of them have different relationships and responses to power. Voldemort obviously desires to increase his own power. As a child and a student he uses his innately strong magical power to bully and coerce those around him, to make them see how strong he was, to make others see how week they were. He also hones his social power to ensnare people who have more actual authority than he does in order to use their power to his advantage. But the only reason he wants any of this power is his fear of death. He fears the unknown that comes after death, and he spends most of his life ensuring that he will never have to face it. It is his search for ways to overcome death that brought so much of his power, and once he believes he has achieved immortality, he knows that he is better, stronger, smarter than everyone else in the world, including Dumbledore. Because, if anyone else were as talented and as driven as he was, they would have created horcruxes as well, they would have done the things he had done, because death was something everyone feared. How could they not? He could not see any other way of approaching the power he had discovered. He could not see why anyone would not want to live forever. What was the point of a whole and pure soul if it could be destroyed?
Meanwhile, Dumbledore also desires power his whole life. Similar to Voldemort, he sharpens his magic and knowledge from a young age. Perhaps it is Dumbledore's habit of (born out of his opportunities for) relying on other people that allow him to have friends at school who then keep him from becoming the lone-ranger that Voldemort is. Maybe Dumbledore's quest is more for knowledge and study than it is for power. But for whatever reason, Albus gets through school without attempting to take over the world. However, once school is over and his mother's death forces him to settle back in at home to take care of his younger brother and sister, he feels trapped in an inferior life. His belief that he could do more with his talents, should be allowed to move forward, fuels his friendship with Grindelwald, someone who agrees with Albus that he was made for better things. Maybe Gelert has a more straightforward desire for power for the sake of power than Dumbledore does, but Dumbledore, blinded by love and a feeling of partnership he probably didn't feel with anyone else and isn't getting from anyone in his broken family, dares to dream with Grindelwald.
Dumbledore's crippling fear that made him seek power wasn't death, but stagnation, discomfort, and intellectual restraints. Where Voldemort wanted the horcruxes primarily to ensure his eternal existence and only secondarily used the power he had gained from making them to subjugate those he thought were weaker than him, Dumbledore and Grindelwald wanted the Hallows primarily to place their superior intelligence and talent rightly on top where it belong, and only secondarily to allow themselves to live forever.
Albus is shocked out of his desire for power by the loss of his brother, sister, and best friend/boyfriend in one fell blow, and for a while, his fear overshadows his guilt. His grief over his lost loved ones and his knowledge that he is at least partly responsible keeps him from grabbing power where he can. But that fear of discomfort is something he struggles with his entire life, between desiring power over other, lesser people, as he exhibits when he borrows the cloak from James Potter, and wanting power over his grief, as he demonstrates by attempting to bring Ariana and his parents back from the dead with the resurrection stone. But he is always disgusted by his relationship to power, which is why the Elder wand is safe with him. He doesn't trust himself, and he doesn't trust the wand, so he remains headmaster of Hogwarts and keeps his own power and the wand's in check.
Unlike Dumbledore and Voldemort, Harry does not want power. All his life he is powerless, alone, and mistreated, much like Voldemort, but at school, he gains friends and fame, like Dumbledore. His fame does not treat him well; it makes him as many enemies as friends, and it gives him as many problems as solutions. Some of his fame is based on his own talent, and some of his success comes from skill, but he knows that an equal, if not greater amount comes from luck, chance, and the providence of others, and between this knowledge and the pains his fame gives him, he doesn't get as big a head as he could. Instead of focusing on overpowering others, he genuinely tries his best to do what he thinks is right. What he thinks is right is not always the most intelligent course of action, but he is only a teenager, and he is often dealing with the complex power schemes and magic of adults much stronger and smarter than he is. He knows that he isn't good enough to do everything by himself, but he also knows that doing something was too important to leave entirely to someone else. He is the perfect combination of Voldemort and Dumbledore, of relying on himself and relying on others, of choosing to act and choosing to wait, of having a will to live without putting it above everything else. If he has a crippling fear, it is that he was not worth dying for: that his parents and his friends loved him too much and for no reason. Instead of driving him to take power wherever he can find it, his fear dives him to be the best person possible, fighting for the best causes he finds. His fear makes him constantly reevaluate his actions and his goals, to know himself...something Dumbledore learned too late, and Voldemort never learned at all. Because of this, he gets all three Hallows and learns what it really means to be Master of Death. Not to live forever, but to embrace the inevitable end, to know that it's coming, and to not fight it once it arrives.
So many themes regarding life and what it means to be human float in and out of Harry Potter: persistence in the face of overwhelming adversity, unlikely forgiveness, the importance of friendship, the need for humility, and so on and so forth. A lot of them feel cliché when said aloud, which is probably why people call Harry Potter fans "nerds." The story is a coming-of-age adventure; how could it not be with a group of adolescents as the protagonists? But its fan base is proof that its characters and plots speak to more than just adolescents and that the series is more than a mere didactic fairy tale about the ideal human being.
The major overarching theme of the whole series is not cliché or nerdy, but a real question that people ask themselves constantly, whether they take note of it or not. The theme is expressed in that striking quote of Quirrell's: "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too week to seek it." The question Harry Potter asks is whether Good seeks power, and whether not seeking power is a weakness. Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort represent three case studies in dealing with power that can show us our own feelings about the subject.
But the movies do not focus on that aspect of the books. It makes sense that they wouldn't: in order to do so, all of the movies would have had to have been much longer and probably would have included more scenes of exposition and talking than of action and excitement, and that's not exactly what a movie is best at. As it is, the movies portray a good story about children becoming adults and overcoming the obstacles their parents and mentors could not.
So, while I certainly can't say I love the movies as much as I love the books, I'm not surprised or upset by their inability to match up with each other. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey, and when I drink water, I drink water.
And I'm sad that Harry Potter is officially over, but I can't afford to care too much for too long. Everyone has different experiences with literature, and I have confidence in mine and shouldn't worry for anyone else's, since I can't control it anyway.
Here's to you, Harry. And here's to many happy years of your own immortality, one you gained without Hallows, without Horcruxes.
Now...if only Hogwarts were real...
<3 spadeALlcross
WARNING: Spoiler City up in hurr.
I walked into the theater last November for the midnight showing of HP 7.1 with very low expectations. I've been to every midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie since Prisoner of Azkaban as a tradition, but have never actually liked the movies. But after HP 7.1 was over, I was incredibly and pleasantly surprised by its quality. The filmmakers had definitely made choices that I didn't understand, like not including the invisibility cloak, rushing through an introduction of Bill Weasley, and skipping over so much of Harry's Dumbledore-related angst. But the movie did a much better job than its predecessors of staying true to the depth, vision, and feeling of the book. Things were dark, scary, and hopeless, and the comic relief came in short bursts of smiles before nail-biting drama struck again.
So Thursday night, my expectations were high for a Harry Potter film for the first time in seven years. And when the credits rolled, I was less disappointed than I could have been. I think the movie did as good a job adapting the book as it could have, given the circumstances. Ending a series beloved by so many people and trying to include all of the bits that audience would expect--"The Prince's Tale," Molly-Bellatrix dueling scene, Neville's defeat of Nagini, many of the priceless bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout, etc.--while still creating an enjoyable movie that wasn't absolute Hell to sit through is a task that I do not envy.
Because the job was such a hard one, I'm quite happy with the way the movie turned out. It does, however, solidify in my mind that the books outstrip the films in every way that counts.
The movie didn't really include anything about the Hallows at all. It registered their existence and sort of nodded to the fact that Harry possessed all three by the end of the war for Hogwarts, but it didn't show the struggle that Dumbledore had faced, like so many others within and -out of fiction have faced, throughout his life of trying to use them to overcome death. Dumbledore's ascension to the position of Hogwarts' Headmaster and decline of the position of Minister of Magic was hardly mentioned, if at all. Harry's choice not to try to beat Voldemort to Dumbledore's tomb and take the Elder wand didn't happen. Voldemort's fear of death was downplayed in favor of his fear of defeat. These choices changed the entire point of the Harry Potter story. The saga went from a relatable tale of young people overcoming internal and external obstacles by learning to think for themselves while still relying on others, a tale of friendship and bravery, of unity and mutual respect, of trusts lost and regained, to a coming-of-age story that no one can ever identify with, since it's set in a fictional world whose struggles are nothing like ours.
In the first book and movie, Quirrell/Voldemort says, "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too weak to seek it." This is the theme of the Deathly Hallows; the internal battle between action and inaction, the conscious decisions Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort each make in their separate quests to "win," and each person's individual definition of what "winning" means.
All three of them have different relationships and responses to power. Voldemort obviously desires to increase his own power. As a child and a student he uses his innately strong magical power to bully and coerce those around him, to make them see how strong he was, to make others see how week they were. He also hones his social power to ensnare people who have more actual authority than he does in order to use their power to his advantage. But the only reason he wants any of this power is his fear of death. He fears the unknown that comes after death, and he spends most of his life ensuring that he will never have to face it. It is his search for ways to overcome death that brought so much of his power, and once he believes he has achieved immortality, he knows that he is better, stronger, smarter than everyone else in the world, including Dumbledore. Because, if anyone else were as talented and as driven as he was, they would have created horcruxes as well, they would have done the things he had done, because death was something everyone feared. How could they not? He could not see any other way of approaching the power he had discovered. He could not see why anyone would not want to live forever. What was the point of a whole and pure soul if it could be destroyed?
Meanwhile, Dumbledore also desires power his whole life. Similar to Voldemort, he sharpens his magic and knowledge from a young age. Perhaps it is Dumbledore's habit of (born out of his opportunities for) relying on other people that allow him to have friends at school who then keep him from becoming the lone-ranger that Voldemort is. Maybe Dumbledore's quest is more for knowledge and study than it is for power. But for whatever reason, Albus gets through school without attempting to take over the world. However, once school is over and his mother's death forces him to settle back in at home to take care of his younger brother and sister, he feels trapped in an inferior life. His belief that he could do more with his talents, should be allowed to move forward, fuels his friendship with Grindelwald, someone who agrees with Albus that he was made for better things. Maybe Gelert has a more straightforward desire for power for the sake of power than Dumbledore does, but Dumbledore, blinded by love and a feeling of partnership he probably didn't feel with anyone else and isn't getting from anyone in his broken family, dares to dream with Grindelwald.
Dumbledore's crippling fear that made him seek power wasn't death, but stagnation, discomfort, and intellectual restraints. Where Voldemort wanted the horcruxes primarily to ensure his eternal existence and only secondarily used the power he had gained from making them to subjugate those he thought were weaker than him, Dumbledore and Grindelwald wanted the Hallows primarily to place their superior intelligence and talent rightly on top where it belong, and only secondarily to allow themselves to live forever.
Albus is shocked out of his desire for power by the loss of his brother, sister, and best friend/boyfriend in one fell blow, and for a while, his fear overshadows his guilt. His grief over his lost loved ones and his knowledge that he is at least partly responsible keeps him from grabbing power where he can. But that fear of discomfort is something he struggles with his entire life, between desiring power over other, lesser people, as he exhibits when he borrows the cloak from James Potter, and wanting power over his grief, as he demonstrates by attempting to bring Ariana and his parents back from the dead with the resurrection stone. But he is always disgusted by his relationship to power, which is why the Elder wand is safe with him. He doesn't trust himself, and he doesn't trust the wand, so he remains headmaster of Hogwarts and keeps his own power and the wand's in check.
Unlike Dumbledore and Voldemort, Harry does not want power. All his life he is powerless, alone, and mistreated, much like Voldemort, but at school, he gains friends and fame, like Dumbledore. His fame does not treat him well; it makes him as many enemies as friends, and it gives him as many problems as solutions. Some of his fame is based on his own talent, and some of his success comes from skill, but he knows that an equal, if not greater amount comes from luck, chance, and the providence of others, and between this knowledge and the pains his fame gives him, he doesn't get as big a head as he could. Instead of focusing on overpowering others, he genuinely tries his best to do what he thinks is right. What he thinks is right is not always the most intelligent course of action, but he is only a teenager, and he is often dealing with the complex power schemes and magic of adults much stronger and smarter than he is. He knows that he isn't good enough to do everything by himself, but he also knows that doing something was too important to leave entirely to someone else. He is the perfect combination of Voldemort and Dumbledore, of relying on himself and relying on others, of choosing to act and choosing to wait, of having a will to live without putting it above everything else. If he has a crippling fear, it is that he was not worth dying for: that his parents and his friends loved him too much and for no reason. Instead of driving him to take power wherever he can find it, his fear dives him to be the best person possible, fighting for the best causes he finds. His fear makes him constantly reevaluate his actions and his goals, to know himself...something Dumbledore learned too late, and Voldemort never learned at all. Because of this, he gets all three Hallows and learns what it really means to be Master of Death. Not to live forever, but to embrace the inevitable end, to know that it's coming, and to not fight it once it arrives.
So many themes regarding life and what it means to be human float in and out of Harry Potter: persistence in the face of overwhelming adversity, unlikely forgiveness, the importance of friendship, the need for humility, and so on and so forth. A lot of them feel cliché when said aloud, which is probably why people call Harry Potter fans "nerds." The story is a coming-of-age adventure; how could it not be with a group of adolescents as the protagonists? But its fan base is proof that its characters and plots speak to more than just adolescents and that the series is more than a mere didactic fairy tale about the ideal human being.
The major overarching theme of the whole series is not cliché or nerdy, but a real question that people ask themselves constantly, whether they take note of it or not. The theme is expressed in that striking quote of Quirrell's: "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too week to seek it." The question Harry Potter asks is whether Good seeks power, and whether not seeking power is a weakness. Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort represent three case studies in dealing with power that can show us our own feelings about the subject.
But the movies do not focus on that aspect of the books. It makes sense that they wouldn't: in order to do so, all of the movies would have had to have been much longer and probably would have included more scenes of exposition and talking than of action and excitement, and that's not exactly what a movie is best at. As it is, the movies portray a good story about children becoming adults and overcoming the obstacles their parents and mentors could not.
So, while I certainly can't say I love the movies as much as I love the books, I'm not surprised or upset by their inability to match up with each other. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey, and when I drink water, I drink water.
And I'm sad that Harry Potter is officially over, but I can't afford to care too much for too long. Everyone has different experiences with literature, and I have confidence in mine and shouldn't worry for anyone else's, since I can't control it anyway.
Here's to you, Harry. And here's to many happy years of your own immortality, one you gained without Hallows, without Horcruxes.
Now...if only Hogwarts were real...
<3 spadeALlcross
14.7.11
Today is Slytherin Day!
I must confess, I have a huge soft spot for Slytherin, and I can't really explain why. Severus Snape is one of the most complex and exciting characters I've encountered, especially in young-adult-style literature, and I really like what J.K. Rowling did with him throughout the series. Perhaps this explains my love for Slytherin. Because I am certainly no Death-Eater.
So today I was Snape. Obviously.
Status:
"You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?" Professor Umbridge asked Snape.
"Yes," said Snape quietly.
"But you were unsuccessful?"
Snape's lip curled.
"Obviously."
Caption:
"After all this time?"
"Always."
And now, my outfit.
I choose to portray Slytherins, the ambitious little buggers, as business-extremely-casual. I have a forest green men's button-down from Salvation Army as well as a green tie, and I'm wearing a grey ribbed tank under it. I would wear slacks or something, but it's way too hot outside. I used to have a silver snake ring that I would wear, but I think I gave it to a friend.
Tonight's the big night. I'm not wearing this outfit for that (I'm representing all four houses instead) and I guess I might update you on what I do wear, but probably not because it's nothing special.
Wish me luck!
<3 spadeALLcross
So today I was Snape. Obviously.
Status:
"You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?" Professor Umbridge asked Snape.
"Yes," said Snape quietly.
"But you were unsuccessful?"
Snape's lip curled.
"Obviously."
Caption:
"After all this time?"
"Always."
And now, my outfit.
I choose to portray Slytherins, the ambitious little buggers, as business-extremely-casual. I have a forest green men's button-down from Salvation Army as well as a green tie, and I'm wearing a grey ribbed tank under it. I would wear slacks or something, but it's way too hot outside. I used to have a silver snake ring that I would wear, but I think I gave it to a friend.
Tonight's the big night. I'm not wearing this outfit for that (I'm representing all four houses instead) and I guess I might update you on what I do wear, but probably not because it's nothing special.
Wish me luck!
<3 spadeALLcross
13.7.11
Today is Hufflepuff Day!
I have complained openly to many people about how I think Hufflepuff is the house for die Reste, the place where you go when you're not smart enough for Ravenclaw, not brave enough for Gryffindor, and not ambitious enough for Slytherin, but too wizard to stay home.
But, over the course of this past year, I've reread all of the books in a row, and I've learned something: Hufflepuffs are the activists. The environmentalists, the inner-city teachers, the social workers. They're hardworkers, and they're just and fair. They'll do anything they can to stand up for a cause they believe in. And they probably will put two and two together fast enough to realize that it's smarter to live for a cause than to die for one if you can help it, unlike some Gryffindors.
Maybe I'm overblowing it. They are all under 17, after all. But they're not as bad as I made them out to be before.
Anyway, there aren't many Hufflepuffs I idolize (I didn't even swoon over Cedric. Sorry.) and I had already picked Dumbledore to represent today, which is okay, because he's a headmaster: he can represent any of the houses. Wild card. Woo.
Caption: "In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."
Status: "I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment, but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness."
I actually had a ton more quotes I wanted to find some way to use--
Well – it's just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to – what is the phrase – 'Come quietly.' I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course – but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing.
"I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."
"What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knows."
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
And next, my outfit.
Hufflepuff is yellow and black. So far, my least favorite color combination, but I still think it works pretty well. The shirt is something from LOFT...or at least, that's what the tag says. I bought if from a thrift store. Shorts are black and from Primark. Necklace is from Modcloth. Jubilant expression is from me feeling awkward in front of a camera, trying to squish my whole body in there.
Tomorrow is the big day, guys. The big day. Good luck, God bless, and I'll see you when I see you.
<3 spadeALLcross
But, over the course of this past year, I've reread all of the books in a row, and I've learned something: Hufflepuffs are the activists. The environmentalists, the inner-city teachers, the social workers. They're hardworkers, and they're just and fair. They'll do anything they can to stand up for a cause they believe in. And they probably will put two and two together fast enough to realize that it's smarter to live for a cause than to die for one if you can help it, unlike some Gryffindors.
Maybe I'm overblowing it. They are all under 17, after all. But they're not as bad as I made them out to be before.
Anyway, there aren't many Hufflepuffs I idolize (I didn't even swoon over Cedric. Sorry.) and I had already picked Dumbledore to represent today, which is okay, because he's a headmaster: he can represent any of the houses. Wild card. Woo.
Caption: "In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."
Status: "I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment, but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness."
I actually had a ton more quotes I wanted to find some way to use--
Well – it's just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to – what is the phrase – 'Come quietly.' I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course – but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing.
"I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."
"What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knows."
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
And next, my outfit.
Hufflepuff is yellow and black. So far, my least favorite color combination, but I still think it works pretty well. The shirt is something from LOFT...or at least, that's what the tag says. I bought if from a thrift store. Shorts are black and from Primark. Necklace is from Modcloth. Jubilant expression is from me feeling awkward in front of a camera, trying to squish my whole body in there.
Tomorrow is the big day, guys. The big day. Good luck, God bless, and I'll see you when I see you.
<3 spadeALLcross
12.7.11
Today is Gryffindor Day!
I thought I wasn't going to like this day. I don't really like Gryffindor. They're dumb a lot. Honor and glory and stuff, you know? Those kinds of people get on my nerves. I am that kind of person a lot, and I get annoyed at my idiocy.
But then I remembered that Hermione was almost a Ravenclaw, and I remembered what the Sorting Hat said about how sorting isn't always a good thing, because severing ties so thoroughly is dangerous, and I remembered that there's probably a little bit of every house in every person, and I grew to love Gryffindor more...
...but mostly I just remembered that I like Hermione a lot. She's one of my heros. Also, I have a fair bit of Maroon and Gold to use today.
So, facebook = Hermione today. Caption = "You said to us once before that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?" (Oh man, Hermione's so hard core...) Status = "Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?" (Oh man, Hermione flips a shit so well...)
And my outfit.
I think of Gryffindors as world-traveller types, thrill seekers, and people who fancy themselves bad-asses, whether they actually are or not. But maybe that's just me...
This Gryffindor is also, as it happens, rather thrifty. The t-shirt is just a maroon shirt I picked up from the dollar store for the fabric, originally, and then never got around to using it. The yellow vest is a second-hand store find. The lightning necklace was 79p at a flea market in Leeds, the headband was £1 at a going-out-of-business sale in Edinburgh, the shorts are from Primark (the ones I mentioned yesterday, actually) and the glasses I stole from my cousin. The Anchor necklace, though, I bought a couple years ago from Modcloth. I thought it would add to the Magellan Chic look I was going for.
Envy me and my fashion sense. You know you do.
Until tomorrow!
<3 spadeALLcross
P.S. I am really enjoying myself here. Please tell me what you think of my choices...and if you want, tell me how you're celebrating!
But then I remembered that Hermione was almost a Ravenclaw, and I remembered what the Sorting Hat said about how sorting isn't always a good thing, because severing ties so thoroughly is dangerous, and I remembered that there's probably a little bit of every house in every person, and I grew to love Gryffindor more...
...but mostly I just remembered that I like Hermione a lot. She's one of my heros. Also, I have a fair bit of Maroon and Gold to use today.
So, facebook = Hermione today. Caption = "You said to us once before that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?" (Oh man, Hermione's so hard core...) Status = "Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?" (Oh man, Hermione flips a shit so well...)
And my outfit.
I think of Gryffindors as world-traveller types, thrill seekers, and people who fancy themselves bad-asses, whether they actually are or not. But maybe that's just me...
This Gryffindor is also, as it happens, rather thrifty. The t-shirt is just a maroon shirt I picked up from the dollar store for the fabric, originally, and then never got around to using it. The yellow vest is a second-hand store find. The lightning necklace was 79p at a flea market in Leeds, the headband was £1 at a going-out-of-business sale in Edinburgh, the shorts are from Primark (the ones I mentioned yesterday, actually) and the glasses I stole from my cousin. The Anchor necklace, though, I bought a couple years ago from Modcloth. I thought it would add to the Magellan Chic look I was going for.
Envy me and my fashion sense. You know you do.
Until tomorrow!
<3 spadeALLcross
P.S. I am really enjoying myself here. Please tell me what you think of my choices...and if you want, tell me how you're celebrating!
11.7.11
Today is Ravenclaw Day!
So, I changed my profile picture to Luna Lovegood today. I captioned it with "Don't worry; you're just as sane as I am." And my status is "The Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They're working from within to bring down the Ministry of Magic using a combination of Dark magic and gum disease."
And my outfit is...
I think Ravenclaws are destined to be Hipsters. I mean, I lived on the Honors floor at school for two years, and look at what happened to me.
Ravenclaw's colors are Blue and Bronze, so I substituted brown for bronze were I had to. I regret not getting the owl-y stuff back when I was buying jewelry in England, because I think it would have been perfect. Instead, I went for a bronze Horse pendant I got a few years back from somewhere in Rhode Island and a brown and gold bangle set from...BHS? Dorothy Perkins? I don't remember now. The blue tank is from Walmart and the brown vest is from Kohl's, in case you were wondering. The brown and bronze belt came with a pair of shorts I bought at Primark in Leeds. Glasses are from a costume store on Amazon.
I feel like such a fashionista, telling people where I bought my clothes. But then I read it back again, and see that Walmart was included in there, and am less excited.
I like these colors, together, though. I think I might wear them more often.
And my outfit is...
I think Ravenclaws are destined to be Hipsters. I mean, I lived on the Honors floor at school for two years, and look at what happened to me.
Ravenclaw's colors are Blue and Bronze, so I substituted brown for bronze were I had to. I regret not getting the owl-y stuff back when I was buying jewelry in England, because I think it would have been perfect. Instead, I went for a bronze Horse pendant I got a few years back from somewhere in Rhode Island and a brown and gold bangle set from...BHS? Dorothy Perkins? I don't remember now. The blue tank is from Walmart and the brown vest is from Kohl's, in case you were wondering. The brown and bronze belt came with a pair of shorts I bought at Primark in Leeds. Glasses are from a costume store on Amazon.
I feel like such a fashionista, telling people where I bought my clothes. But then I read it back again, and see that Walmart was included in there, and am less excited.
I like these colors, together, though. I think I might wear them more often.
10.7.11
The last week of our lives...
Okay, so maybe that's a bit dramatic. But this does feel like a momentous week for me. Why?
Harry Potter 7.2 comes out on Friday. And then, besides the enigmatic pottermore, there will be nothing new that is Harry for the rest of my forseeable life. Some people reading this are rolling their eyes: Mary, it's just a book series. There are hundreds of thousands of millions. Just pick up a new one. And to those people, I say, I have. No, my life is not ending, and books are not ruined for me forever (thank God...as they are my livelihood at this point). But this is like...a symbol. My childhood is over.
I'm 21. I guess I should have seen this coming.
But when I went to the 4th of July carnival in my town this year and rode all the rides I wanted to in under an hour...or when I went with my best friend to Great America last year and took a nap in the parking lot...or when I bought a friggin' mutual fund...it became more real than it was when I blew out those 18 candles or recovered from my first hangover or had to start going to the grocery store by myself. Adulthood requires new forms of fun, it has its own new challenges, new temptations, new disappointments. Just when I was getting the hang of the old ones.
And Harry Potter's vanishing into the void of literary and cinematic used-to-be is the most painful and final reminder of all these changes.
Because Harry was my childhood. I went to see the first movie for my 11th birthday party. I was seventeen when I read the final book. I was Harry Potter for Halloween in fourth grade. I've gone to the midnight showings of every movie since The Prisoner of Azkaban, even though I didn't like the movies until 7.1 came out last November.
So naturally, I'm a little vexed by default.
But I've decided that, instead of mourning a loss, (which is dumb, because I'm not actually losing anything: I mean, I wasn't in the movies, they weren't paying my salary or anything. In fact, I'm probably gaining a lot of money, since I will be spending less on Harry Potter miscellany) I'm going to celebrate hard and happy and not miss a minute of it.
So, starting tomorrow, I'm doing my four-day countdown of my favorite characters on Facebook, using their Leaky widgets (by Makani) as my profile pictures, their best quotes as my status, and their house colors as my wardrobe. I'm also listening to my meager supply of Harry-Potter-esque music, which is comprised of Draco and the Malfoys, Harry and the Potters, Hank Green, and Jim Dale from the audiobooks, as well as two versions of one gem.
Tune in tomorrow for pictures and smiles!
<3 spadeALLcross
P.S. Oh, were you wondering if I was just going to ignore the past two months or whatever that I didn't post, and the fact that I didn't even finish my Easter Holiday blogs? Why yes, yes I was. Thanks for your concern.
Harry Potter 7.2 comes out on Friday. And then, besides the enigmatic pottermore, there will be nothing new that is Harry for the rest of my forseeable life. Some people reading this are rolling their eyes: Mary, it's just a book series. There are hundreds of thousands of millions. Just pick up a new one. And to those people, I say, I have. No, my life is not ending, and books are not ruined for me forever (thank God...as they are my livelihood at this point). But this is like...a symbol. My childhood is over.
I'm 21. I guess I should have seen this coming.
But when I went to the 4th of July carnival in my town this year and rode all the rides I wanted to in under an hour...or when I went with my best friend to Great America last year and took a nap in the parking lot...or when I bought a friggin' mutual fund...it became more real than it was when I blew out those 18 candles or recovered from my first hangover or had to start going to the grocery store by myself. Adulthood requires new forms of fun, it has its own new challenges, new temptations, new disappointments. Just when I was getting the hang of the old ones.
And Harry Potter's vanishing into the void of literary and cinematic used-to-be is the most painful and final reminder of all these changes.
Because Harry was my childhood. I went to see the first movie for my 11th birthday party. I was seventeen when I read the final book. I was Harry Potter for Halloween in fourth grade. I've gone to the midnight showings of every movie since The Prisoner of Azkaban, even though I didn't like the movies until 7.1 came out last November.
So naturally, I'm a little vexed by default.
But I've decided that, instead of mourning a loss, (which is dumb, because I'm not actually losing anything: I mean, I wasn't in the movies, they weren't paying my salary or anything. In fact, I'm probably gaining a lot of money, since I will be spending less on Harry Potter miscellany) I'm going to celebrate hard and happy and not miss a minute of it.
So, starting tomorrow, I'm doing my four-day countdown of my favorite characters on Facebook, using their Leaky widgets (by Makani) as my profile pictures, their best quotes as my status, and their house colors as my wardrobe. I'm also listening to my meager supply of Harry-Potter-esque music, which is comprised of Draco and the Malfoys, Harry and the Potters, Hank Green, and Jim Dale from the audiobooks, as well as two versions of one gem.
Tune in tomorrow for pictures and smiles!
<3 spadeALLcross
P.S. Oh, were you wondering if I was just going to ignore the past two months or whatever that I didn't post, and the fact that I didn't even finish my Easter Holiday blogs? Why yes, yes I was. Thanks for your concern.
21.4.11
Second verse, same as the first...
...a little bit louder and a whole lot worse.
- We spend most of the day in transit to day. While we walked north from our hotel to the train station we'd looked on up the internet, we saw a tractor drive down the street, which seemed odd. Lea's from a tiny country town in Michigan and she really felt at home.
- It took us an hour to get to the train station, and neither of us was in very good spirits by the time we got there. We hadn't eaten yet, our feet and backs ached heavily, and it was a rather hot day. We got to the station and found out that all of the trains leaving from that station to Strasbourg were copletely booked in second class. So we bought an expensive ticket that left out of a different station, and then went to a cash machine afterwards to nurse our wounds.
I was so upset. Looking back on it now, I'm very disappointed at my upsetedness--I was thinking how it was Lea's fault we had to pay so much for a ticket, when it was just as much mine as hers, if it was anyone's. I had told her that we didn't need to book anything beforehand, and that I was excited to figure stuff out as we went. After we bought that ticket, it took me far too long to calm myself down and remember that spending money isn't going to kill me, and that I could make it up to myself by being frugal later and by getting jobs over the summer and fall. Hard work and money can go hand in hand for me, thanks to my privileges. I need to stop feeling like I'm worse off than I actually am. My father's hard work paid for this trip, and my hard work will repay him one day, even if it takes years.
- After getting cash, we stumbled upon a little baguette place with a fantastic meal deal (sandwich, can of soda, and pain chocolat for 4.90 euros) and I ordered it by myself! With success this time! No fumbling, no nervous laughter, and even some French words coming out of my mouth! This boosted my morale (as did eating) and almost made me forget the train ticket.
- We walked to the train station adn then sat there for three hours, too tired and sore to want to do anything. We read our books, were asked several times for money, and once for spare batteries...or at least I think that's what he wanted.
- We then went to Strasbourg. It was about a two-hour train ride, and about a fifteen-minute walk to the hotel. After we'd unloaded our considerable burdens (my rucksack was 22 lbs...) we wandered around town, taking in the place and looking for something to eat. Unfortunately, everything seems to close really early at night on this side of the Atlantic, so we settled on a supermarket and bought apples, pretzels, gummy worms, and drinks. One of the employees came around and told us (in French) that they were closing, and I thought he was asking for money, like so many people had in Paris, but he explained himself in English, and it all worked out. We went back to our hotel and watched an episode of Merlin before retiring.
Strasbourg is a beautiful little city, and we're exploring it tomorrow, so expect lots of glowing praises tomorrow!
<3 spadeALLcross
- We spend most of the day in transit to day. While we walked north from our hotel to the train station we'd looked on up the internet, we saw a tractor drive down the street, which seemed odd. Lea's from a tiny country town in Michigan and she really felt at home.
- It took us an hour to get to the train station, and neither of us was in very good spirits by the time we got there. We hadn't eaten yet, our feet and backs ached heavily, and it was a rather hot day. We got to the station and found out that all of the trains leaving from that station to Strasbourg were copletely booked in second class. So we bought an expensive ticket that left out of a different station, and then went to a cash machine afterwards to nurse our wounds.
I was so upset. Looking back on it now, I'm very disappointed at my upsetedness--I was thinking how it was Lea's fault we had to pay so much for a ticket, when it was just as much mine as hers, if it was anyone's. I had told her that we didn't need to book anything beforehand, and that I was excited to figure stuff out as we went. After we bought that ticket, it took me far too long to calm myself down and remember that spending money isn't going to kill me, and that I could make it up to myself by being frugal later and by getting jobs over the summer and fall. Hard work and money can go hand in hand for me, thanks to my privileges. I need to stop feeling like I'm worse off than I actually am. My father's hard work paid for this trip, and my hard work will repay him one day, even if it takes years.
- After getting cash, we stumbled upon a little baguette place with a fantastic meal deal (sandwich, can of soda, and pain chocolat for 4.90 euros) and I ordered it by myself! With success this time! No fumbling, no nervous laughter, and even some French words coming out of my mouth! This boosted my morale (as did eating) and almost made me forget the train ticket.
- We walked to the train station adn then sat there for three hours, too tired and sore to want to do anything. We read our books, were asked several times for money, and once for spare batteries...or at least I think that's what he wanted.
- We then went to Strasbourg. It was about a two-hour train ride, and about a fifteen-minute walk to the hotel. After we'd unloaded our considerable burdens (my rucksack was 22 lbs...) we wandered around town, taking in the place and looking for something to eat. Unfortunately, everything seems to close really early at night on this side of the Atlantic, so we settled on a supermarket and bought apples, pretzels, gummy worms, and drinks. One of the employees came around and told us (in French) that they were closing, and I thought he was asking for money, like so many people had in Paris, but he explained himself in English, and it all worked out. We went back to our hotel and watched an episode of Merlin before retiring.
Strasbourg is a beautiful little city, and we're exploring it tomorrow, so expect lots of glowing praises tomorrow!
<3 spadeALLcross
20.4.11
Okay, so I've decided...
...that there are actually a few things that I want to say about Paris yesterday. Psych!
- There have been several times since coming to France where I have picked up my camera and seriously contemplated taking a picture in order to capture the smells around me. It's unfortunate that smell-o-vision and it's accompanying camcorders don't yet exist...and it's quite apparent to me now why France is renown for its perfumes.
- The toilettes in Britain are different from those in America, and the toilettes are still more different. The on ein our hotel here waits for you to tell it when to stop flushing, which is both convenient and probably inefficient.
- We walked, delighted to be unencumbered by our heavy rucksacks, all the way north from our hotel to he Eiffel Tower and took tons of pictures with it together. Lea's floormates back in York told her they wanted her to take lots of "cheesy" pictures for them, so we've been careful to do so. We walked under the tower to go see the Triumphal Arch, and as we did, we saw dozens of people selling plastic Eiffel Towers and other really weird souvenirs (including this one wind-up man on a bike; his mouth opened and closed and his eyes rolled around...very creepy, France, very creepy). Every five feet, someone was selling something. It made me sad to realize how so much of Paris is not really for Parisians anymore. That thought made me wonder how much more enjoyable tourism would have been a hundred or 150 years ago, when a tour of the world (or at least of Europe) was almost requisite for upperclass people in countries like England. Without the same number of hard core capitalists around all the main attractions, how much more wonderful might the experiences of seeing those places have been?
- When we'd crossed the river and were looking at a war memorial or something, one of the men selling cheap souvenirs that was near us walked by us twice and said "very sexy" under his breath to us. I didn't look at him, and we just walked on as if nothing had happened, but i have to say, I was pretty upset. In fact, I was surprised by how upset I was. I wished I had slapped him, which doesn't seem like me. I know many men aren't like that and wouldn't do that, and even though most of the men in Paris I've come into contact with have been equally or in similar ways disgusting, I know that there must be lots of men in Paris who don't treat all women like objects to be succinctly reviewed in three words or less. But I wanted to punish this guy. I thought in retrospect that maybe if I had reacted forcefully to him, he wouldn't be as keen to treat other girls like that, or maybe he'd see that women don't always let men do whatever they want. More likely, I suppose, I would have just pissed him off and all Hell would have broken loose, right there in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Like I said, I'm not sure why I got as upset as I did--I've been harassed like that all my life by people I do and do not know, I've watched men run their eyes all over me on the street like it's their right to get whatever pleasure out of me they want. And strictly speaking, as far as the staring goes, I can't really stop them, so I suppose it is their right. And other men in my life have done worse. But this one tower-selling man...I wanted him to feel the weight of his actions like I never have with anyone else. Don't know why, but it obviously had a profound affect on me.
- Paris, like the walkways around Chateau de Chenonceau, was extremely dusty. By the end of the day, my feet around my sandal straps and Lea's tights around her shoes were very dusty from our extensive walking. Paris was not very grassy, except in the ample gardens of a Palais or in some of the other city parks. There was also a lot of construction, and all the trees and bushes were flowering and stuff, so between the dust, the bits of wood and such, and the buds and bugs flying everywhere, Lea and I managed to keep getting little things in our eyes. All the time. Sometimes we couldn't get them out for minutes at a time. Very strange. Very uncomfortable.
- I've sen lots of people and a couple models in ads, and a few people in cartoons here in Frane with very prominent gaps between their two front teeth. I wonder if that's a style here, and if so, why?
- For an early lunch that ended up lasting us all day, we stopped in at a bakery and sandwich place. lea got a ham sandwich and a pain au chocolat, and I blundered miserably through ordering something that might have been called a foussache or something (basically a really long piece of flatbread with melted cheese, herbs, olives, and mushrooms on it). It was a horrible experience, not knowing enough of the language to tell the woman what I wanted, or to be able to understand her when she asked me if I wanted it heated. I was mortified by it, mostly because I really am ashamed that my only real language is English. And because I hate to perpetuate bad stereotypes about Americans.
So that is Paris more in full. Hope you enjoyed it.
<3 spadeALLcross
-
- There have been several times since coming to France where I have picked up my camera and seriously contemplated taking a picture in order to capture the smells around me. It's unfortunate that smell-o-vision and it's accompanying camcorders don't yet exist...and it's quite apparent to me now why France is renown for its perfumes.
- The toilettes in Britain are different from those in America, and the toilettes are still more different. The on ein our hotel here waits for you to tell it when to stop flushing, which is both convenient and probably inefficient.
- We walked, delighted to be unencumbered by our heavy rucksacks, all the way north from our hotel to he Eiffel Tower and took tons of pictures with it together. Lea's floormates back in York told her they wanted her to take lots of "cheesy" pictures for them, so we've been careful to do so. We walked under the tower to go see the Triumphal Arch, and as we did, we saw dozens of people selling plastic Eiffel Towers and other really weird souvenirs (including this one wind-up man on a bike; his mouth opened and closed and his eyes rolled around...very creepy, France, very creepy). Every five feet, someone was selling something. It made me sad to realize how so much of Paris is not really for Parisians anymore. That thought made me wonder how much more enjoyable tourism would have been a hundred or 150 years ago, when a tour of the world (or at least of Europe) was almost requisite for upperclass people in countries like England. Without the same number of hard core capitalists around all the main attractions, how much more wonderful might the experiences of seeing those places have been?
- When we'd crossed the river and were looking at a war memorial or something, one of the men selling cheap souvenirs that was near us walked by us twice and said "very sexy" under his breath to us. I didn't look at him, and we just walked on as if nothing had happened, but i have to say, I was pretty upset. In fact, I was surprised by how upset I was. I wished I had slapped him, which doesn't seem like me. I know many men aren't like that and wouldn't do that, and even though most of the men in Paris I've come into contact with have been equally or in similar ways disgusting, I know that there must be lots of men in Paris who don't treat all women like objects to be succinctly reviewed in three words or less. But I wanted to punish this guy. I thought in retrospect that maybe if I had reacted forcefully to him, he wouldn't be as keen to treat other girls like that, or maybe he'd see that women don't always let men do whatever they want. More likely, I suppose, I would have just pissed him off and all Hell would have broken loose, right there in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Like I said, I'm not sure why I got as upset as I did--I've been harassed like that all my life by people I do and do not know, I've watched men run their eyes all over me on the street like it's their right to get whatever pleasure out of me they want. And strictly speaking, as far as the staring goes, I can't really stop them, so I suppose it is their right. And other men in my life have done worse. But this one tower-selling man...I wanted him to feel the weight of his actions like I never have with anyone else. Don't know why, but it obviously had a profound affect on me.
- Paris, like the walkways around Chateau de Chenonceau, was extremely dusty. By the end of the day, my feet around my sandal straps and Lea's tights around her shoes were very dusty from our extensive walking. Paris was not very grassy, except in the ample gardens of a Palais or in some of the other city parks. There was also a lot of construction, and all the trees and bushes were flowering and stuff, so between the dust, the bits of wood and such, and the buds and bugs flying everywhere, Lea and I managed to keep getting little things in our eyes. All the time. Sometimes we couldn't get them out for minutes at a time. Very strange. Very uncomfortable.
- I've sen lots of people and a couple models in ads, and a few people in cartoons here in Frane with very prominent gaps between their two front teeth. I wonder if that's a style here, and if so, why?
- For an early lunch that ended up lasting us all day, we stopped in at a bakery and sandwich place. lea got a ham sandwich and a pain au chocolat, and I blundered miserably through ordering something that might have been called a foussache or something (basically a really long piece of flatbread with melted cheese, herbs, olives, and mushrooms on it). It was a horrible experience, not knowing enough of the language to tell the woman what I wanted, or to be able to understand her when she asked me if I wanted it heated. I was mortified by it, mostly because I really am ashamed that my only real language is English. And because I hate to perpetuate bad stereotypes about Americans.
So that is Paris more in full. Hope you enjoyed it.
<3 spadeALLcross
-
I walked around Paris for an entire day...in shorts and sandals, what's more.
Okay, so today was Paris. It was the quintessential Paris day; we saw everything that everyone else sees (excepting the inside of the Museé de Louvre, or whatever, but that is on the schedule for tomorrow) but we did it at our own pace and had a fantastic time. I really enjoyed it. I'm covered from head to foot in an extra layer of dust now…but c'est la vie. You can't win 'em all.
So, since I don't have to throw those mundane details at you, I'll expound on some of my more internal experiences of the past few days.
Those of you who watch my snidgets on YouTube know that I'm all about culture shock. And I swear I didn't even know the word until I came to a country that doesn't speak my language or have any desire to try. The people are [generally] lovely and friendly and many of them do speak enough English for our conversations to be relatively painless, but we're on their turf, and when there is an issue with the language barrier, I'm likely to think of it as "our fault," rather than theirs, which is an acute and new feeling.
But I've found that barrier to be a useful protection as well. Lea and I will often speak to each other in English in public about things we would normally wait to say until we're in private company. Not rude or mean things, but when we're uncomfortable with a situation, or when we think some French thing is strange, or something like that. This didn't really happen much in Paris today because of the percentage of people around us who also spoke French, but on the trains and in Tours, I at least felt much less likely to be overheard and understood.
This, naturally, is a double-edge sword, as those people here who speak other languages can do the same thing right back to us. There was that group of boys on the train to Paris last night who made kissy noises at us and talked about us to each other without bothering to keep quiet about it, and some men at a cash register in one of the shops we went into today talked to a colleague, laughing about "Americans" as he dealt with our custom.
It's funny how, within my culture shock, I've begun to cling shamelessly to pieces of France that are somehow connected to America, or even to Britain in order to feel more comfortable. I saw a bagpiper today in a manner very similar to one I saw in London a few weeks ago, and I felt so happy being able to hear his music for hundreds of meters around as it carried over the river. And yesterday in the taxi to the train station, the driver (who spoke very little English) was listening to French radio and randomly, "I've Had the Time of My Life" (the original, from Dirty Dancing, not the Black Eyed Peas version) came on, and I was moved in spite of myself. I'm not even a huge fan of that song, but just hearing it settled me down a bit.
However, being blatantly slapped in the face by my own nationality does not have the same effect. When we were visiting Chateau de Chenonceau, we sat near a large group of American high school students on the train, and we saw them later at the site. I found myself wanting to separate myself from them (although this might have been because they were being a bit obnoxious) and I even once slipped into speaking German when I was standing near them and trying to point out something to Lea. This was embarrassing.
In general, France has managed to bring out the worst in me. It has made me passive, paranoid, proud, prejudiced, and all sorts of other p-related Jane-Austen-y negatives. I hope that at least my noticing them has had some reversing affect, and that maybe I can prevent them from continuing or growing.
Some interesting Etimological tidbits that France has brought to my attention:
- the word for "tip" as in what you add to a bill in a restaurant or on cab fare in both French and German translates directly to "drink money." Where did this idea come from? My hypothesis is that, back in the day (whenever the day was that the word for "tip" was born) the tip was the money you gave someone when you benefited enough from their services that you wanted to reward them with money to go out drinking. As I have limited internet access, I can't verify this for a while. If you would like to do so and let me know the results of your research, please let me know in the comments section.
- the French word for pomegranate is "grenade." Did this come before or after the English word for the hand-held explosive, and did it influence it at all? Because pomegranates are about the same size as grenades, as I recall, and they can be explosively juicy…
- the French word for honey moon is directly translated to "moon of honey." Where did this idea come from? Why do we call the period after a wedding a honeymoon? Did it start in France and work its way out after English and French had split up, perhaps due to the supposition that French is the most romantic of the Romance languages, or did the word come from before the two languages were separate and so just follow so many other words over to English? Do other languages call it the equivalent thing? (The German word for honeymoon is "Flitterwochen" a compound of the word "wochen" which means week, and "flitter," which I'm not sure means anything—it's not included in my pocket German/English dictionary, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.)
That's all for now. I'm mostly caught up. We'll see if I can easily wore the rest of these pre-written bullet points into future posts.
<3 spadeALLcross
So, since I don't have to throw those mundane details at you, I'll expound on some of my more internal experiences of the past few days.
Those of you who watch my snidgets on YouTube know that I'm all about culture shock. And I swear I didn't even know the word until I came to a country that doesn't speak my language or have any desire to try. The people are [generally] lovely and friendly and many of them do speak enough English for our conversations to be relatively painless, but we're on their turf, and when there is an issue with the language barrier, I'm likely to think of it as "our fault," rather than theirs, which is an acute and new feeling.
But I've found that barrier to be a useful protection as well. Lea and I will often speak to each other in English in public about things we would normally wait to say until we're in private company. Not rude or mean things, but when we're uncomfortable with a situation, or when we think some French thing is strange, or something like that. This didn't really happen much in Paris today because of the percentage of people around us who also spoke French, but on the trains and in Tours, I at least felt much less likely to be overheard and understood.
This, naturally, is a double-edge sword, as those people here who speak other languages can do the same thing right back to us. There was that group of boys on the train to Paris last night who made kissy noises at us and talked about us to each other without bothering to keep quiet about it, and some men at a cash register in one of the shops we went into today talked to a colleague, laughing about "Americans" as he dealt with our custom.
It's funny how, within my culture shock, I've begun to cling shamelessly to pieces of France that are somehow connected to America, or even to Britain in order to feel more comfortable. I saw a bagpiper today in a manner very similar to one I saw in London a few weeks ago, and I felt so happy being able to hear his music for hundreds of meters around as it carried over the river. And yesterday in the taxi to the train station, the driver (who spoke very little English) was listening to French radio and randomly, "I've Had the Time of My Life" (the original, from Dirty Dancing, not the Black Eyed Peas version) came on, and I was moved in spite of myself. I'm not even a huge fan of that song, but just hearing it settled me down a bit.
However, being blatantly slapped in the face by my own nationality does not have the same effect. When we were visiting Chateau de Chenonceau, we sat near a large group of American high school students on the train, and we saw them later at the site. I found myself wanting to separate myself from them (although this might have been because they were being a bit obnoxious) and I even once slipped into speaking German when I was standing near them and trying to point out something to Lea. This was embarrassing.
In general, France has managed to bring out the worst in me. It has made me passive, paranoid, proud, prejudiced, and all sorts of other p-related Jane-Austen-y negatives. I hope that at least my noticing them has had some reversing affect, and that maybe I can prevent them from continuing or growing.
Some interesting Etimological tidbits that France has brought to my attention:
- the word for "tip" as in what you add to a bill in a restaurant or on cab fare in both French and German translates directly to "drink money." Where did this idea come from? My hypothesis is that, back in the day (whenever the day was that the word for "tip" was born) the tip was the money you gave someone when you benefited enough from their services that you wanted to reward them with money to go out drinking. As I have limited internet access, I can't verify this for a while. If you would like to do so and let me know the results of your research, please let me know in the comments section.
- the French word for pomegranate is "grenade." Did this come before or after the English word for the hand-held explosive, and did it influence it at all? Because pomegranates are about the same size as grenades, as I recall, and they can be explosively juicy…
- the French word for honey moon is directly translated to "moon of honey." Where did this idea come from? Why do we call the period after a wedding a honeymoon? Did it start in France and work its way out after English and French had split up, perhaps due to the supposition that French is the most romantic of the Romance languages, or did the word come from before the two languages were separate and so just follow so many other words over to English? Do other languages call it the equivalent thing? (The German word for honeymoon is "Flitterwochen" a compound of the word "wochen" which means week, and "flitter," which I'm not sure means anything—it's not included in my pocket German/English dictionary, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.)
That's all for now. I'm mostly caught up. We'll see if I can easily wore the rest of these pre-written bullet points into future posts.
<3 spadeALLcross
19.4.11
Parlé vous l'Englais?
(I just guessed on the spelling of that title. Let me know how I did.)
First full day in France! …and oof, what a full day it has been.
Itinerary for this post:
A. Start by summing up all the stuff I was going to write yesterday and didn't
B. Then move on to talking about the stuff I did today
Itinerary for future posts:
A. Thirdly, some thoughts on being an American (particularly this American) in France
B. Interesting, France-inspired etymological studies
Yesterday [feels like weeks ago] was a bit nerve-wracking at the time because we had to get a train to London, then a tube to the Stansted station, and then a train from there to Stansted Airport. I started freaking out about this the night before because I was worried about the time crunch, but I tried not to let it show too much, because getting us both worried about it was definitely going to cause more harm than good.
In the end, it worked out with nearly 15 minutes to spare. Not only that, but all of my worries about my luggage being overweight or having too many liquids, or about not getting through security or not being allowed in France were [mostly] unfounded (though my bag was only .1 kilograms under the limit…close one). In the end, getting from England to France was a breeze, really.
But then we hit a considerable wall: the airport was north of Tours, France, and the hotel we had booked was in Chambray-les-Tours, which is quite south of Tours. Lea had supposed that there would be an ATM and perhaps a pay-phone in the airport, or that taxis would come to the airport regularly. However, as it turned out, Aeroport de Tours (or whatever…) consists of two rooms, one for departures, and security, and one for arrivals and baggage claim, and there were no taxis that we could see.
So we wandered around the airport a bit, went to the bathroom, contemplated trying to call a taxi from the phone we found (complete with phone book) but, to our luck, a taxi did pull up, and the driver even spoke English relatively well, though Lea did her level best to speak as much French as possible. He took us to a cash machine in a mall and then to our hotel. We walked back to the mall for dinner of cold pasta and club sandwiches, as well as pomegranate-cranberry juice (imported from California? Come on, France. Step up your pomegranate game) purchased from the largest supermarket I have ever seen outside of the 28th-Street Meijer in Grand Rapids.
Then, this morning, I scarfed a pains au chocolat (Lea bought a 10-pack or some such monstrosity the previous night) for breakfast, we checked out of our hotel at 9:30, and huffed it back to the mall, looking for either another taxi to the train station, or a pay phone with which to call one. We found neither forthcoming, but Lea conversed with a clerk at a desk in the aforementioned supermarket and found out that there was a pay phone outside somewhere. We found the appropriate calling card to use, and she called a Taxi.
Where would I be without Lea on this trip? Stuck at that airport still. Guaranteed. She doesn't speak much French, but the little that she does speak has been such a lifesaver, at least for me, who couldn't even pronounce anything before yesterday (I'm getting better by listening to people) let alone read signs or tell people anything. Especially in Tours, where not many people spoke English.
Glowing with the success of having called a taxi in French (something neither of us had ever done in English) we got to Gare de Tours and bought train tickets to Amboise. Glowing with the success of having gotten off at the correct stop, we purchased tickets to Chenanceau, a Chateau south of Amboise. We also bought tickets from Chenanceau to Paris for the evening. Saddened by our failure to recognize that the connecting train we had researched form Amboise to Chenanceau went through Tours (albeit a different station than the previous one), we finally got to the Chateau around 3:30. Neither of us was really upset, though, because the extra train ticket wasn't too costly, and the adventure of using the different language was exciting enough to blanket our frustration.
Then, without issue, we managed to spend nearly four hours at Chateau de Chenanceau. It's renown as one of the most beautiful of the Chateaux of the Val de Loire, which has at least a dozen Chateaux, so it's kind of a big deal. It's on a river (literally) and has two exquisite gardens, and it boats five French queens as previous residents. Lea got an audio guide and I just walked around with her and took pictures. I was disappointed by my lack of knowledge of French history, which is interesting, because until this semester, I was equally ignorant of British history. Walking around this beautiful castle helped me to realize just how much I've learned these past three months.
Naturally, you can expect pictures of the Chateau to be forthcoming…but probably not for at least a couple weeks.
We then caught our train to…some station with a connection to France. At this connecting station, we had a 30-minute layover, so we wandered into the concourse and bought crisps, gummy worms, and soda from a vending machine (yes, sadly, my experience of French cuisine is still yet to come) and ate it while we waited.
The train to Paris was express, no stops, and was also the first time we had our tickets checked since the stewardess scanned our boarding pass on the plane to Tours. We were too sheepish to take any of the seats that people were occupying with their luggage, so we stuck to the lounge car in the very back of the train, and eventually just sat down on the floor there. It was only a 1.5 hour ride, and I read Pride and Prejudice the hole time, so it was fine for me. I don't know about Lea.
At one point, the other boys in the car with us starting making obnoxious kissing noises (although, if anyone really makes those noises naturally while kissing, they are probably doing something wrong) in a manner which suggested to me that they wanted us to look at them, but I just kept reading and Lea just kept looking out the window, so they eventually stopped. Thus ended the excitement of that voyage.
After the train ride was the crazy part where we had to find the hotel. We managed to get another taxi (the driver spoke no English this time, but we had the address written on the paper, so it wasn't too bad, although I think he definitely took advantage of our foreignness and drove around a bit) but we hadn't made any hard and fast booking for our two nights in Paris (that was technically Lea's job…) so there were no vacancies there. Thankfully, the receptionist called two or three other hotels in the area until he found one with a room free, and then he gave us directions. (When I say "thankfully," imagine the Hallelujah chorus playing in the background…)
Now we're here, I managed to snag some cheap internet, and we're looking at stuff to do tomorrow and the next day. Very exciting stuff.
It's quite late here now, and I am longing for sleep. Again, I have so much I want to say before I forget it, but I took quick notes today, so I should remember them for tomorrow.
Bien nuit! (did I say that right?)
<3 spadeALLcross
First full day in France! …and oof, what a full day it has been.
Itinerary for this post:
A. Start by summing up all the stuff I was going to write yesterday and didn't
B. Then move on to talking about the stuff I did today
Itinerary for future posts:
A. Thirdly, some thoughts on being an American (particularly this American) in France
B. Interesting, France-inspired etymological studies
Yesterday [feels like weeks ago] was a bit nerve-wracking at the time because we had to get a train to London, then a tube to the Stansted station, and then a train from there to Stansted Airport. I started freaking out about this the night before because I was worried about the time crunch, but I tried not to let it show too much, because getting us both worried about it was definitely going to cause more harm than good.
In the end, it worked out with nearly 15 minutes to spare. Not only that, but all of my worries about my luggage being overweight or having too many liquids, or about not getting through security or not being allowed in France were [mostly] unfounded (though my bag was only .1 kilograms under the limit…close one). In the end, getting from England to France was a breeze, really.
But then we hit a considerable wall: the airport was north of Tours, France, and the hotel we had booked was in Chambray-les-Tours, which is quite south of Tours. Lea had supposed that there would be an ATM and perhaps a pay-phone in the airport, or that taxis would come to the airport regularly. However, as it turned out, Aeroport de Tours (or whatever…) consists of two rooms, one for departures, and security, and one for arrivals and baggage claim, and there were no taxis that we could see.
So we wandered around the airport a bit, went to the bathroom, contemplated trying to call a taxi from the phone we found (complete with phone book) but, to our luck, a taxi did pull up, and the driver even spoke English relatively well, though Lea did her level best to speak as much French as possible. He took us to a cash machine in a mall and then to our hotel. We walked back to the mall for dinner of cold pasta and club sandwiches, as well as pomegranate-cranberry juice (imported from California? Come on, France. Step up your pomegranate game) purchased from the largest supermarket I have ever seen outside of the 28th-Street Meijer in Grand Rapids.
Then, this morning, I scarfed a pains au chocolat (Lea bought a 10-pack or some such monstrosity the previous night) for breakfast, we checked out of our hotel at 9:30, and huffed it back to the mall, looking for either another taxi to the train station, or a pay phone with which to call one. We found neither forthcoming, but Lea conversed with a clerk at a desk in the aforementioned supermarket and found out that there was a pay phone outside somewhere. We found the appropriate calling card to use, and she called a Taxi.
Where would I be without Lea on this trip? Stuck at that airport still. Guaranteed. She doesn't speak much French, but the little that she does speak has been such a lifesaver, at least for me, who couldn't even pronounce anything before yesterday (I'm getting better by listening to people) let alone read signs or tell people anything. Especially in Tours, where not many people spoke English.
Glowing with the success of having called a taxi in French (something neither of us had ever done in English) we got to Gare de Tours and bought train tickets to Amboise. Glowing with the success of having gotten off at the correct stop, we purchased tickets to Chenanceau, a Chateau south of Amboise. We also bought tickets from Chenanceau to Paris for the evening. Saddened by our failure to recognize that the connecting train we had researched form Amboise to Chenanceau went through Tours (albeit a different station than the previous one), we finally got to the Chateau around 3:30. Neither of us was really upset, though, because the extra train ticket wasn't too costly, and the adventure of using the different language was exciting enough to blanket our frustration.
Then, without issue, we managed to spend nearly four hours at Chateau de Chenanceau. It's renown as one of the most beautiful of the Chateaux of the Val de Loire, which has at least a dozen Chateaux, so it's kind of a big deal. It's on a river (literally) and has two exquisite gardens, and it boats five French queens as previous residents. Lea got an audio guide and I just walked around with her and took pictures. I was disappointed by my lack of knowledge of French history, which is interesting, because until this semester, I was equally ignorant of British history. Walking around this beautiful castle helped me to realize just how much I've learned these past three months.
Naturally, you can expect pictures of the Chateau to be forthcoming…but probably not for at least a couple weeks.
We then caught our train to…some station with a connection to France. At this connecting station, we had a 30-minute layover, so we wandered into the concourse and bought crisps, gummy worms, and soda from a vending machine (yes, sadly, my experience of French cuisine is still yet to come) and ate it while we waited.
The train to Paris was express, no stops, and was also the first time we had our tickets checked since the stewardess scanned our boarding pass on the plane to Tours. We were too sheepish to take any of the seats that people were occupying with their luggage, so we stuck to the lounge car in the very back of the train, and eventually just sat down on the floor there. It was only a 1.5 hour ride, and I read Pride and Prejudice the hole time, so it was fine for me. I don't know about Lea.
At one point, the other boys in the car with us starting making obnoxious kissing noises (although, if anyone really makes those noises naturally while kissing, they are probably doing something wrong) in a manner which suggested to me that they wanted us to look at them, but I just kept reading and Lea just kept looking out the window, so they eventually stopped. Thus ended the excitement of that voyage.
After the train ride was the crazy part where we had to find the hotel. We managed to get another taxi (the driver spoke no English this time, but we had the address written on the paper, so it wasn't too bad, although I think he definitely took advantage of our foreignness and drove around a bit) but we hadn't made any hard and fast booking for our two nights in Paris (that was technically Lea's job…) so there were no vacancies there. Thankfully, the receptionist called two or three other hotels in the area until he found one with a room free, and then he gave us directions. (When I say "thankfully," imagine the Hallelujah chorus playing in the background…)
Now we're here, I managed to snag some cheap internet, and we're looking at stuff to do tomorrow and the next day. Very exciting stuff.
It's quite late here now, and I am longing for sleep. Again, I have so much I want to say before I forget it, but I took quick notes today, so I should remember them for tomorrow.
Bien nuit! (did I say that right?)
<3 spadeALLcross
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