Here's to You, Mr. Potter

Hey kiddos!

It’s twisted, I know, but now that the new semester is starting, I finally feel like I can begin to relax.

My testing report is done.  Feedback is scheduled.  My externship applications are mailed and emailed.  That horrendous paper is finally finished (packed with APA style guide* errors which will assuredly drag down my grade, but I just can’t manage to care).  And it’s official: I have a thesis data set.  Almost 40 whole articles made the cut!  I haven’t chosen a statistical program yet, but that’s a task for another day.  Apparently.

About externships: I already have two interviews!  I don’t plan to run my mouth about it to my classmates (unless I’m asked, I guess), so I’ll share it here, instead.  I’m excited. :)

In spite of being in near-constant panic-mode for the last two months, boyfriend and I ultimately managed to carve out a couple of much-needed fun times over my winter “break”.  Perhaps our best fun time involved going ice skating in one of my favorite parts of our fair city.  It’s something we’d been wanting to do for over a year, and finally we decided it was time to just make it happen, school work be damned.  It was wonderful... even more so than I anticipated.

Good times!

And WHO could resist those stylish skates??

As of the last three weeks or so, boyfriend has ALSO succeeded in convincing me to watch Harry Potter movies, adding to the long list of his notable personal victories.  And I actually really... really... like them.

Up until a few weeks ago, out of an annoying hipsterly resistance to anything overly popular, I had completely avoided all things Boy Wizard.  I was a little too old for the books when they first came out (though I did read one chapter of one of them to a girl I babysat for, only to have her correct my pronunciation of Hermione’s name).  I saw the first movie in theaters and hated it.  I have many friends whose opinions I normally respect who are devoted to these stories, and whose protestations that Ms. Rowling’s work was worthwhile I stalwartly, stubbornly ignored.  I just couldn’t get over my elitist too-many-people-like-this gag reflex.

Until now.

Okay, I was wrong!!  Fine fine FINE!!!  The movies are really actually pretty... wonderful.  I was intrigued by the revelations about Voldemort’s origins in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), and completely won over by Alfonso Cuarón’s odd, dark humor in Harry Potter and the Prisoner Azkaban (2004).  I was pushed to the brink of tears by the death of a classmate in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) (Spoiler alert: Robert Pattinson is vindicated... apparently?), and finally succumbed during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) when we watched it two nights ago.  I am unabashedly converted.

What did it?  Again, spoiler alert: During the climactic fight scene in the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Mysteries, as Sirius and Harry fight side-by-side against Voldemort’s Death Eaters, Sirius calls out to Harry, “Well done, James!”, momentarily mistaking the boy for his dead best friend and Harry’s father.  It broke my heart.

Even if I now have to swallow my pride and turn in my hipster card, as a result of watching these movies (with some other non-HP features thrown in), I am happy to say I’m well above quota for my 2011 movie-watching resolution.  And I’ve experienced the first of what I’m sure will be many learning experiences in the coming year (movie-related and otherwise): Hipsters aren’t always right.  Even when they’re me.

Now I just have to find the time to read seven 800-page books.

Happy New Semester!

<3

* A brief note on the APA style guide: In my opinion, anyone who really thinks you can only use the word “since” to refer to stuff happening after a particular event or time period and not ALSO to convey logical links between concepts seriously needs to be poked with something sharp.

To clarify, according to the APA style guide:

This roaring headache has plagued every moment of my life SINCE I started writing this paper.
....is CORRECT.

SINCE they are both stupid, this assignment and the infernal APA style guide make me angry.
...is INCORRECT.

Don’t even get me started on which numbers need to be spelled out and which need to be written as numerals.  It completely makes my head swim.

Thank GOD I'm done with that paper.