Monday, August 16, 2010

BEDA fail and 30-year-old me

I fail at BEDA...my month has been more stressful than I thought and my endeavors have not been very blog worthy so I just sort of gave up. So, I'll give a brief update. Sinnce the last time I posted I've:

-Started, and finished, Firefly (I adore Kaylee <3)
-Finished rewatching the 5th season of Buffy
-Half way through my reread of Alaska (been failing on the reading front...)
-Dealt with my messed up and ultimately lost financial aid package for college
-Been trying desperately to get ahold of the dean to get stuff together for my thesis (he finally answered today, it took him over a month!)

So that's why I haven't been blogging, not very fun stuff (besides the first 3.)

BUT I am back today after watching both Charlie and Kayley's videos to their 30-year-old selves. I thought this might be fun so I've decided to make a blog post about this. So, to a 30-year-old Sarah hello and how are ya? :)

Dear 30-year-old me,

Right now, you're 11 days from turning 19! You love your birthday and I hope that doesn't change as you get older like it does for some. You're about to start your final year of undergrad and start applying for grad school. Now, I hope you're still a Ravenclaw and love school and learning, but I also want you to be done with school by now...I know now you are(I am?) debating about whether you want to stop at Masters or go on to your PhD or PsyD. I hope whatever decision you(I?) made ends up being the right choice for you/me.

Now hopefully you're bored with talking about that and want to get onto more fun topics! I really hope you still go to HP conferences and wrock concerts (if they are still around.) I also hope you still love to read and watch 5AG and vlogbrothers on YouTube because, right now, the HP fandom and Nerdfighteria and huge parts of your life. I also hope you still adore Buffy and take it as seriously as you do currently. Now, I know I just watched it and discovered it's beauty less than a year ago, but this series really changed your life and the way you think and approach the world.

On this topic, I hope you were able to make your thesis on Buffy work at some point through your educational career because I believe doing so would be something you'd be very proud of yourself for. Right now, you pride yourself, as well as struggle with, being a fan as well as an academic. It seems so clear to you but others don't seem to understand. I hope you remained true to yourself and did what you thought was right.

At this point, I'm guessing you're very focused on your career (hopefully still counselling in gender and sexual identity!) and probably aren't married or have a family. However, I do hope you have had, or currently had, at least one serious girlfriend by the time. You're very jaded and driven now which is not a good combination for creating a relationship but I want you t experience it at least once in you're life.

I hope you have tons of dogs. I hope however that you still remember Noah and how much you loved him. Right now he's 12 and he's your best friend and you can't imagine life without him. I hope you're able to love others dogs as deeply as you loved him but I don't know if you could...

I hope you still are as close with Ryan, Tara, and your sister. They're very important to you know and I hope they remain that way.

Most of all, Sarah, I hope you're happy. You love deeply and feel strongly and I very much hope you still are in essence the same as who you are now. I don't want you to grow up or chain unless you want to. Just recently you've begun to have confidence in yourself and I hope that remains. You've had some hard times but right now you're happy and I hope the same still holds true.

And on one last night, I hope you can still quote every season of Friends! It comes in handy (no it doesn't, but you enjoy doing it.)

Best Wishes,

The 18-year-old you

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

BEDA #4

I'm lazy, today's been a bad day, here's a short survey about my favorite things. Enjoy:

Color: Pastel pink, blue, and purple
Animal: Dogs
Book: Aside from HP, probably a tie between Alaska, Bermudez Triangle, and Huger Games trilogy
Drink: Water or coke
Band: MoM, ALL CAPS, and Moaning Myrtles
TV Show: Buffy and Friends
Holiday: My birthday
Website: currently nerdfightersecrets :)

Hopefully I'll be less irritated tomorrow...

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

BEDA #3

I almost forgot to blog today xD

So I was going to start my Infinitus write up but I ended up doing something better. I started rereading Alaska this afternoon and, while swooning with love for this book, I remembered that I gave my friend a copy for her birthday. So I texted and asked her to start and to my surprise she said okay and 30 minutes later was texting me about different parts she enjoyed. So I spent my day staying caught up with her.

I've never gotten any of my friend's to read any of John's books so her reading it and loving it to be quoting it on facebook and texting me every few minutes about different parts was awesome! I'm excited for her to finish it and be able to discuss it fully. It makes me happy. :)

Besides Alaska, I've spent the day dong laundry, watched Buffy, and hung out and watched stuff with my mom. So good day overall. Now time to go back to reading, I'll write more tomorrow.

Monday, August 2, 2010

BEDA #2

Today is a going to be a boring day in blogville because I'm being productive IRL. So today I decided to go with the spurt of productivity and make a list of all I want to finish before the end of summer. Then at the end of the month I'll go back and see how much of this list I actually completed. So here is my list:

-Finish rereading Alaska
-Finish rereading DH
-Write review of Infinitus
-Learn how to work my cd drive/DVD creater thing I bought for my laptop
-Finish my proposal for my thesis
-Go eat sushi :)
-Finish cleaning room
-Finish hanging things up in my room
-Finish season 2 of Buffy and take notes for my thesis
-Get on a better sleep schedule
-Hug my dogs a lot

This list many change a but right now this is all I want, and think I can, get done before the end of the month. Tomorrow I should be starting my Indinitus write-up :)

Sunday, August 1, 2010

BEDAugust #1

HELLO WORLD! (not really..) I'm going to be participating in BEDA this year :D. I'm not too busy this August so hopefully I'll be able to make it every day.

I have some plans on what to write about in hopes that I can use this blog to get me to stop procrastinating. I generally like to write up everything I do at HP cons so I can remember everything later on. I've been doing this since Prophecy but unfortunately Azkatraz only got half done. I'm hoping to use the first week of BEDA to slowly write about Infinitus so it doesn't end up unfinished like Azkatraz.

Next, I plan on using my blog some days to write about my thesis. My thesis is on gender and sexual identity within Buffy and I'm starting it this fall. Right now my dean is being kind of stupid with helping me so I really need to get in the habit of helping myself. So someday I'm going to try and discuss some of my thoughts about the series or different academic books about the series so I'll have an easier time fall semester.

Lastly, and probably the only one other people will care to read, I'm going to review Mockingjay and what I thought about the end to the series. I'm very excited to get this book and I plan on finishing it before my birthday (August 27th.)

My blog is mainly for me which is why most of it sounds boring for others to read. But if anyone else is reading this, I'd be happy to take some time to write about other things that interest you or just write a little about who I am since most of you probably don't know me too well. Feel free to also leave a link to your blog so I can at least read it during BEDA (I'll try to make comments too.)

Monday, June 28, 2010

10 Things I'd Save

I haven't actually posted my own responses to the 5AG themes recently, but I decided to start back up with this question =)

I have a ton of stuff. Like, a real whole lot. I collect many different things (HP*, Kelly Clarkson*, Carrie Underwood*, Buffy the Vampire Slayer**, Friends*, Gilmore Girls*, and books. So picking just 10 things will be hard but here is my best attempt at listing what I would choose:

WARNING: I'm probably going to cheat a lot lol

1. Can I say all my HP books? If that's cheating, I'll find another way of cheating and say my midnight DH stuff. This will include my midnight copy; a frame I made with a picture of me crying while holding it, the receipt, wristbands, etc.; my DH poster signed my LeakyMug at Prophecy; and my stand up Harry thing. I adore all of these things and I could never replace them so I definitely would make sure to grab em all.

2. My Buffy collector plates and signed script frame. I can group these together because they are both close to each other on my wall! I could easily replace my collectors box which is actually not in the best condition (I bought it off ebay) but I have four collector plates of Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Spike that took me forever to find and I found very cheap (all four for $100 as opposed to the $60 each plate is worth alone.) And the autograph is amazing. It's signed by everyone including Joss Whedon and I put together a nice frame for it (I like frames...) so these would come with me out of the burning building.

3. My autographs. To make it seem like I'm not cheating as much, I'll list which autographs I'd bring and I promise you it wouldn't just be all my autrographs lol. So I'd bring my personalized ones from Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, obviously. I have a signed Kelly guitar which is amazing and I'd save. A signed Opry poster for Carrie. My signed Hank Green cd. My signed books by Maureen and John. My signed Azkatraz frame. and lastly would be my signed Gilmore Girls cast picture. I've spent years getting all of these and I would not be willing to lose them...

4. For the first time, I'm not going to cheat =D. I'd save my Friends collectors box. I got a box for like $50 that you can put all the individual seasons in, it's super awesome and not available anymore. If you haven't seen this, here's a picture of it



Awesome, right?!

5. My dogs, Noah and Tiffany. They'd both probably be able to make it on their own but just to make sure...

6. My favorite stuffed animals: Hedwig, Stitch, Carrie the Giraffe, Nemo, and Dog I've Been Trying To Name For Years. I have tons of other stuffed animals, some that I loved so much as a kid, but these are the most sentimental for me now. 2 are from my grandparents (Stitch and DIBTTNFY), Hedwig is the most adorable stuffed animal I have found of her, Nemo is from my friend and is beyond adorable, and Carrie the Giraffe I won the day before I met Carrie Underwood and I actually took her with me when I flew to Reno for the concert (she's pictured on my blog here, too haha.)

7. Again, not cheating! Bobble John because he's irreplacable.

8. My HPEF con name badges. I could never replace those and they remind me of all the good times I've had at these events <3

9. My DH theory notebook and folder. I went through a lot of trouble collecting my thoughts so I'd have them years after the final book came out so I think I'd be sad if, 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line I didn't know all the theories I believed in and all the crap I thought would happen or was being foreshadowed lol.

10. My backpack which includes my iPod, wallet, laptop, and external hard drive (okay the last 2 I'd put in to cheat...) My bag is also awesome; it has a Hogwarts and a Ravenclaw patch =D

This was insanely hard, let's just hope my house never catches on fire. (Let's also hope I didn't just jinx myself >.> )

*I have hundreds of things
**I started freakishly obsessing and have a good number so far
***I basically just have all the seasons, a few posters, some books, and magazine pages...

EDIT: Just looked up to see if I was right about the Friends box. Apparently I only spent $20 and now it's worth hundreds. Go me. To bad I'm never ever selling it haha.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

HP Love

So I was over on the Infinitus boards, obsessing more and more over how little time there is before I'm able to go to my favorite event in the entire world, and I found this little 30 day challenge. It's supposed to be for tumblr but I don't have a tumblr so I've decided to post it here. Now, what's supposed to happen is every day you're supposed to do one but I'm going to do them all at once now because a) I will forget one or multiple days and b) I have time to kill.

If you guys would like to fill this out, go ahead. I'd love to hear everyone's responses =)

And now time for the fun:

Day 1 - Your favorite book: It's a tie between DH and HBP
Day 2 - Your favorite movie: HBP
Day 3 - Is there any of the film adaptations that have made you angry because they’ve ignored important parts of the book? I was very upset when they left the marauders out of PoA (as I'm sure everyone was/is...)
Day 4 - Least favorite female character and why: I. Hate. Ginny. I honestly am not fully sure as to why but she's always bugged me. I just think she's fake and irritating and sdjfgsdjfgds. Don't like her...
Day 5 - Favorite male character and why: This is very hard. I think I'm going to sayyyyy Neville or Dumbledore. Dumbledore is very funny and has an amazing wit and Neville is just adorable and tries so hard and you just can't help but love him.
Day 6 - What house would you want to be in: Ravenclaw through and through <3
Day 7 - Favorite female character and why: Hermione. I felt such a deep connection to her through my first time reading the series and still hold that connection. She never changes who she was for anyone and she always knew what the right thing to do was. She's just amazing.
Day 8 - What do you think would be your favorite lesson? Favorite lesson from a class? I'd probably enjoy learn how to approach a hippogriff because they're beautiful and I love animals.
Day 9 - Least favorite male character: Ugh, hard. Probably Wormtail though, he always manages to piss me off.
Day 10 - Horcruxes or Hallows: Hallows, I couldn't imagine needing to conduct such dark magic and the hallows themselves aren't inherently evil...
Day 11 - What character would you say you are most like? Hermione and Fred/George. Hermione because I enjoy school and reading and doing the "right thing" and the twins because I like being a sarcastic smart ass xD Also, I can probably find a joke in any situation like they can.
Day 12 - Favorite ship: From canon, Ron/Hermione or Lupin/Tonks. From fanfiction, Draco/Harry
Day 13 - Least favorite movie: GoF or OotP
Day 14 - Team Voldemort or Team Harry: Is this really a question?
Day 15 - Who would be your best friends at Hogwarts (Three Only) Hermione, Harry, and Ron. You can't beat the relationship they all share and I'd love to be apart of it.
Day 16 - Who is your favorite Death Eater? Bellatrix
Day 17 - Are you excited about the Deathly Hallows movies or scared they won’t do the book justice? I'm used to them not doing the books justice because you just can't. I'm super excited for them but I think I'm most excited for the wait and build up and opening night more than the aftermath of all the films being out =(
Day 18 - Least favorite book: I always want to say GoF because I always think it is so I've read it the least amount of times but I'm not sure if that or one of the first two are my actual least favorite. Obviously every book is amazing but when it comes to which one I want to reread most, these three are probably last on the list.
Day 19 - Do you prefer the books or the movies: Is this a question, seriously?
Day 20 - If you got to meet one member of the cast, who would it be? Evanna, because she was involved in the fandom first and was star stuck meeting Andrew and Melissa!
Day 21 - Out of all the characters that died, if you could bring one back, who would it be? Probably Fred, I feel insanely bad for George and I think he ended up in the shittiest position by the end of the series and he doesn't deserve that. Losing Fred is like looking a part of himself and he already had them happen when his ear was blown off.
Day 22 - Harry Potter or Twilight: ......Okay, moving on.
Day 23 - Any part of the books or movies that makes you cry? The entire beginning and entire end of DH, everything about it makes me remember the theories and the wait and it just makes me swoon with love for the series and it's so overwhelming.
Day 24 - Any particular scene you wished would have been put in the movie, but wasn’t? I was always a big fan of the St. Mungo's scene and I was upset that wasn't in OotP. I think it is a great Neville scene and what they did in the movie was sorta out of character...
Day 25 - Nineteen years later. Are you happy how it turned out, or do you wish something was different, ie Neville married Luna: I like that they all were happy, though I wish everyone didn't suck so much at picking out names.
Day 26 - If you would be able to work one spell without a wand what would it be? Accio, I'm so lazy lol.
Day 27 - Would you rather own the Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand? Invisibility Cloak, so many things you could do with it...
Day 28 - Do you listen to Wizard Wrock, what do you think about it? I looooooove wrock! I think it's so clever and such a good way to express love for this series. Probably over half my iPod consists of Wrock albums...
Day 29 - Did you enjoy A Very Potter Musical? I still haven't seen it! I've been meaning to but just never got around to it >.>
Day 30 - What affect has Harry Potter made on your life and how much does it mean to you? Words can never express how much Harry Potter or this fandom means to me. I have no idea what my life would be like had I not read or fallen so deeply in love with this series. I never want to know what life would be like without this series or fandom because I get so much joy from everything and everyone within it. And that's why I'm so beyond excited that I have only 28 days left until Infinitus <3 [/sappiness]