Bit of Ivory

I have the cutest cousins! Siriusly, my uncle John’s kids are all really cute. Ashley is 5, Andrew is 4, and Natalie is 2. Natalie’s in the very talkative stage. She’ll just sit there and jabber away at you. She’s also very independent. Tonight at family night, her mom tried to wipe up her chocolate cupcake mess and Natalie protested “No, mom! I can do it myself!” and cried when Kim took matters into her own hands. Andrew is really shy– won’t talk to me at all, but I enjoy looking at him from afar. Ashley took the Cute Prize this evening, though. It’s Andrew’s birthday this month, so he was opening presents. Our family got him a little tube full of plastic jungle animals. Ashley took it up gleefully and announced to my aunt that “I wanted to buy this at the store, but my mom said no. But now it’s okay because I got it for Andrew’s birthday!” She later told her mom that there were two of each animal. Kim was in hopes that she would say “so Andrew and I can share,” but instead she said “so I can play Noah’s Ark!”

Kids are so cute.

I passed out Sexy Read Boy bookmarks to various cousins and aunts. They were appreciative.

Mailing all of yours tomorrow. Ran out of stamps.

So I’m sitting here in the family room doing source checking, and our parakeet is over in the corner taking a nap. She’s got her head tucked up under her wing and everything.

Every once in a while she’ll make this little soft whistle as she’s sleeping. She doesn’t wake up.

It’s adorable.

I

I addressed envelopes for Sexy Read Boy bookmarks today. I still need a couple of people’s addresses, but the rest should go out tomorrow.

I hope it’s just leftover ickiness from the cold, but I couldn’t. Sing. At. All. Today. Incredibly annoying. Must do Panofka this week to prepare for Stake Conference next week. Must. Hit. High A.

In other news, my brother invited me to join Orkut, which looks like it could be kind of cool. Joining the community is by invite-only, but if any of you want to join, I’ll invite you.

I’ll post something coherent tomorrow.

Done, done, DONE DONE!!!!!

I am *finished* with editing! No more! I have corrected my last comma splice! Whoot!

Still have to do source checking, but that is easy and will be completed by Monday. And then I will be completely done. And I can start having a life again. How would that be?

I do know one thing: It’ll be a while before I can read the epistles of Paul again. Gah.

The moon was so pretty tonight. I saw it rising as I went to pick up dinner. I felt bad for Remus, though. Poor guy.

This post is a bit of a GIP. The icon on the right is me. So is this:

Figured it was about time I had an actual picture of me as a user pic. The “Innocent” one was my BYU ID picture.

I went downtown today and had lunch with Nicole at Benihana. I’ve never been there before. It was both yummy and fun, and MUCH cheaper for lunch than for dinner, I noticed. We also got gelato– mmmmm, Bacio. We definitely need to incorporate a gelato run into .

I’ve got ideas for serious posts, but not enough time. *sigh* Monday. I’ll be in better shape Monday.

First off- it was my best friend’s birthday today.

Happy Birthday, Nicole!!!

So today was actually– productive. Amazing. Has been a while.

I had to turn in a bunch of books that my sister checked out from the BYU library for me for Albus research (most of which I didn’t get to read properly. Stupid editing), so I drove down to Provo today. I was going to make copies of the relevant pages of a few of them before I turned them in, but when I went to make I copies I discovered that I’d left my wallet at home. Grr. Will have to make another trip soon. Am tempted to pay $35 for a friends of the library card so I don’t have to rely on siblings to check books out for me. I wish they’d just give Almuni circulation privileges. Grr. I need Language and Class in Victorian England back! I hadn’t even gotten past the upper classes yet! How am I supposed to know how my lower-class Muggle-born Hogwarts student would have talked?

Anyway, since I was already making the trip, I decided to do the source checking on this editing job for the books that I don’t have at home, even though the copyedit isn’t finished (only 13 more pages to go!) Only one of them was not there, and that one can still be found at Deseret Book, so I’m not too worried.

I had gotten a really cool letter today from Nimbus 2003, containing a mini HP calendar that was apparently supposed to be given out at the conference to presenters and volunteers, but that hadn’t arrived until 2 months after the conference. They sent one for me and for Dr. Walker, who was on the original paper proposal and who helped me with my statement on the eventual panel, but who didn’t actually attend the conference. Great timing, as I was able to drop it off while I was down there. I didn’t expect to find him in his office– he almost never is, even when he’s supposed to be there– but to my amazement, he was! So I got to chat with him, which is always a wonderful thing. One of the best things about my undergrad was getting to know Dr. Walker.

So after I visited with Dr. Walker I went to my sister’s apartment, and we ended up going to dinner at P.F. Chang’s. Mmmmm. Chinese. We even splurged and got lettuce wraps. Yum yum.

Should finish editing tomorrow, and hopefully get almost all the way done with source checking. Then it’s making redlines, making sure everything worx, and burning it onto a disc and sending it off! Yay!

And then, the job hunt begins. *sigh*

Guess who now has a Sexy Read Boy poster?

*does happy Sexy Read Boy poster dance*

Have bookmarks, too. Will set one aside for Pat, and several for my silly sisters.

Anyone else want one? They’re reeeeeaaaallllly pretty. . . .

I do these a lot. I supposed I should be more coherent, but am incapable of it, apparently. Oh, well. Deal.

Had a dentist appointment today. Have been to dentist so often that it is not cause for anxiety, especially as I haven’t had a cavity in years. But they always use that ultrasonic cleaner thingy, which makes my gums all red and puffy for the rest of the day. They are driving me absolutely bonkers.

No cavities, though. And my baby tooth? Still hanging in there. Crazy.

Went to Crossroads Mall with sister today in hopes of finding a Jack Sparrow t-shirt. Unfortunately, Hot Topic still only had Sexy Pirate Boy. Lisa will probably end up ordering online. We made the mistake of going into the candy store. I bought lots of candy. Am planning on rationing it out, though. Will be very good. Should last till Easter at least.

The other day I found a microphone headset that came with my Word Perfect Office– it has voice recognition software, you see. Tonight I used it to do a voice chat with over Yahoo! Messenger. It was so much fun! Much faster than typing, and it was great to hear his voice again. Anyone else have a mic? I’d love to actually *talk* with so many of you!

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack obsessively. I remembered that Stephanie Smith, one of the artists on the soundtrack, had a website, so I found it today. You can hear sound clips of all of the songs on her album. “Self Portrait” and “My Giant” are the two that are featured in the movie. She sings another song in the movie that’s not here, “Nothing Wrong”– it was written for the movie by someone else. Too bad– it’s my second-favorite song on the soundtrack. I listened to her other stuff, and I think I’m definitely going to be buying her CD.

I went to the official site for the movie, too, and they have a few clips from the soundtrack there as well. You can hear “Be With You” by Carmen Rassmussen, who was an American Idol finalist from Utah (and gets a cameo in the movie– a rather stupid one, but *shrugs*). I like “All the Way” better than her song, though, and “Condition of Deperation” is my absolute favorite song on the disc. I highly recommend going over and having a listen– you won’t be disappointed.

And if you decide you want the soundtrack, you can get it at DeseretBook.com.

Wahleecon looks better and better! Hymnia and Liralen have both expressed interest in coming if they can swing it! Whoot! Are all of you *sure* you can’t come? We’re going to have a blast.

If you are planning on attending Wahleecon, and will be staying in the hotel, you MUST read and reply to this post in the Wahleecon LJ.

There’s a bit of flight info there as well, if you’re going to be flying.

I’ve read several longish-to-uber essays on HP canon lately, theorizing about everything from Ron=Dumbledore to Traitor!Ginny to the intracacies of the wizarding political structure in the past little while. A gathering of HP-Utah on Saturday contributed more theories. Some are, of course, better than others. The Knight2King theory, while obviously well-thought-out in some ways is completely implausible in others, and has failed to convince me. On the other hand, Alec’s amazing 10-part Expecto Patronus essay is incredibly detailed and, in most cases, not only plausible but highly likely, although even Alec sometimes moves beyond interpretation into mere speculation. Even the best of theories employ a certain amount of guesswork.

Theorizing is fun, and a wonderful way to pass the time. There is certainly something to be said for looking for clues, trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. Rowling invites it, as a matter of fact, in her very style of writing and in interviews. All good writers employ foreshadowing of some kind, especially those who deal with any kind of mystery plot, which Harry Potter certainly is. Figuring out the mystery before the characters do is one of the joys of reading mystery works. Shipping is obviously a part of this whole thing, but anticipating events is certainly not limited to shipping.

The problem comes not in theorizing itself, but in they way that it’s done. You see, there’s a difference between noting trends, examining characterization, etc., and taking a small detail and developing an elaborate theory around it. Unfortunately, most HP theories at the very least take a button and sew a vest to it, at worst they’re made up of whole cloth. Theories of this kind are often colored not by canon but by personal perceptions of canon, and contain very little evidence and lots and lots of emotion. They’re based on wishes and not logic, and as such can even be destructive, since if you set your heart on a theory that ends up becoming completely uncanonical you’re bound to be disappointed. I have a feeling that much of the fandom depression post-OotP was because of such things– people found JKR’s ideas inferior to their own and became disillusioned. Always a risk when playing in someone else’s world.

After 3 years of picking apart every little detail in the first four books of canon, OotP still blindsided every single one of us. I’ve been a bit wary of HP theories ever since. I was hoping that some of the more outlandish theories which were formed pre-OotP would die a swift death after so many of our ideas proved to be groundless, but alas! It seems as though JKR’s surprising us all has only led to more wild speculation– if she surprised us once, she surely can again.

The biggest problem I have with this kind of reasoning is that the series is yet unfinished. It’s rather easy to look at an Agatha Christie novel or at Emma and, after having completed the book, pick out which were true clues, which were red herrings, and what was just fun atmosphere for the story. The outcome is known. But while we can look at certain things and wonder “why is Rowling doing this?” we can’t be absolutely sure about her reasons until we’ve finished reading the last page of book 7. Something may be important, but for a different reason than we foresaw. Authorial intent is key in interpreting unfinished works– your own ideas have absolutely nothing to do with what JKR has planned. It doesn’t matter if you think Snape is sexy, or Ron is annoying, or Draco is misunderstood, or the Weasleys are disfunctional. What matters is that JKR, thus far at least, thinks Snape is a greasy git, Ron is one of the best friends Harry could ever have, Draco is a small-minded bully and the Weasleys are her ideal big family, and she will write her books accordingly.

I would love to write my master’s thesis on Harry Potter, but I will not feel qualified to do so until Rowling’s masterpiece is complete. Anything I could write about it would simply be conjecture until we see her entire plan in panorama. I’ll probably keep reading the theories with interest. I’ll weigh them on their merits–but excuse me if I hold off on accepting any of them until I put my copy of book 7 down and sigh.