Bit of Ivory

Have decided to break my recent tradition of blogging at midnight today. Dad was commenting too much on it.

Forgot to mention something I discovered in canon recently. Did you know that JKR has already done a serious/Sirius joke? I can’t believe I missed it, and if all of you say “Well, yeah, I saw that the first time,” I’m going to feel very stupid. ‘Cause I’m s’posed to be observant about these things. I mean, I’m the one who knew the answer to the HP Trivia Game question “What was sitting outside Hagrid’s door the first time the Trio visit him?” (Answer: a crossbow and a pair of wellies, or rubber boots to us Americans). So the fact that I missed this:

“I’m not trying to be a hero, but seriously, Sirius Black can’t be worse than Voldemort, can he?” (PoA ch. 5: The Dementor, p. 73, American hardcover edition)

siriusly blows my mind. Am I the only one?

While I’m thinking about canon, and PoA in particular, maybe someone can answer a question I have. I’ve heard a theory about there being 2 invisible Gryffindor girls that Harry doesn’t seem to have noticed at all. This theory is supposedly based on the boggart scene in PoA. Well, I read that scene night before last, and I’m curious. Doesn’t the whole theory stem from the fact that the boggart turned into two scary things that don’t seem to have a person to account for them? Well, if that’s so, then how come the boggart actually turn into three things? Observe:

“Crack! The banshee turned into a rat, which chased its tail in a circle, then–crack!–became a rattlesnake, which slithered and writhed before–crack!–becoming a single, bloody eyeball” (PoA ch. 7, American hardcover edition p. 138).

So if this is the supposed evidence for the two-missing-Gryffindor-girls theory, how come it hasn’t been disproven ages ago? Or is there more evidence? I personally think the theory’s a bunch of hooey, but if that’s what they’re basing it off of, why isn’t it three missing girls instead of two?

In other news, I’ve given up on the Austen paper. I would have had to almost completely rewrite it, and I just didn’t have enough time. Oh, well. I had a nice chat with Alphabet about some story ideas for IFL, though, so I did do *something* productive.

Haven’t chexed the Deathmarch for days. Have I missed anything?

Got relatively decent grades. Lowest was a B-, which I once would have flipped over, but which now seems pretty darn good considering how little work I did in that class. Looks like they’ll be sending me my diploma after all. Probably glad to get rid of me.

Can’t seem to cut my Austen paper down enough. Have 700 more words to go. Am thinking of scrapping the whole thing and writing a new paper. Since it has to be postmarked by tomorrow, am thinking it probably won’t work. Oh, well. I’ll try again tomorrow, but if it still doesn’t work, I’ll just give up. It was a long shot anyway.

Need to get my hair trimmed, as I haven’t done so for about 5 months. May try to do that tomorrow after I finish the paper.

Since I’ll need to go to the post office anyway to make sure my paper is postmarked tomorrow, I’ll finally mail Lou and Teri their packages. I’m not sure what Teri is going to do with Hazelnut hot cocoa since summer is coming on, but if you can drink hot coffee all year long, why not hot cocoa? Teri, are you still in your apartment in Austin? If not I need your new address. Also, have you ever read any Robin McKinley? And do you own any of her books? If you do, I may need to take something out of your package.

Lou’s package also contains hot chocolate, but since she’s in Michigan I’m sure she can still use it.

Am exhausted, and am going to bed now.

EDIT: Change all those “tomorrow”s to “today”. Midnight came and went while I was typing. Oh, well.

Maybe I’ll come back to this weekend eventually. The details would just bore you, I’m sure. Suffice it to say that I graduated– it was like most graduations, long and at least slightly dull. Then I moved home, which took all day and which I have yet to recover from.

Then we had Regional Conference on Sunday instead of regular church, and my dad was able to take us on a tour of the back rooms of the Conference Center after it was over, to see all the equipment he designed and we helped build. It was lovely to see all the flashing lights and know that my dad is helping millions of people all over the world hear the words of the prophet in their native language. After the tour we went to my grandparent’s house, because Sunday was my grandma’s 76th birthday. It was nice to hang out with the family.

So, there’s my weekend. Today I got up early and went down to Provo with Jen, who had an exit interview for the Math Ed department. I had some library books still checked out, so I figured I could go with her. Of course, I forgot the books, but all was not lost. I was able to buy some nice cheap internet cables to equip our house– I bought 3 14-foot cables, 3 25-foot cables, and 2 50-foot cables for about $46. It would have cost 3 times as much anywhere else. I am very grateful for my 50-foot cable, as it allows me to stretch my laptop cord over to my bed, which is where I am blogging from right now. Much nicer to be in my warm bed than in my cold computer chair. Anyway, Jen and I also went shoe shopping (I didn’t buy anything, not that I wasn’t tempted), and also dropped by Ben and Jerry’s, because it was free cone day! I’ll never turn down free ice cream, especially free Ben and Jerry’s. So even though I forgot the books, the trip was worth it.

I tried to revise my Austen paper for the JASNA contest, but I just wasn’t in the mood. I also couldn’t write any more of IFL. So I betaed Ancient Prophecy 15 instead, which I know will make Elizabeth very happy. I still want to do one more once-over, in addition to some suggestions I made to Lou, before it’ll be ready to be posted, but a little work is better than no work, right?

Even though I didn’t buy anything at the mall in Provo, I did spend quite a bit of money today. Most of it is from gifts, though, and is my college graduation present (with a bit of my tax refund thrown in). What did I buy, you ask?

I bought a camera.

A Nikon N75 SLR camera with a Nikkor 28-80mm autofocus zoom lens. I’ve always wanted to learn to use a *real* SLR camera, and I wanted to get an SLR years ago, but couldn’t afford the model I really wanted. This year the N55 came out, and that’s what I was originally going to buy, but that was before I knew about the N75. It’s a lot more money than the N55 would have been, but it’s also a lot better camera. I’m glad I bought it at Inkley’s, because included in the sale was free coupons to their photography classes, so I can really figure out how to use the thing. And since I’m unemployed, I’ll have enough time to take the classes. I’m definitely excited to bring it to Florida, though.

Speaking of being unemployed, I’m much discouraged by the job market here in Salt Lake. There are hardly any suitable jobs available at all (by “suitable” I mean decentl-paying, full-time, with benefits, that don’t include telemarketing), let alone any in my field. So pray for me, please. I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Moving is hell. And since I don’t usually swear, you realize how much I mean that.

It’s been a very busy weekend, and I never really said much about graduation either, so I have a lot to blog about. Unfortunately, I have to get up early tomorrow and drive down to Provo and it’s already almost midnight so I can’t really say much. Just a few things.

Family got cable modem on Saturday, and we finally got the hubs and cables and everything set up so I can get on. This is one reason that I haven’t been online in the past few days– my modem’s busticated, so I couldn’t even come on using dialup. I am so grateful that I have been spared dialup, though, I can’t tell you. That was my one fear in moving home. Will soon be getting a new e-mail addy through ComCast, so stay tuned, although the old one will work through September, ’cause I paid for a whole year of dialup access.

Went to London Market today and spent $20 on Cadbury and Harry Potter products. The Bertie Botts are of higher quality here, although there are fewer disgusting flavors in the British ones, but their Chocolate Frogs ROX our SOX. They are SOO much better than those crisped rice monstrosities. Loaded up on Cadbury Flake bars especially. Have decided that U.S. chocolate is an abomination and that Cadbury should sell their whole range of products here and not just the large Dairy Milk-type bars, Caramellos and the Easter Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs. It almost makes me want to move to Canada to get some REAL chocolate. Importing it is so expensive. Also bought some digestive biscuits, which are much, much more delicious than they sound.

AtE 37 left me with mixed feelings. The first part made me hurt, the second part made me happy– as long as Draco really is guilty. But I think he is. The jerk.

Must go. More tommorrow.

Details later. I’m too tired right now. All I can say is that:

I have OFFICIALLY graduated! I am a college graduate! I have a BA!

Weird.

Done with finals, done with writing papers, done with eating crummy food in the Cougareat (alright, so the food in the Cougareat is actually quite good, it just gets old after 5 years), done, Done DONE!!!

Okay, the word “done” is looking very strange now.

Anyway, I’ve finished. I took my Novel of Empire final at 2:30, then headed over to the Testing Center to take my Floral Design final. I have no clue how I did on the Novel of Empire one, but I really could care less. I got my paper for that class back, and got a B on it (which, if you’ll remember, is what I predicted it would get). That’s probably the worst I’ve ever gotten on a term paper. At least, on an English one. I did horribly on my French term paper, because it was IN FRENCH. But, once again, I could care less. While the class was enjoyable enough, it wasn’t really something that resonated with me. At best, I was indifferent to the subject matter. That’s the same for my paper– I barely even believed my thesis, let alone cared about it. I’ll probably get a B in the class, which is okey-dokey with me.

Got a 91 on my Floral Design test. This is very good, as it means I can drop the 73 I got on test 2. I hardly studied at all for test 2, and the grade shows it.

I also picked up my Austen paper. I love that Prof. Mason got them graded so quickly. Got a 178 out of 200 on it, which is lovely. He said that my writing is “excellent–clear, polished, and sophisticated” (Mason 1). He did point out a few problems in my paper that I was dimly aware were there, but that I couldn’t be bothered to fix (hey, I was writing it at 2 in the morning, what do you expect?). Now I just need to cut about 1,000 words to make it fit the 2,000 word limit on the JASNA contest, fix the little problems, and send it in. Do you know what first prize is in this contest? Room and board at JASNA’s Annual General Meeting, which this year is being held in WINCHESTER ENGLAND. Which means all I’d need to pay for is airfare. I don’t really expect to win, but wouldn’t it be great if I did?

After I took my test I picked up my cap and gown for commencement tomorrow. Unlike high school graduation, I don’t get to keep my cap– just my tassel. Oh well. What would I do with another mortarboard anyway? I never even wear the one I’ve got.

Since today is the last day of finals, there is absolutely NO ONE here in the library. I’m going to try to work on my story a bit, maybe read a bit of fanfic, and envy the fact that Jen is finishing D&L with Kat while I sit here and do nothing. Hopefully they’ll get started late enough that I can pick it up at the end. It’s been a while since I’ve read D&L, and I’m really enjoying reading it again, especially since Kat has never read it– it’s fun to see her experience it for the first time.

After I get home Jen and I need to finish CoS and start PoA. We’ve gotten behind on reading a chapter a day with finals and dancing and stuff like that, so we’ve still got 2 chapters left of CoS. If we finish the first chapter of PoA tonight, we’ll be caught up.

Speaking of CoS, a girl from our complex who has never seen it before came over and watched it last night. She’s never read the books either, so the whole thing was a complete surprise. When Hermione came out in Diagon Alley and said “It’s wonderful to see you!” to Harry she exclaimed “They are SO going to get together!” I, of course, have a different opinion on the subject, but since Emily (yes, her name is Emily too) has never read the books, I can exuse her mistake. I just said– “Umm, just wait until the end. I think you’ll change your mind.” Well, the non-hug came, and she’s like– “Oooh, aaahh. . .” and laughed, which told me that she gets it. I think I’ve got her sold on H/G, too. I’m also working on her to actually READ the books. She *has* heard Jen’s fanfic, which has a few spoilers for books 3 & 4, but they’ve only made her more interested. Maybe shell read them over the summer.

Wow, long post. Oh, well. I’m bored.

James can’t go. Darn it. Oh, well. We can go another time.

At least this means that I don’t have to feel guilty about missing Nicole’s concert. Instead, I can GO to Nicole’s concert. I only have to feel guilty about forgetting about Nicole’s concert in the first place. Sorry Nicole. Give me a call or shoot me an e-mail with the details. And you don’t have to worry about me wanting to audition– I already want to do that. When will they be?

I went to the temple tonight– my cousin is getting married on Friday and she went through to get her endowments at the Mount Timpanogos temple. She’s getting married in Bountiful, and if we drive really fast, I should be able to go to the ceremony. I’ve never been to a temple wedding, so I’m very excited.

Two finals tomorrow, then I’m DONE. DONE, I tell you! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

It’s been a busy weekend, so I have a lot to blog about. Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we?

Friday was good. I’m trying to think if we did anything productive. Hmm. . .nope, not a thing. I *did* get paid for Ginny, so I am now $400 richer. That is, I would be if I hadn’t spent it already.

On Saturday I did a little bit of work on my paper– not much, of course. I just made an outline. Then I drove home for Easter dinner, since it would be easier for us kids to all get together on Saturday night. After dinner I went to the Murray Arts Centre with a group from my Social Dance class. They have ballroom and swing dancing there every Friday and Saturday night. There weren’t enough guys, but the guys were very good about sharing themselves out, so I still had a great time. I danced a tango with our teacher, Jason. Have I ever mentioned him before? He’s a great dancer, and *very* good eye candy. Half the fun of our class is looking at him. He’s not my type, but I could look at him forever. Anyway, I had a blast, but we didn’t get home until about 1 AM, which, considering we had 9:00 church, wasn’t the greatest.

Sunday was good– Church was actually very nice, when I was coherent enough to pay attention. When I got home I took a nice 3 hour nap. Then Jen and I continued reading Darkness and Light to our friend Katrina. We had been watching CoS, and my sisters were swooning over Snape as usual, and Kat mentioned that she just didn’t get the Snape thing. To which I immediately responded “well, you just haven’t read Darkness and Light.” We started reading it out loud to her shortly thereafter, but since it *is* the end of the semester, Real Life will intrude. Yesterday we finally read ch. 7 of Personal Risks, and we got up to If We Survive ch. 4, but only the very beginning of it. Because the end of IWS 4 is the Cliffhanger from Hades (thanks a lot, RJA), and I knew if we finished it we’d have to read at least the next 3 chapters before we got to a good stopping place, and Kat didn’t have that much time. I am happy to report, though, that she is completely hooked, and we have now gotten my roommate Amber interested as well, by virtue of the fact that she was in the room while we read. So there’s two more converts to D&L, RJA. I am doing my duty as a missionary. Kat’s going to come over tonight to read some more.

After Kat left, I finally got to work on my paper. This was at about 8:00. By 2 AM I had 10 pages. It’s a pretty good paper, too. This is good, because it’s also the last one I’ll ever write in my undergraduate career. I find it highly appropriate that my last paper was on my favorite book ever– Pride and Prejudice.

I turned in my paper this morning (a little late– I was writing it on Ginny, and since she doesn’t have a floppy drive and I don’t have any CD burning software, the only way to move the file from Ginny to Harry was to e-mail it to myself, which took time), then went to work at noon.

After work I headed over to the CougarEat to get some lunch and do some studying. There, I ran into James. Now, longtime readers of this blog will remember James as the guy I’ve been head-over-heels in love with for more than 5 years now. Those who haven’t read this blog for long will now understand why I identify so much with Ginny. Anyway, I’ve barely seen him this semester– last semester we had schedules that put us in roughly the same place several times a week, but I think I’ve seen him 3 times tops since January. Anyway, I had invited him to go dancing with our group on Saturday, but he just had too much studying to do. However, Jen and Josh (the guy I took to Preference) decided they wanted to go again this coming Saturday because they’re going to teach the Lindy Hop. I’ve always wanted to learn how to Lindy, so I figured I’d see if James could come next week instead. I was going to call him, but running into him was ever so much nicer. Every time I see him I’m amazed again at just how incredibly gorgeous he is. He’s got these piercing blue eyes and light-brown curly hair that I would love to run my fingers through. Anyway, I asked him if he wanted to go, and he said he’d love to, except that he isn’t sure he’s free. Apparently his brothers are setting him up with someone this weekend, and he couldn’t remember if it was Friday or Saturday, but he thinks it’s Friday. I hope it is, because I haven’t been dancing with James in over a year, and that was Contra dancing, not ballroom. So I *might* have a date with a really hot guy Saturday night. Wish me luck.

After I recovered from seeing James, I studied for and took my Pearl of Great Price test. I got an 87%, which I am perfectly satisfied with. There were 146 questions on the darn thing, and McConkie is one of the hardest religion teachers here. An 87% is probably enough to get me at least an A- in the class.

I also bought my Easter dress from the Bookstore. It cost $95, which is more than I would usually spend for a dress, but it looks adorable on me and that’s so rare that I couldn’t resist. Mom will go in $50 on it, and I’ll pick up the rest as a graduation present to myself. In fact, I think I’ll wear it *to* graduation.

So, I think that covers it. All caught up.

So my roommate and I have been reading Harry Potter aloud to each other, one chapter a night, as part of the 94 Days 94 Chapters idea. Last night we read Chapter 13 of CoS– The Very Secret Diary. There’s a lot of stuff in there that gave us both food for thought. I’m more convinced than ever that CoS is a very overlooked book, and I still consider it my favorite of the four so far. Anyway, here’s a few things Jen and I noticed last night:

1) The Diary

Many people lately have been lambasting poor Ginny for being stupid in writing in the diary. I’m inclined to give her a lot more leniency than many people have. This is why:

“Harry couldn’t explain, even to himself, why he didn’t just throw Riddle’s diary away. The fact was that even though he knew the diary was blank, he kept absentmindedly picking it up and turning the pages, as though it were a story he wanted to finish. And while Harry was sure he had never heard the name T.M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to him, almost as though Riddle was a friend he’d had when he was very small, and had half-forgotten.”

Why is Harry so obsessed with it? I know the boy is extremely curious, but this goes beyond that. We find out later that Harry carries the diary around with him, even– because it falls out of his bag at the Valentine incident. Could it be that Riddle is exerting some kind of influence over Harry without even needing Harry to write in the diary? Diary!Tom is pretty strong by this point– we’ve already had the attacks on Mrs. Norris, Colin, Nearly Headless Nick and Justin. Ginny’s become frightened enough of it that she’s thrown it away–which I still boggle at, it must have taken an enormous amount of willpower to be able to do it. In any case, I think it’s very possible that Diary!Tom is exerting at least a small amount of influence on Harry. Not much, but enough that he can’t stop thinking about the diary.

Which leads me to Ginny. If the diary can exert an influence over Harry without him even writing in it, what’s to say that Ginny wasn’t influenced from the very first time she wrote in the diary? Writing in it at first would be totally innocent– she doesn’t have any reason to know that the diary can think for itself until it writes back– and once it does, it’s too late. I doubt Diary!Tom was strong enough to do much more than subtly override her reservations from her father’s warnings– but that would have been enough. Just enough to make her trust him. And Ginny was trapped before she even realized the danger.

I think it makes sense.

2) The Valentine

Alright, the more I look at this scene, the more I am convinced that Ginny did not send that singing Valentine. I think JKR wants us to think she sent it, to cover up the fact that she’s actually reacting to the diary. But I really don’t think she did.

First off, we know that Ginny is aware of Harry’s dislike of attention. “He didn’t want all that,” after all. Would Ginny then send Harry a singing Valentine, of all things, that brings attention to his fame? She must have known it would embarrass him. Only someone that was unaware of Harry’s modesty would have sent it (or someone who WAS aware of it, and wanted to play a joke, which is my theory).

Second, we know that Harry gets the Valentine in front of Ginny. But we don’t get to see Ginny’s reaction to the Valentine. If there’s one think I’ve learned from the DT, it’s that if JKR didn’t write a reaction, it’s not important. If Ginny had sent the Valentine, JKR would at least have written in a blush. But we don’t get a blush. We don’t get a single reaction from Ginny from “Hot all over at the thought of being given a valentine in front of a line of first years, which happened to include Ginny Weasley, Harry tried to escape.” to “A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.” And don’t say that Harry was deliberately avoiding looking at Ginny, because it doesn’t say that at all, and in fact Harry was observant enough to notice that some of the crowd were “crying with mirth.” He’s noticed Ginny putting her elbow in the butter dish; he would have noticed her blushing.

The only evidence we have that Ginny sent the Valentine is this:

“Malfoy was looking furious, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yelled spitefully after her, ‘I don’t think Potter liked your valentine much!’

“Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class.”

Besides the fact that Malfoy isn’t the most trustworthy of characters, I think Ginny’s reactio here is completely understandable. She’s just been accused of sending Harry, the boy she likes, a very stupid and very embarrasing valentine. She saw his reaction, knows he didn’t like it. And now Harry thinks that she sent it. If she didn’t, as I believe, what a horrible thing to be associated with!

Ginny’s reaction to the diary is understandable too. First of all, she’s afraid that Harry knows her secrets– that Tom has told him. In fact, that makes it doubly embarrassing for her, since Harry might already know about her crush. That’s the reason Tom gives in the Chamber for her stealing it back. But we already know Tom’s a liar, I doubt that was her only reason. She knew the power of the diary, she knew that it had controlled her somehow, and now it was in the hands of Harry Potter– the boy she liked, the boy who had saved the world. What if it took over him too? In that light, Ginny’s stealing the diary back was not stupid, it was brave. She was trying to save Harry. But that’s off topic, anyway. I probably should have put that under number one. Oh, well.

Thirdly, there’ this:
“This was partly because he didn’t think he could stand Fred and George singing, ‘his eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad’ one more time.”

Fred and George know the song. They weren’t there, they didn’t hear it first hand. I suppose someone could have repeated it to them, but how well do you remember songs on a first hearing? It took me a while to remember the whole thing, even after reading it several times. The most logical explanation behind Fred and George knowing the song is that they wrote it. Think about it. “His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad?” Sounds Fred and Georgish to me. No first-year girl would use that as a similie, especially not if she were trying to impress someone.

I’m thoroughly convinced. Ginny didn’t send the valentine.

And that’s just from one chapter. There’s SO much to think about in CoS, there really is.