No House: musings on life and Harry Potter

My home-page when I turn on the internet is a site called The Leaky Cauldron.  Leaky is "The Most Trusted Name in Potter."  It is the site to go to for all the news, theories, discussions and interviews with the makers of the films and books, as well as a super fun place.  PotterCast, the weekly pod-cast is absolutely hilarious.  I've been part of the Leaky community for a long time, but something changed this week.  Now when you join Leaky, you have to choose one of the four Hogwarts houses to be a part of.  There is 

Gryffindor: where dwell the brave of heart.  Their daring nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.

Hufflepuff: where they are just and loyal.  Those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil.

Ravenclaw: where those of wit and learning will always find their kind.

Slytherin: where those cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends.

And here's the thing, I still haven't chosen my house yet.  It's not a big deal or anything, but I feel somewhat isolated.  I feel like I'm not ready to chose a house yet.  I've taken every possible test on the internet, and I keep coming up with different answers, so I can't pinpoint my house that way; the only test I would trust would be one written by Jo Rowling herself.  I can't just close my eyes and pick one, because your house defines you as a person.  And I can't even pick a house and changed it later, as one can only pick a house once.  

I'm not entirely sure why this means so much to me, and to people outside the HP fandom it probably sounds quite stupid.  Maybe it's because I feel like I don't know who I am yet.  Maybe I don't want to chose how other people see me.  Or maybe, I believe, like Dumbledore, that we Sort too early.

I get a Spare, Hallelujah, I get a Spare

Ok, so yesterday's news is pretty darn awesome too.  But here's the thing, I just got next semester's schedule, and, no kidding, I have never seen a better schedule EVER!  First of all, this is the first time I've ever taken a spare, so I love looking at the piece of paper and seeing big blank spots everywhere.  Second of all, I've  got four great courses... Bible with my fav teacher, English (yes!), Media, and the only hard one, Bio.  Here's the best part, though.  Our courses move around daily, so here's what I have...

Monday: Lunch + Spare= Extra long lunch period

Tuesday: Spare Last Period= I can go home early

Wednesday: Spare First Period= I don't have to be at school until 10:30!

Thursday: Extended lunch period again

Friday: Home early!

BEST THING EVER!

(Comment: four months later: It actually wasn't as great as I thought.  But why ruin the euphoria?  Oops... too late.)

Indescribable Part 2

My friend Meagan was the first to play and have her lesson.  While the clinician was talking to her, I noticed my violin teacher nudge my friend's mom and look out the window.  I assumed that she was looked at my bird, so I turned to take a peek.  Just then, he sprang off his perch on the top of the building across the courtyard  and swooped down across the open space.  I stared at his as he rushed toward our building and had a moment panic when I was sure that he was going to crash.  However, just as it seemed that he was plunging to his death, he extended his wings out to their fullest and soared up on a breeze, right across our windows.

It was possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  He was magnificent.  He had such a huge wingspan, full of red and golden feathers that reflected the sun.  Of course, everyone let out a collective gasp, and Meagan shouted "Sarah, it's your bird!"  

But the best part is that he didn't go away.  He landed on the broad ledge right outside the window, strutted around, peeked in the window, and ruffled his golden feathers.  Everyone stopped to look at him, oohing and ahhing.  I had this feeling of warm pride well up inside. "Ha!  I told you so!  I told you he was incredible!"  And then came the best part of all.  My music bag was leaning up against the glass, so I lost sight of him for a few moments.  Suddenly, a cocked head stuck out from behind the bag, and looked around with eyes the colour of butterscotch as if to say "Hey, this room is usually empty right about now!"  Then, with real intelligence in his face, he turned and looked me straight in the eyes.  He just stood there looking at me.  And then, he flew away.

Indescribable Part 1

This will be told in two parts to make it easier for the reader.

I had the coolest experience today.  I went downtown Toronto for a group clinic with a very amazing violinist.  My violin teacher organized it.  I played with three of my friends, and several other friends and professional musicians were spectators.

I walked into the room in U of T where we'd be playing, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the room is on a corner of the building and has floor to ceiling windows.  I set my violin case on the ledge by the window and started unpacking.  Suddenly, a huge flash of red went streaking by.  Some kind of large predator bird had dove right by the window and swooped over to the other side of the courtyard.  His wingspan was huge, and he was  beautifully  coloured with large red tail-feathers. There he sat, imperiously surveying everything going on below.  I was flabbergasted.  I pointed him out to some people, but as they hadn't seen what I had, they weren't really interesting.

Later, I noticed him sitting on another ledge closer to the building.  From here I was able to see that he was some kind of large hawk, with a creamy golden head and white fluffy stomach.  I pointed him out to my mom, and she was surprised at how big he was.  Not many other people noticed, but I was still telling people about "my bird."

To be continued

Mon Français terrible!

I absolutely adore the french language, but the fact is that I'm absolutely terrible at writing it. Terrible!  So here's me... I hand in the rough copy of my short story to the teacher thinking "Well, it shouldn't be too bad since I'm mostly writing in the present tense."  Haha. Hahahaha. All 5 pages are covered in little red markings.  And some of them are so ridiculous that I can't help but laugh at myself.

Instead of writing the word "To confide," I wrote the word that means "To crystallize" or "To soak in fat".

Some of the markings that I got were two "Not a verb," two "Not a tense," one "Not French" and the best: "Not a word in any language."

I also got the meaning of the word "est" wrong no less than fifteen times (I counted)! It means "it".  I keep on getting it mixed up with the word "et" which means "and".  Mostly she just circled it, but the last time I used 'et' instead of 'est', I got a huge circled mark on the paper saying IT!

And then, what did I do?  I actually changed the French mistake into the English word... I came back later and in the middle of all the French on my page was "it".

But, oh, it continues.  When I came back to correct this post, I realize that I'd even written down the definitions for the words wrong on here!  I had written "est means and" & "et means 'it'" when it's the other way round!

Oh yeah, and I somehow created a new verb tense in which the only rule is to stick the past participle of etre into any situation possible.  She wasn't quite sure what to make of that one.

Je suis troublee...