Failing Tests, Evaluating Life Goals, and Harry Potter

It's time for a big, fat, KITTENPAUSE.

Or at the very least, it's time for me to ramble on aimlessly for a bit of a while during which time you procrastinate doing your work (or perhaps I'm interesting to you, what with my woes of life and Harry Potter obsession.)

Which brings me to the topics of today's post: Failing Tests, Evaluating Life Goals, and Harry Potter.

Failing Tests

For those of you not aware of where I go to school and what I do (do I have any of you yet? I think most everyone who reads this knows me "irl") I'm currently taking a class entitled "Thermodynamics" although I think a more apt name would be "Thermodynamics is only a third of this class and you're going to fail." The professor of this class is the bane of many a student's existence and, I am given to understand, grades more based on whim than on demonstrated understanding of course topics. This past Wednesday was my first experience taking one of his tests and, despite studying for nearly 5 hours the night before, getting to bed by 1 A.M., and eating a breakfast the next morning, I'm fairly sure I failed the test. The thing of it all is, I needn't have failed the test. I probably would have passed (and still could have, I suppose) if not for the fact that on the easiest problem of the test, I neglected to actually copy the equation properly. This is pretty much the silliest reason I can think of to fail a test and, hopefully, my crazy teacher will agree and allot me two-thirds credit for the question because, really, I understood how to solve the problem I just couldn't help my brain from running through the final song from "A Very Potter Musical" We must unite, so we can fight, turn the battle around. We must unite so we can fiiiight. Voldemort is going DOWN. I am not alone in the failure of this test, but I'm fairly sure I'm the only one who will fail for such a ridiculous reason.


Which leads me to Part II: Evaluating Life Goals

Failing a test is a big deal to me. You have probably already guessed this, as you most likely actually know me, but doing well is incredibly important to me. If I failed this test it leads me to wonder if I'm actually pursuing the right career. I mean, it's only a second year course and I'm on scholarship so if I fail this class (extrapolating, I know) then I could conceivably lose my scholarship, have to drop out of school, and find a nice place to live in some alleyway with a couple of cats. Yep. This led me to asking myself what I want to do with my degree when I get out of here and the truth is, I have no idea! I don't really fancy being a professor or a teacher, and the only real vision I had for my future was a bookshop of my own with a resident cat. That's not to say I don't love learning about the universe and how it works and doing math equations and generally searching for life's existence elsewhere but somehow... I can't really see my life past getting my doctorate and I'm starting to wonder if I'm just putting myself through school because it's expected and because I never saw another way of doing it. I mean I'd really like to be the next Bill Nye, but how does one get that to happen? So I figure, getting my doctorate is a good place to start. If a realllly long course of action. And all because I think I failed a test. Sometimes my imagination just gets ahead of itself.

Harry Potter

While I was evaluating my life goals I asked myself: What do I really love? And the only answer I can come up with is Harry Potter. And by that I mean the series, not the actual character. I spend most of my life thinking in terms of Harry Potter, quoting Harry Potter, and finding other awesome things that people who love Harry Potter have done. (A Very Potter Musical, anyone?) If I could just figure out how to make a living off of my love of Harry Potter, I'd be golden (This is possible, besides the boatloads of money Warner Bros. has made, there are Wizard Rock bands, Vloggers, the Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldron people... I could do that!) The only problem is I can't quite figure out how to make that awesomeness a reality. The advice I'm constantly thrown is "do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life." I can't help wondering how I know what I love... it seems to me at this point that I won't figure it out until it's too late.

If not astronomy, then what?

Okay, enough of my depressing (if witty?) banter.

It's time to PLAY.

Service Days, Harry Potter Club, and Being Ahead of Schedule

ready... set... KITTENPAUSE!

Okay so I've now finished my... fourth(?) week of school? That's two weeks till midterm and um... twelve? until the end of exam week. Technically thirteen but I cut out one week because it's a break anyhow. Anyhow it just seems like school goes by so fast. But I know, it'll get harder, more intense, quickly. I just seem to be hitting the point where that'll happen. The second half of the semester is always harder because the coursework is more advanced and you start getting into tests and projects and such. Ah, to be able to read books and do fun things all day.

so onto the blog content, since I'm sure you're well and bored with the status update on how I see the semester.

1. Service Days:

I'm quite excited because tomorrow is a campus-wide service day which means good food, fun with friends, free t-shirts, and, of course, a general do-good feeling. This will be the fifth service day I've participated in, and hopefully the best! I like the idea of how much good our school is going to be able to do in just one day! Of course, if we were going to an animal shelter, I'd be way more excited. I want to socialize the kitties!


2. Harry Potter Club

Uber-excitement on campus! A Harry Potter Club has finally been implemented and we're doing some seriously cool stuff! It's nice to find other Potterheads on campus. Yay Ravenclaw! I can't wait to get way more involved in the Potter community at large and, hopefully, to get involved with HP Alliance, the not-for-profit young-people led Darfur aid group. Very Very cool.

And I've been enjoying some Wrock listenings. You should check out the Moaning Myrtles, they have this sick a capella piece called "Bathroom Acoustics." There's a toothbrush solo!


3. Being Ahead

Okay, I'm at a really weird point this week. I knew I was going to be doing the day of service tomorrow, and that I have a lot of long term stuff to do so I did like all my homework the day it was assigned. Part of this is due to the fact that my Japanese homework is always due the next day. Anyhow, now I can't do any work until the sun sets, so I'm in this weird place where I feel like I should be doing work and I'm nervous about my Thermo test on Wednesday and I know I need to study, but aside from that I can't really do anything and so I'm antsy. I do have to make a poster type thing for a presentation in a little over two weeks but I want to talk to my professor about that first, so... just argh. My point is I should feel free to do whatever I want but I don't because I feel like I should be doing something but I don't actually have anything I can do... and no books I want to read at the moment. Nervous-making much? I don't like this I can only do some of my homework during a span of like 4 hours if I want sleep, 6-8 if I don't. Very, Very strange.

Let me know what you think. Do you get things done early and then sit around while everyone else is working? Are you a perpetual procrastinator? Would you feel anxiety about not having something to do?

Okay, okay, I think I've rambled on enough.

KITTENPLAY

Pre Movie Hype (And Why Books Are Better)

Does anybody know what time it is? That's right, it's time for a KITTENPAUSE

So a couple of little minimercials before I dive into the meat of this post:

1. Later this week (July 18th to be exact) I'll be appearing as a guest blogger on my friend Aaron's blog, Interesting News, and I won't be around to double post that particular gem of my brain blabber until Sunday night, so this is a little heads up for everyone.

2. I'm going to Otakon this weekend and I'm a little leery of the whole adventure. It seemed like a much better idea back in January. Now I'm not even sure who's going, and I wish it was just a huge Harry Potter Con. I want to go to LeakyCon next year :(

3. All aboard the failboat! I have not succeeded in my plans for YouTube domination! All I have managed to do is post one rather crappy video of a song I wrote in which the sound is terrible and I apparently and unable to change chords in a reasonable amount of time. On that note, does anyone care if I ever post anything on YouTube ever again? Should I become a brilliant skit star? What will boost the rocket of my internet fame? Why am I even worried about that when I have school?

ALL RIGHT - to the crux of this post! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out tomorrow night!

I am rather excited about this movie, but it has chiefly served as a source of nostalgia for Harry Potter midnight book release parties of awesome (I've been to all of those since the fourth book came out - thanks for driving me mommie :) ), jealously of the actors who get to pretend to be Hermione, et al., and get paid for it and become ridiculously wealthy and just have a generally awesome existence, and finally anger over what the movie is just going to leave out because there simply isn't time in that medium to cover all the details of the book - all the glorious, delicious details.

Normally that wouldn't bother me so much. Okay, the movie doesn't have all the amazing parts that the book has (Hermione and the potions in Sorcerer's Stone, blast-ended skrewts, Rita Skeeter is an animagus, Winky the house-elf in Goblet of Fire, Cho Chang isn't a dirty traitor in Order of the Pheonix...) but it's still pretty good. The problem arises when I meet the people (you know who you are, and I'm mad at you!) who have never tried to read the books, who couldn't care less about Potter mania, and particularly those who love the movie but won't read the books because "reading is for lamebrains."

This just makes me mad. For one, reading is awesome. I am a strong proponent of reading, particularly reading just for pleasure and not analyzing the heck out of books. After all, much of my childhood was spent with my nose in a book. I think the results of my bibliophilia (Is that a word? It should be...) are obvious in my academic record and large vocabulary. But aside from the general awesomeness of reading, Harry Potter is in a class all of its own. J.K. Rowling may take a lot of flack for luring people to the evils of witchcraft, but she does not even remotely decry the beliefs of Christianity (His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman has been known to do this on occasion, but I love his books too. They're works of fiction people! So what if occasionally I want to pretend I can do magic? I'm an astrophysicist-in-training; there are weirder things out there). Aside from that, there has been many a friend of mind who did not enjoy reading but loved Harry Potter. I get it if you aren't a fantasy lover. Okay if you want to read realistic fiction. But if you love the movies and refuse to read the books? You're missing out on so much of Jo's writing style and minor characters that films just don't have the time to which to devote the detail. There are all the funny little lines and bloopers and plot holes (in the first edition of Goblet of Fire, Jo's editor had told her to switch the order that Lily and James came out of the wand. James came out first and then Lily. This led to much speculation about Lily/James Polyjuice potions, as the characters were supposed to come out in the opposite order they were killed).

All I have to say is: Read the books first, they're better. YOU get to imagine what the characters look like. Even if this results in anger when the actors don't look the way they were supposed to look, at least you can still have your separate vision of them. They aren't just Rupert Grint or Emma Watson or Daniel Radcliffe.

On a side note, I have plans to give people copies of books to read as gifts. Then they'll have to read them because they were gifts. Good idea, no?

Thanks for entertaining this little whim of mine. I think I'll probably include a reaction to the movie later.

Oh and if you're in the kittenpause book club and you haven't read Harry Potter, that's assignment number one. Get back to me in a month, I'll graciously accept your thanks :)

KITTENPLAY

Doctor Who and BEDA

hit the "kittenpause" button and enter into this little snippet of the past:

Doctor Who is my new life. Well not all of it, but I am certainly enjoying having seen all the current episodes, as well as watching the spinoffs. I still have to get a hold of the originals, but I'm not really sure where to get a hold of them... ideas, anyone?

And in addition, my Harry Potter kick is still alive and well. I bought a new Hogwarts hoodie at Hot Topic and it is uber-love :)

OH and this weekend was adventure weekend. That means that I GOT TO MEET JOHN GREEN!!! YAY!! Albeit, it wasn't the most fabulous introduction and he had a ton of people there (which is good for him, yay Nerdfighteria!) but I got my copy of Papertowns signed, so it was well worth it! Yay John Green!

I can't believe I only have eight days of classes left of my freshman year of college! It's been so long, yet so short! Of course, this means finals are coming up but... what will you do? It'll be nice to enjoy things.

And in regard to BEDA (Blog Every Day in April) - clearly I fail. But I think it's still a nice idea, and I'm enjoying reading italktosnakes' blog!

s'all for now. You can hit "play" on your life button now...