It's Real for Us: LeakyCon 2011

Obviously, I totally failed at BEDA, and even after it turned into BALA it kind of fell apart, between the craziness of being in Chicago and then coming home and getting sick. But here I am again with a super-long post for your enjoyment.

It's the first day of September, which means that a new school year has begun at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In honor of that I've finally gotten my many, many thoughts on LeakyCon 2011 together in a cohesive manner. For anyone unfamiliar with the event, it was a gigantic Harry Potter fan convention that took place in Orlando, Florida, in the middle of July. I first began counting down to LC'11 somewhere around 500 days before it started. I know. I'm a nerd. I like numbers. Moving on...

I'll start with a basic, basic sketch of the experience so I don't have to explain too much as I go along. The con was held at Universal's Royal Pacific resort, which is within walking distance of the Islands of Adventure Park, which contains the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. My roommates included my sister Alicia (or Phish), my almost-sister Maddy, and my friend Jess from college. (We met at a nerd/wizard rock concert in October.) We flew from Columbus to Orlando on Tuesday, July 12th and spent that afternoon exploring the enormous hotel and conference center. The next morning we attended a special event called Lit Day, which featured panels, workshops, and other programs put on by authors, agents, editors, and others from the field of young adult literature. Lit Day's keynote speaker was none other than Arthur A. Levine, the man at Scholastic who fell in love with the Harry Potter books and decided to take a chance by publishing them in the U.S. Wednesday night we attended the opening ceremonies of LeakyCon itself, and then we pretty much danced our way over to the theme park for an event called Open at the Close. The Wizarding World, which normally closes at 10 PM, stayed open until 1 AM just for LeakyCon attendees. The next day was filled with all sorts of programs, which ranged from academic discussions to hands-on workshops to podcasts to original musicals to film screenings to meetups for various groups of people. Thursday evening we attended a special screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, six hours before the midnight release, and then we hurried back to the hotel for a six-band wizard rock concert. Friday meant more programming, including a dance workshop led by Alicia, our friend Emily, and me, and there was another wrock concert that night, this time with seven bands. For me, Saturday was mostly taken up by the two incredible keynote events I attended, and Saturday night was the Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball. Sunday morning brought a delicious brunch and many tears at the closing ceremonies, and then a plane ride home.

I've titled this post “It's Real for Us” because of a relatively new song of the same name by Lauren Fairweather. On one level, the song refers to a conversation in the seventh HP book in which one character tries to convince his Muggle-born friend that Hogwarts really does exist, even though her jealous, unmagical sister wants her to believe otherwise. On another level, however, the song speaks to the fan community's collective feeling that it doesn't matter what outsiders think, because we love this world we've read about and continue to expand upon. I attended the first LeakyCon, which took place in 2009, and it was probably the most life-changing experience I've ever had, even a shade more powerful than the time I spent studying in Ecuador. I ought to see what other people think about this, but I'm going to postulate that nothing can ever quite compare to your first major Harry Potter con experience, the one that opens your eyes to exactly how vast and diverse and loving this community is.

Unfortunately, I experienced several minor disappointments at LeakyCon 2011. At one point I remember stating that it felt like the “con gods” were against us. On Wednesday afternoon I lost my phone. It just disappeared out of my pocket right before the keynote with Arthur A. Levine, and because I was trying to find it I didn't get a chance to meet Mr. Levine, something I had been really excited about. I did get my phone back eventually, but not until Saturday afternoon. At the Open at the Close event, no one told us that the Forbidden Journey, the ride inside Hogwarts castle, was going to close significantly earlier than the rest of the park. We were just getting in line for the ride at midnight when a Universal employee appeared and told us that they were going to run the ride one last time and we needed to come quickly, so we raced through the castle behind her, and when we reached the loading zone for the ride the employees there told us that they had shut it down for good ten minutes previously. The girl whom we'd followed through the castle mysteriously evaporated. I'll admit I cried quite a bit over that one. I was supposed to take part in an incredible flash mob during the LeakyMug podcast, but it had to be canceled because not enough people committed to taking part. On Thursday morning, Maddy bought her very first wand, a beautiful Lily Potter model from Whimsic Alley, and as we were walking down the Universal City Walk that evening after seeing the movie, she reached into her purse for something and managed to knock her wand out. I heard it hit the ground, and we started looking for it less than ten seconds later, but it was gone. We retraced our path four times to no avail. There were so many people there, and I think it's just as likely that it got kicked under one of the carts along the City Walk as it is that someone else took it. I gave her money to buy a new wand the next day, because I was just not going to let my little sister lose her wand at her first con, and she went back and bought the James Potter model. And unfortunately, I ended up hating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which was kind of the central event of the con. I won't go into all of that here, because that could be a whole post unto itself, but I sobbed during the credits because I wanted so much to like it, but I just didn't.

In all honesty, I was a little disappointed by parts of the actual con and some of its staff. Registration was a total and complete mess. If you can't handle 3,000 people's registration, then don't let 3,000 people register. There was no excuse for the literally hundreds of badges that were missing. I missed the two Lit Day programs I most wanted to attend because I had to stand in one of several conflict resolution lines for over two hours, and I know they kept telling Lit Day registrants to just go to our programs and take care of it later, but I was afraid if I got out of line and came back I would miss either the Arthur Levine keynote or the opening ceremonies or not have time to change into my costume for Open at the Close. Also, in addition to calling the hotel's lost-and-found every few hours, I asked about my phone every four hours or so at the Leaky staff desk in the conference center, and I unfortunately discovered rude Leaky staffers for the first time ever. Most times the people were very nice, but there were a few occasions where I was made to feel like I was wasting people's time because they had to turn their attention away from their conversations with friends to listen to my quick question.

However. However, however, however, even when things kind of sucked, I was still at LeakyCon. I got to walk through Hogsmeade sipping butterbeer and eat at the Three Broomsticks with my sisters and some of my closest friends (all of whom I've known for less than two years). I had my picture taken in front of Hogwarts with Alicia and my dear friends Emily and Jordan, just as we did when we were at King's Cross Station four years ago. I waltzed with my friend Philip and a good chunk of Team Starkid during “Total Eclipse of the Heart” at the ball. I got to talk to my friend Elisa, whom I met last year at Wrockstock, and I got the chance to have a real conversation with Jordan for the first time since we graduated college. I also met a few friends whom I'd never before met IRL. In fact, I met my friend Jodi when we randomly wound up sitting next to each other while waiting for the LeakyMug to start, and we talked for probably fifteen minutes before realizing we tweet each other all the time! 

The program Alicia, Emily, and I did, which was called “Dance Against the Dark Arts,” ran perfectly smoothly and we had two or three times as many participants as we were hoping for! I was sad that John Green had to go home because he got sick, but I did get to meet him at LC'09, and I got to see Hank run around the room with swords and sing “Protons and Neutrons” in the dark (because the lights went out randomly), and Maureen Johnson trolled the Nerdfighter gathering the whole time via Twitter. I laughed and cried and laughed during the amazing Very Starkid Event and high-fived Joe Walker during the photo booth session. I learned that Benedict Clarke (young Snape in the film) is afraid of lemon meringue pie, and I watched my sister stump Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) with a Harry Potter trivia question. I got to tell Stephanie Perkins how much I love her first novel, Anna and the French Kiss. And the wizard rock – oh my goodness, the wizard rock! Bands/artists that deserve special recognition for mind-blowing sets that I will never forget include Tonks and the Aurors, Ministry of Magic, Hank Green, Gred and Forge, Harry and the Potters (just for having Evanna come out and play bass during their encore) and of course, Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls and The Remus Lupins, who were playing their last shows. Seeing Alex Carpenter tear up stage was really evidence of how far this genre of music that began as a joke has come. Speaking of Alex, it was really wonderful to get a chance to talk to him in the Room of Requirement on Friday afternoon without being surrounded by a crowd of people also wanting to talk to him. When he's not swamped by a hundred people and can actually hold a conversation with you, you know that he is really glad to talk to you and is honestly interested in what you're saying.

And of course, there's the one thing that I can never manage to express adequately, no matter how hard I try, which is the sense of love and acceptance and community that you can practically grab out of the air when you're at an event like this. Harry Potter fans, the wonderful, nerdy, totally insane ones who spend their hard-earned money to go to LeakyCon, are the most amazing group of people with whom I've ever been associated. There's no way to replicate how I feel inside when I've got my arms around sweaty, hoarse-voiced people I don't even know and we're all swaying back and forth and singing “We're wizards, we'll party forever! This night will never end!” at the top of our lungs, or when Melissa Anelli announces that we've raised $120,000 for Book Aid International, the Harry Potter Alliance, and the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation. It's because of those feelings that I was literally sobbing by the fourth note of “Days of Summer” at the closing ceremonies.

As Lauren says in her beautiful song, “It's real for us, it's real for us. It doesn't matter what the Muggles say, 'cause it's real for us.” I am so blessed because I do get to live in Harry Potter's world, or at least as close as anyone except Jo Rowling can possibly come, and I know it's real because it has its ups and downs just like any other part of life. Even when things in the wizarding world are less than perfect, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

BEDA Day 25: What is this world coming to?

Earthquake in Virgina on Tuesday. Wildfires in California. Hurricane Irene threatening the East Coast. Libyan rebels have taken Tripoli (not that that's not a good thing, just kind of amazing). And I'm sitting in a hotel in Valparaiso, Indiana, because tomorrow my sister is moving into her college dorm in Chicago.

WHAT?????

BEDA Day 22...ish: Apologies and Excuses

My sincerest apologies to all four of you who read this blog (hi Mom and Dad!). I have been remiss in my duties three days in a row and thus have failed at Blog Every Day in August. This project has now been reduced to BALA, or Blog A Lotta August, which I've always thought of as a cheap out for lazy people. (Well, always since the term was coined approximately 26 days ago by the residents of Echo Base.)

It's technically August 23rd, but since it's not yet daylight out, I'm going to pretend it's still the 22nd. I don't have to go to work tomorrow [today] and I'm not tired because I let myself sleep till noon today [yesterday], so now I'm listening to The Mountain Goats and, obviously, blogging.

I legitimately didn't have time to blog on Friday. It was the last day of our summer session at work, so I had to be at school at 7:45 AM for our trip to Fort Rapids, a western-themed indoor waterpark in Columbus. The day was very long and somewhat stressful, and I nearly lost my voice from trying to talk over running water and shrieking children for five-plus hours, but it was honestly a lot of fun. I can't believe how fast this summer has gone!

As soon as I got home from work, I jumped in the shower and then attempted to make myself look supermegafoxyawesomehot for my date with my sister. Since it was her last Friday night in town before going to college, we went to Sonic for dinner, then went to see the new Anne Hathaway/Jim Sturgess movie One Day (which was really good), and then went back to Sonic for milkshakes. We saw a 9:45 showing, so by the time we got home, it was well after midnight and I was dead tired.

I honestly have no excuse for not blogging on Saturday. I even thought about doing so a few times, and then I just didn't. I slept in a bit, lazed around the house in my pajamas listening to NPR for a while, ran a couple of errands with my mom, and then Mel and I went to a bonfire at our friend/co-worker Andrea's house. We met all of her family's cows, watched other people set off firecrackers and fireworks, and had a good time hanging out away from work with our co-workers Heather and Jody and Jody's daughter, who's eight and adorable. I also wound up covered in marshmallow creme when Andrea's brother tried to attack her with the remains of the ice cream sundae ingredients and missed. Good times.

I tried to budget time to write a quick blog post yesterday (Sunday), but I overslept and my plan failed. I got up with just enough time to get ready for wizard-pirate laser tag, which is as epic as it sounds. My sister and I drove down to our friend Chloe's apartment, and then Chloe drove us down to Cincinnati, where we met other hp-ohio friends at a place called Scallywag Tag. We played two fantastic games of laser tag and then played a ridiculous round of glow-in-the-dark mini golf, during which I made an inadvertent assist in the greatest hole-in-one ever made by wizard, Muggle, or pirate. My friend Emmy's strategy for mini golf is to just hit the ball as hard as she possibly can and see where it ends up. On the twelfth hole, she hit it extra hard to get it over a little bridge thing, and it bounced off a rock at the far end, came almost all the way back and bounced off my ankle, and skimmed the top of the bridge and rolled into the hole. I, as the only Ravenclaw of the group, had been given charge of the scorecard, so I gave her a zero for the round.

BEDA Day 17: Pottermore and Houses and sorting, oh my!

I'm starting to get quite paranoid, to the point where I periodically start shaking and have slight trouble breathing if I let myself think too much. What is the cause of my paranoia? Harry Potter.

You weren't that surprised, were you? Good.

Specifically, I'm paranoid about Pottermore and getting sorted into the wrong House. Pottermore, in case you don't know what it is, is a brand new, interactive, online way to experience the Harry Potter books, connect with other fans, and learn more things about Harry's world that Jo Rowling has yet to tell us. It opens to the world in October, but 1 million people have been given early access to the beta version of the site. From July 31st to August 6th, a clue was posted each day, and those who solved it and caught the Magic Quill before that day's spots filled up got into the beta. I have wonderful friends, and I got in on the very first day, thanks to a 4 AM phone call from my dear friend Chloe. Beta testers are being granted access in waves, and for the last few days my Twitter feed has been filling up with excited tweets from those who've received their welcome emails. I have yet to get mine.

Pottermore gives users the chance to experience all kinds of standard Wizarding milestones, among them being sorted into one of the Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rather than placing a magical hat on their heads, as is traditional among wizards and witches, Pottermore users take a complex personality test, designed by Jo herself, to find out their House, and Houses can't be changed after they've been assigned. I know at least three people who are already on the beta and who have been placed in a different House than the one to which they've always ascribed. Many wizards and witches out there are having identity crises of varying degrees of severity, and now I'm paranoid.

I've always known I have a lot of Hufflepuff qualities, but I feel very strongly that I have even more Ravenclaw in me. Since I first realized that many people take sorting very seriously and I began to take it seriously myself, which was actually only about two and a half years ago, I've considered myself a Ravenclaw. I have a Ravenclaw tie, Ravenclaw socks, and a beautiful Ravenclaw jewelry set that my friend Carie just gave me; I'm a member of Ravenclaw House on the Harry Potter Alliance forums; and my Twitter and Gmail names are both ravenclawdancer, not to mention that I generally look better in blue than any other color. However, I'm still paranoid of being sorted into Hufflepuff on Pottermore. This Sorting Hat test, the most accurate one I've taken thus far, gives each person a percentage for each House, since it's true that most people have at least a little bit of each House in them. My scores were as follows: Ravenclaw - 100%, Hufflepuff - 95%, Gryffindor - 81%, and Slytherin - 41%. At Hogwarts, it's a known fact that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account when assigning Houses, but I have no idea whether that applies to the Pottermore sorting process.

One of my favorite musicians, Alex Carpenter, posted a song yesterday that speaks to the Harry Potter community's collective fear of being sorted wrongly. While I think the song is brilliant, I now have it stuck in my head and it's making it impossible for me to think about anything besides Pottermore...

BEDA Day 16: Grocery store adventures

I went to the grocery store with my dad and my sister tonight. My sister, who is hoping to get her driver's license soon, drove, and we car danced to ALL CAPS most of the way there. My dad made a bad classical music joke about our shopping Liszt as we were walking in. We picked out roses for my mom, who has been through some really awful job-related crap lately. Then we decreased worldsuck by picking up the pieces of a flower pot that had fallen off a shelf and shattered. My dad walked in circles in the bread aisle while my sister and I were choosing loaves of bread. My sister made a really good geometry joke about circles being pointless. My dad and my sister spent five minutes artistically arranging the containers of yogurt we bought in the cart. My sister just about got high in the laundry detergent aisle. I was disappointed by a candle that claimed to smell like the rainforest, which definitely did not hold up to its claims, and my sister accused me of being a "rainforest dropper," which I didn't deny. My sister also ran around taking pictures of all of the items that had been left in incorrect places, such as the bottle of soy sauce left on the taco chips shelf and the box of Junior Mints left in the display of children's cough syrup. (This is a standard practice of hers. I'm hoping she turns it into some kind of deep, meaningful art project about the disorganization and lack of motivation in our society or something.) We got strange looks just about everywhere we went, and it was awesome. I love going places with my family!

BEDA Day 15: Pancakes!!

Tonight when I got home from work I was very tired and hungry (as usual). My dad had picked up dinner on the way home so he could get outside and mow some of the lawn while the weather was good, since the whole job takes 8+ hours. My mom came home long enough to drop off my sister and then headed back out to a meeting, and my sister didn't feel very well. No one could go out to eat with me and I didn't want to go alone, we didn't have much in the house, and I didn't feel like eating Ramen noodles.

So I made pancakes! Real pancakes, from scratch, using the recipe from the red and white Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my grandma gave me last year for my birthday. I didn't burn any, my first pancaked turned out pretty well, and there were only two that had a slight layer of uncooked batter left in the middle. This was actually a major accomplishment for me, because I'm not much of a cook.

My sister has this, like, sixth sense about cooking, where she can just grab some random ingredients and throw them together without a recipe, and they're guaranteed to be pretty good if not amazing. It's nice when she gives me food, but it's kind of annoying too. (I won't lie, I often get annoyed when the random-and-impulsive method turns out better than the carefully-following -directions method. I'm such a Ravenclaw.) My parents are both pretty handy in the kitchen with anything moderately fancy, and my grandma can cook anything under the sun, and she taught herself everything she knows after she got married. I can make most things that come in a box with instructions for the microwave, and I can make one really good but really easy chicken dish that includes Swiss cheese and cream of mushroom soup. I can make pretty good banana bread, and I've finally mastered halfway decent scrambled eggs. I'm such a wuss that I'm pretty nervous to try frying an egg. So I was pretty pleased with my pancake dinner!

BEDA Day 14: Best friends forever

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my friend Mel getting married. She's not the first of my friends to get married, but she's the first of my friends whom I see on a pretty regular basis to get married. Even though she went to college in Missouri, we always managed to hang out on a pretty regular basis. In particular, I recall long hours driving around the county in her car, softening my aversion to most country music.

Needless to say, I didn't quite know what it would be like to have my best friend suddenly being a married woman. (I do have to say, it's been amusing to hear her stories of adjusting to married life and how no one told her that everything about your routine, including the way you brush your teeth, would change!) It's been pretty normal at work, of course, since we just do work things and deal with the kids and it's essentially the same every day. We've only really done one non-work-related thing since the wedding, but that was really pretty structured since we drove all over creation to get gifts for a baby shower for our friends Tawni and Nate, then went to Mel's mom's house to wrap our gifts, then went to the baby shower. So I didn't know what it would be like when we were just hanging out.

Mel came over tonight after work and had dinner, because Derek was working till, like, 10:30. Also, my sister cleaned a bunch of clothes that don't fit her anymore out of her closet, and because Mel is tiny and has been borrowing my sister's clothes for years, she wanted to see if anything would fit her. We sat around and watched TV for a while and were just generally silly, and then we went upstairs and she tried on a lot of the clothes, and we were just generally silly, and everything was totally normal. I always knew that Mel getting married would mean some big changes, and I always knew that we'll be best friends for the rest of our lives, but it's nice to have some reassurance that the one thing hasn't had an enormous impact on the other.

BEDA Day 13: Doctor Who!

I'm currently watching Doctor Who with my mom. We're on episode four of Season 1 (meaning that which started in 2005, since that can be slightly confusing), the one called "Aliens of London," and I told her she's not allowed to judge the show till after this episode, so she'll have seen one set in the future, one set in the past, and a good one set in the present, since "Rose" is kind of a lame episode in my opinion. (I haven't told her that this one is a two-parter!) My mom isn't usually one for sci-fi or fantasy (it took me almost 10 years to get her to read the Harry Potter books), but she seems to at least be interested in it so far. Mom makes the fourth person I've gotten to watch the Doctor since getting the Season 1 DVDs for my birthday in June. The other three are my dad, my sister, and my friend Carie.

I keep forgetting that I've only been a Whovian for seven months, because in that time I've watched all of Seasons 1-5, thanks to my lovely friend Annika, as well as the first half of Season 6, which began in April and returns in 13 days! This all began because of Annika. When we were first getting to know each other last fall, she asked if I'd ever seen Doctor Who (she's absolutely obsessed with it), and I said no, but it was next on my list of things to get into when I had time, because I knew so many people who loved it. Then I asked if she'd ever seen LOST, which I love, and she said no, it had looked intriguing when it was first on and then it just looked weird. We knew we wouldn't have much time during the rest of that semester, so we decided to introduce each other to our respective favorite shows over Martin Luther King, Jr., Day weekend. We did, and she, unfortunately, thinks LOST is pretty dumb, but she's determined to finish the show one of these days. I, obviously, love Doctor Who!

I think I've always kind of harbored this hope that aliens were actually real, just because I love learning about and meeting people from different cultures, and I've always been really interested in outer space. When I was little, I really wanted to be an astronaut for a while. That idea disappeared when I found out how much math and science would be involved in that career path (I find scientific concepts interesting on a basic level, but I usually don't enjoy studying them, and I really love math up through Algebra 2, but not much beyond that). However, now that a handful of regular people have traveled into space, I can't help thinking about how awesome it would be to go as a civilian!

BEDA Day 12: Out of the mouths of kindergarteners

Some of my kindergarteners at work have really gotten into knock-knock jokes, one format in particular. The one version that gets told over and over is "Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "Interrupting cow." "Interrupting cow wh--?" "MOO!" Riley, Gabriel, and Jayden have taken to modifying this to any interrupting animal or other being that suits their fancy. I did NOT appreciate Riley's version from earlier in the week, when I was sitting next to him at lunch and he was eating Cheetos, of course leaving his fingers coated in a thick film of orange "cheez" dust. This was the first time I'd encountered the new obsession, so I didn't know what I was getting into. Riley looked at me and said, "Miss Madeline, knock-knock!" I said, "Who's there?" He said, "Interrupting orange spider." I said, "Interrupting orange--?" And he proceeded to grab my face with his sticky, orange fingers. Oh, the joys of working with children.

Other versions of this joke were much more amusing yesterday at the pool. It was only about 80 degrees out, so the water was pretty chilly and we had a number of kids sitting on their towels near my co-worker Mel and me. Gabriel told the cow joke about five times and then moved on to other ideas: an interrupting cat who said "meow;" an interrupting bird who screeched; an interrupting apple who crunch-crunched; and my favorite, an interrupting old man who yelled, "I'M TIRED!" Jayden got out of the pool after a bit and joined in the jokes with gusto, although he was mostly repeating ones Gabriel had already said, since he doesn't quite have the grasp of linguistics that Gabriel has so far. Mel and I tried hard to remember some good jokes, knock-knock or otherwise, from when we were kids, but we could only think of a few, which made me sad. Ahh, to be young again...

BEDA Day 11: Mixing truth and fiction

I'll just announce it at the beginning: This is going to be another cop-out post. However, if you follow the included links, you're guaranteed to get a few good laughs!

The Leaky Cauldron, my favorite Harry Potter-related news site, posted a link today to a brilliantly written article that gives serious (Sirius?) suggestions for fixing some of the world's major human rights and foreign policy issues, but the entire thing is written as if the authors are witches and wizards. Even if you don't know much about Harry Potter, it's still a fantastic read, and most of the important wizarding references are explained.

That article contains a link to this article from Slate.com, which is all about Rupert Murdoch's desire to purchase The Daily Prophet, the main newspaper in magical Britain. Again, it's hilarious, especially with its insinuations that Murdoch's best friend is Rita Skeeter, everyone's favorite sneaking, spying, mud-slinging, yellow journalist witch.

Enjoy. :)

BEDA Day 10: In Memoriam

I can't believe it's been five years since my grampy passed away. I think about him every single day, and I miss him like crazy. Because I'm completely exhausted from a day at Sports Ohio with my kids and because I haven't gone back to read it in a while, I'm going to post the words I spoke at Grampy's memorial service.

**********
My grampy was a lot of things: a father, a teacher, an author, a baseball fan, and a friend. But all those things made him something else: an adventurer. He wasn’t one to sit back and let life pass him by.

As a teenager, Grampy saw Babe Ruth hit a home run at the very first All-Star Game. When he could see that America was going to get involved in World War II, he joined the army. His teaching took him around the world, to exciting places like India and Nigeria. And Grampy’s adventures certainly didn’t end after he retired. In recent years, he flew in a 1920s biplane and a 1939 Ford tri-motor, and he joined my cousins on a HumVee ride through the Arizona desert. He continued to travel as well, visiting friends and family around the country, as well as voyaging overseas. “Boring” was one word that never described my grampy. How many people do you know that flew to China on their 89^th birthday?

In addition to all the important, exciting events in Grampy’s life, he had the ability to turn the smallest things into adventures. My first memories of Grampy are at his house in Virginia, which was filled with fascinating things to see and do. The marble roller was probably the highlight of the house, followed closely by the cuckoo clock. I loved to watch Grampy wind it. My cousins and I could be entertained for hours by watching Grampy’s model trains and riding with him on the garden tractor. I even loved to sit in the kitchen with Grampy and watch the neighbor's cows.

He always managed to turn dinnertime into an adventure too, often by arguing with my dad for the check. Once, he ordered clam chowder for an appetizer and liked it so much that he ordered it again for dessert! And then there was the super-strong airport coffee...but that's another story altogether. Of course, if you spent more than five minutes with my grampy, you were sure to be treated to some great, or terrible, puns. He made sure to pass his love of wordplay on to his children and grandchildren.

Grampy made learning exciting for everyone, from his college calculus students to my first grade class. When we studied Antarctica, he came to show slides and talk about the trip he and Grammy took to the bottom of the world. Even when my classmate's father brought a real penguin to our school, I thought there was nothing cooler than the big, red parka Grampy showed.

Shortly after Grampy's death, one of my friends reminded me of something said by a character in the Harry Potter books: “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” I think we can all agree that my grampy had a well-organized mind, and I am sure he was not afraid to leave this earth. I know he was looking forward to seeing Grammy and his parents and his Savior. We can only imagine what adventures he's having right now!

BEDA Day 9: Rock, paper, scissors, kimodo dragon!

Not gonna lie, this BEDA thing is kind of getting old! I'm so tired when I get home from work, but I make myself do things to be productive for a while, and then I usually remember that I need to post something here right as I start thinking about going to bed. Oh well. I'm gonna stick this thing out if it kills me! (Not that I'm really expecting things to get that dire.)

I actually just realized how ridiculous it is that I made a whole post about weather yesterday, that quintessential small talk, I-don't-have-anything-else-to-say topic. Pretty sad.

Fortunately my kids always give me material to talk about. I sat with one of my favorite kids on the way to and from the pool today. His name is Andrew and he turned four in June. Shortly after we got on the bus at school, he looked at me and asked, "Do you know what cemeteries are?" I was very curious as to why he'd thought of this, since we were just sitting in the parking lot, I said, "Yes," and I was pretty sure he would give me his explanation. I was right. He said, "Cemeteries are a lot of rocks." I'm assuming he meant headstones, but this statement seemed to exhaust his interest in the topic. We then sang the Mickey Mouse Club Song five or so times, because he's been obsessed with it since I taught it to him on Friday as a distraction from something he wanted to do but couldn't.

On the bus on the way home, I sat with Andrew again, and he wanted to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, which we often use at school to settle disputes among kids. When I'm playing a game with a preschooler, I usually try to let him or her win, but there's absolutely no way to do that with Rock, Paper, Scissors! We were each winning about 50% of the time, but each time I won twice in a row, Andrew would say, "Why do you keep winning? I want to win this game!" I could tell he was really tired, and I tried to get him to settle down and go to sleep, which I usually can when we're on the bus, but he wasn't having it. Yesterday one of my co-workers (who was in marching band with me in high school) and I showed some of our kids the llamas we used to make with our fingers which were a complicated inside joke in the band, and then we started to make other animals with our hands, so I thought I'd try to distract Andrew with those animals. (For those curious, a llama is made by putting your middle and ring finger together with your thumb and sticking your index and pinkie finger up like ears.) I was trying to get him to make llamas, bunnies, fish, and other things, but he still seemed focused on Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then he said, "Rock, paper, scissors..." and put out his fingers like scissors, then turned them vertically and said "...bunny!" So we spent the rest of the ride back to school saying, "Rock, paper, scissors, snake!" "Rock, paper, scissors, moose!" "Rock, paper, scissors, kimodo dragon!" (That was his favorite, and it always ate up whatever my animal was.)

I love my job. :)

BEDA Day 8: Weather is weird

They, whoever "they" are, always say, "If you don't like the weather in Ohio, wait five minutes and it'll change." Having lived my entire life in Ohio (save for the 10 weeks I lived in Ecuador), I know that's pretty much true. I've grown up in central Ohio, which has its own brand of totally unpredictable weather. I went to college in the northeastern part of the state, which has an entirely different brand of unpredictable weather. I learned at a pretty young age that no weather forecast is sacred, and that Ohio is a state of extremes. We had two days off from school during my senior year of high school because it was temperatures were around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, officially too cold to stand outside and wait for the bus. Two weeks ago, I got sick when we had to take the kids at work to the pool when it was 96 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of around 107. (The heat index is a calculation that combines the temperature on the thermometer with the humidity level.) Last week I was driving home from work in pouring rain while it was brilliantly sunny...and I didn't even see a rainbow, I might add. Disappointing to say the least.

I always think it's funny to see reactions to our weather from people who live outside the Midwest. In July 2007 I attended the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, a tri-annual (is that a word?) gathering of youth from around the country and the world. It took place at Purdue University in Indiana, and all of my fellow Ohioans were highly amused by all of the people from the Southwest who couldn't handle the humidity, even though they're used to temperatures well over the mid-80s, which is what we were having that week. The following summer, my family had a reunion in Indiana, and my cousin Matt, a native Californian, just about had a heart attack when he saw a weather forecast that called for 90% humidity. I told him he'd have to get used to it, since he was about to start college in Pittsburgh. (He still gets really excited by snow!) Finally, my friend Annika, also a native Californian, who transferred to B-W last year, was really scared back in October when there were severe thunderstorms and a possibility of tornadoes. Now, I will never deny the destructive power of twisters, but I can count on one hand the number of times there's ever been one within fifty miles of where I was located at the time, compared to the hundreds or maybe thousands of tornado warnings I've been subject to during my life. I told her it was no big deal; it was super unlikely that any would be cited, and if we had to we'd just go down into the basement for a bit till the storm was over. Anyways, tornadoes weren't nearly as big a deal as the earthquakes they have to worry about in California. Annika assured me that earthquakes weren't anything to be worried about, but tornadoes were still terrifying.

In case you're wondering where all this is coming from, we're currently in the period of the year where hot temperatures mean that crazy huge cloudbursts can pop up at just about any time, like the one we had this evening. After that, everything goes back to being peachy keen.

I should mention that Cuenca, where I primarily spent time in Ecuador, also had crazy, crazy weather. It must be my lot in life.

BEDA Day 7: In which I worry extensively about England

I think possibly the scariest thing that a person could experience in their life is being stuck in a riot. I can't even imagine how terrifying it's got to be for the people in the suburbs of London right now. In case you don't already know, violent riots have been raging in many areas of London for the past few days, initially sparked by outrage over the death of a man at the hands of police officers. This article from CNN gives a pretty good explanation of how everything spiraled out of control.

Sadly, rioting has now sprung up in other parts of the country, including Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and Liverpool. This BBC article paints a seriously frightening picture of what's going on. I wish I could wave a magic wand and just stop all of this. I'm frightened for the people who live there, and for all the people that are visiting there, even though at least in London most of the rioting is well away from the tourist-y areas. Less than three months ago, I had several friends visiting London and Liverpool on a study abroad trip. For selfish reasons, I'm frightened for all the incredible history and beautiful buildings that give those cities such character. The essayist Samuel Johnson said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Well, let's hope that's still true when all of this is over. I'm afraid to see what's going to be left....

BEDA Day 6: No, I didn't forget to blog today...

This is my blog for today. I had entirely too much fun hanging out with two of my almost-siblings this afternoon, and now my best friend Carie is here to spend the night and save me from being lonely in the house all by myself, since my sister and my parents drove to Chicago today. We have spent the evening watching Across the Universe and working on a scrapbook that's been on hiatus for almost a year, and now I'm tired and it's time for bed.

Cop-out blog post is a cop-out.

BEDA Day 5: I think the Whomping Willow's out to get me

As I hinted yesterday, I will now commence writing about the crazy thing that happened to me after Mel and Derek's wedding reception.

Directly after the reception and getting everything cleaned up at the park, the families of the bride and groom and the wedding party went back to Mel's church to clean things up there. It was around 5:30-6:00, and the sky was starting to look really nasty, and the wind was picking up. As I mentioned before, it had been exceedingly hot and sunny all day, and in Ohio, that kind of weather early on a summer's day often means there will be a thunderstorm in the afternoon or evening. It took less than half an hour to get the bulk of things cleaned up at the church, and the sky had taken on the greenish cast that means a really, really, really bad storm is coming. The wind was blowing dust from the dirt/gravel parking lot in circles, and I decided I'd better head out right away. (It's only about seven miles to my house.) I hugged everyone goodbye and promised I'd call Mel when I got home.

The wind was buffeting my little Honda Accord from side to side as I hurried down the road, not to the point that I was crossing the center line, but certainly enough to be disconcerting, and there were lots of branches flying through the air. It started to rain really, really hard right as I turned onto 257, but I was still more concerned with the wind. There are tons of trees surrounding this long, very curvy stretch of road, and things were still flying everywhere. Right as I was going through a teeny tiny, bump-in-the-road town, I heard this terrifying sound that was like a huge rock smacking the body of my car. Then I looked up and saw a golf ball-sized hole in the top left corner of my windshield and saw the glass spiderwebbing all the way across in front of me. It had to have been a pretty large tree branch that hit my car; I never actually saw what it was because it didn't come inside. I completely freaked out and didn't know whether to pull over or keep going, but I was almost home, and I could actually see halfway decently, so I just decided to suck it up and keep going. I groped around for my phone and managed to call my mom and have her move her car out of the garage so I could park there, and to her credit, she didn't flip out when I told her what was going on.

I finally made it home and parked in the garage, and I just totally lost it. I really can't remember the last time I cried so hysterically. I was wet, and I was completely covered in teeny tiny shards of glass. It was all in my hair (which was still done up from the wedding), all over my face, in my mouth, down my shirt....it was horrible. But my family was amazing and helped me clean off, and all I got was this miniscule cut on my wrist that didn't even require a band-aid. My windshield got replaced two days later, and it's perfectly fine, although I do kind of miss the Virginia vehicle inspection sticker that was still on the old windshield from when the car belonged to my grampy.

So really, I'm pretty sure the Whomping Willow is trying to kill me, because that was the third time in my life that I had the thought, "I'm going to die right now," and both of the other times had to do with trees as well. The second was the time I almost got eaten by the Log Monster, and the first was when Mel was driving me home from a friend's graduation party in 2008 and we almost slammed head-on into a gigantic tree. So, yeah. Trees are apparently not my friends.

BEDA Day 4: Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get ma-a-arried...

So this is the post I was planning to write yesterday....

On June 4th, 2011, my best friend Mel married a wonderful guy named Derek. I was honored to be a bridesmaid, which was my first foray into the world of wedding parties, and it was honestly so much fun! It was really wonderful to spend some quality time with Mel's mom (whom I call "mom"), and it was great to see her older sister, Rachel, for probably the first time since Mel and I graduated high school. Rachel was the matron of honor, and I had a blast with her and the other two bridesmaids, Mary and Debbie, and the pianist, Kristen, who were friends of Mel's from college. We all helped decorate the beautiful little church, which is right across the street from the school where I work, which was lots of fun. After the rehearsal dinner at the ever-amazing Der Dutchman, we went back to Mel's grandparents' house and wound up with one of the best bachelorette-party-gone-wrong stories ever!

Everything started out pretty low-key, because we were all exhausted, especially Mel. Rachel decided we had to watch some home movies from Mel's first birthday, and while the bride kept protesting that this was dumb and everyone was bored to death, we all laughed and laughed and kept track of the number of times baby Mel fell on her face. Then Rachel, who was insistent that her little sister have something akin to a real party, took us all outside for sparklers. After that, she sent Mel on a little fool's errand inside the house while she passed out cans of silly string. When Mel came back out, we attacked and chased her all the way down the street, which resulted in me spending a good 15 minutes picking little bits of colored goo out of her gorgeous curly hair. Then we went back inside for a bit.

I was just about ready to head for home, and Mel was just about asleep, when Rachel waltzed in again, blindfolded the bride, and marched her out to the car. She announced we were going to take Mel somewhere and leave her to be rescued by Derek. I climbed into the car that belonged to Kristen and her husband Daniel, Mel, and Mary. Debbie and Mel's cousins Jason and Sydney went in Rachel's car. I figured we were just going to drive to the park a few blocks away or something, but no -- we followed Rachel for nearly half an hour, all the way to Marysville, including a random turn-around in a driveway to throw the still-blindfolded Mel off track. After that turn-around, everyone in our car felt a small jolt, like we'd hit an animal on the road, and I couldn't see it from where I was sitting, but a whole bunch of lights suddenly lit up on the dashboard. Once we reached Marysville, Rachel turned into a Walgreens parking lot, just hoping to regroup and tell her about all the calls her crew had been making to Derek while we were on the road. As soon as we parked, however, Kristen and Daniel's car died. As in, completely quit functioning. The guys immediately started poking around under the hood and determined that one of the belts (I forget which one now) had given out.

So there we were, stuck in the parking lot of a closed drug store in a small town around 12:30 AM on the day of the wedding. We called Derek and his brother, who had been waiting at the nearby Wal-Mart, where we were supposed to meet them, and we determined that the whole groom-seeing-the-bride-before-the-wedding doesn't count till the sun comes up. Some of us had to use the bathroom, so Rachel drove Mel, Mary, and me over to Wal-Mart, where we used the facilities and Rachel bought a jumbo box of ice cream bars. When we got back to the Walgreens lot, the dead car had been towed, Mel's pastor was there telling stories like only he can, and her aunt was on her way with a working vehicle. After Aunt Lisa got there, we sat around in the parking lot for probably an hour, listening to Pastor's stories of bachelor parties he attended when he was younger (they once put a totally smashed groom-to-be on a commercial plane the night before his wedding!). We finally decided we ought to go when it was almost 2:00 and a police car drove slowly by the parking lot for the third time. I told Mel it's all going in my novel someday.

The next day, everything went wonderfully. My sister came along with me to the church, and she was a big help, putting on Mel's nails and doing Debbie's hair and running little errands for Mom. She did my hair while we were still at home, and it looked amazing! Pictures went pretty smoothly, thanks to Rachel running a tight ship, and they were a lot of fun. We were all highly amused by the ring bearer, a family friend of Mel's, and the flower girl, Derek's niece, who wouldn't even talk to each other at the rehearsal but had to be restrained from running around the sanctuary together while everyone else was taking pre-wedding photos. Mel was incredibly gorgeous and just seemed happy. Derek was adorably nervous. The ceremony was beautiful, and the only tiny hiccup was the flower girl deciding that she wanted to go sit with her mom in the second row after about twenty minutes, and that was way more cute than problematic. The reception was at a local park, and it was insanely hot, but that didn't stop us from having a great time. They had buttercream-frosted cupcakes and orange punch, and their cake toppers were Han Solo and Ariel, the Little Mermaid. I got to see a lot of good friends whom I hadn't seen in quite a while, and everything was just sunny and happy and wonderful.

This post has gotten sufficiently long, so I'll write about the crazy thing that happened after the reception in tomorrow's post. I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the wedding:

Mary, Debbie, Rhiannon, Mel, Rachel, and me


Best friends since eighth grade <3


Mr. and Mrs. Derek Glynn!


Mel and my parents

BEDA Day 3: I Am a Murderer :(

So, I was definitely planning to write about happy things like the wedding I was in two months ago today, but I really don't feel like it now. I was just driving back from the grocery store with my dad and I'm pretty sure I ran over a frog. I've never run over an animal while driving before, and I know it probably shouldn't be that big a deal, but I really feel like a horrible person right now. The fact that it was a frog makes it worse, since I had a pet frog for six years when I was younger, which launched me into a lifetime of collecting froggy things. From my bed, where I'm currently sitting, I can see almost forty frog items around my room -- everything from stuffed animals to figurines to socks (yes I'm messy and have dirty clothes on my floor). I always figured God had a hand in me not having to dissect frogs in science class. I never particularly enjoyed dissection, but I could handle the fish and the worms and the squids and the crayfish. If I'd had to do a frog, I probably would have cried the whole way through.

Here's a prime example of the weird thing I do where I get extremely emotionally attached to large categories of things that don't really matter in the long run. Oh well. I'm going to go eat my ice cream and be sad now.

BEDA Day 2: The Little Monsters

If you've known me at least a year, or have been reading my blog for that long, you may recall that last summer I worked at a local middle school SACC (school-age child care) program, and I hated it. I felt overwhelmed because my boss had been doing her job practically by herself for years and just assumed I would understand things that seemed obvious to her. The paperwork at the site was extremely unorganized and I felt like I couldn't find anything. By the end of the summer the number of kids attending was so low that I was only working 15-20 hours a week. Because of our low numbers, I was often the only adult around when I was working. And most of the kids were so snotty that I only actually liked about four of them.

Because of budget cuts, the district's middle school program had to close, so this year I'm working for the same program at one of our elementary sites, and my situation couldn't be more different. My site director is extremely organized, and there's always another adult around who takes my questions seriously, even the tiny ones that I feel silly for asking. Our numbers have been so high this summer that instead of working 28 hours a week, as I was originally scheduled, I've been working at least 35 hours since the second week of summer. I get along really well with all of the other teachers (and it's a bonus that one of my best friends is working the same hours as me), and even when our kids drive me crazy, I still love them. Because the middle school program closed, the rising sixth graders have been allowed to attend our program, and our ages range all the way down to preschool. When we break into groups I usually have the 4th-6th grade group, but we all have plenty of opportunities to work with all of the kids. At these ages, they're still so sweet that even if they get really mad at you over something, they've forgotten it by the next day and you're bound to get hugs again.

The only downside to the job is that I'm absolutely exhausted and usually starving when I get home, because the little monsters wear me out! We stay really busy. On Monday afternoons we go to the small movie theater in town that's owned by a school district alumnus for a free kids' movie. On Wednesday and Friday afternoons we go to the pool. Thursdays often mean full-day field trips, such as to the zoo or local parks or Sports Ohio. When we stay at school all day, I usually teach a mini dance class for a group of kids.

We're currently working on a piece of choreography to Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," which the kids have been singing constantly all summer. I'm actually borrowing my sister's choreography, and I told the kids this yesterday, which led to a storm of questions, including about five kids asking how old my sister is. (They don't listen to each other...or me, most of the time.) I said she's eighteen, and they all went, "Cool!!" Then someone asked me how old I am, a question I've gotten periodically all summer, and one I don't mind answering because I think they definitely have a right to be curious about their teachers' lives. Before I could answer, though, one of my little boys, Matthew, shouts indignantly, "You never ask a girl how old she is!!" After I stopped laughing, I told the kids that that's a good rule to follow when you're talking to a grown-up you don't know very well, but it's okay to ask questions of the teachers because they know us well. Little moments like that totally make this job worthwhile. :)

BEDA Day 1: Summer on Fast Forward

Look, it's me!! I remembered that I have a blog!!

As atonement for my grievous lack of activity on this site over the last 2.75 months, I've decided I'm going to participate in BEDA, or Blog Every Day in August. (BEDA was started by the author Maureen Johnson back in 2009 and originally took place in April, but August works too.) Yes, I know today is August 2nd. But I'm not that far behind and I'll go for a whole 31 days by blogging on September 1st as well, since I'm sure I'll have some kind of sappy, Hogwarts Express thing to type that day.

Obviously my world didn't come screeching to a halt the day after I graduated college. The fact that I've graduated still hasn't fully sunk in, because this summer feels exactly the same as each of the past three summers. However, my friends who have yet to graduate are starting to talk about heading back to school on Facebook, and I'm starting to feel pretty sad again.

I'm glad to say I've had a really good summer so far. I'll just kind of recap everything here and spend the next few posts talking about various elements in detail. I was a bridesmaid for the first time, in my best friend's wedding, and my car got attacked by the Whomping Willow. (Yes, those events are related.) I started working at an elementary school child care program, and all things considered, I'm really enjoying it. My sister graduated from high school, and last night I tagged along on her first round of college shopping. And of course, I've had lots of Harry Potter-related adventures.

I dubbed the summer of 2007, the one right before I started college, "the summer of Harry Potter," because the fifth movie and the seventh and final book were both release in July. At that time, I couldn't possibly have imagined any of the things I've done in the last couple of months. For starters, I went to LeakyCon 2011 and visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the first time. I've been to four wizard rock concerts this summer, not counting the ones that took place at LeakyCon. I celebrated BAMFmas, also known as Neville Longbottom's birthday, with some of my newest and closest friends, which included destroying a horcrux at 11:00 at night in the parking lot of a movie theater with the sword of Gryffindor, which looked suspiciously like a light-up, inflatable lightsaber. And I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Harry and Jo's birthday to register for the beta version of Pottermore.

All of these things and more will be explained in the coming days, and I hope you'll stick around for my first BEDA adventure!

The end of the road

I will graduate college in about 14 hours. I can't even handle it right now. I have this weird feeling that the world is going to end when I go to bed tomorrow night (well, technically today, but I don't mean when I go to bed an hour from now). I can't imagine waking up Monday morning. It's like my brain can't even picture how that could occur.

I don't even know why I'm posting this except that I really want to write and all of my notebooks and journals are packed away. I don't understand how everything happened so fast.

Look who's still alive!

Let's ignore the fact that it's been four months since I last posted here. I've been slightly busy. If you're interested in reading a blog that is updated much more frequently than mine (and is also much funnier), you should check out my sister's blog about her experiences as a senior in high school.

First of all, I have to point out that it's been pretty darn good to be a nerd this week! Monday was Wizarding Independence Day, Wednesday was Intergalactic Star Wars Day, and today is Hanko de Mayo, and Helen Hunt finally saw the Helen Hunt Song!! Power of the Internet FTW.

Okay, so all of those links were really an attempt to procrastinate talking about the really big thing that's happening later this week: GRADUATION. My feelings about this are so mixed that it's really hard to talk about it. As much as I didn't want to graduate high school, that felt like a beginning of something new as much as it felt an ending. This right now just feels like an ending. I had my last meal in Lang cafeteria with my friends today. I left the Foreign Language building and the Theatre building for probably the last time. And I keep looking around my room and knowing that when I get home, I can't just stick all of this stuff in the attic till I get it out again in August. I'm going to have to actually sort through it all and put it all away, a thought that kind of makes me want to defenestrate myself right now. (10 points to me for working my favorite English word into that last sentence!)

One thing I'm glad about is that I really managed to have a fantastic last semester at B-W, despite the gargantuan amount of work I had to do. (I am apparently on a roll with the big words today.) I started watching Doctor Who in January, and I'm now almost to the start of season five, and I am completely addicted! In February, my friends Annika and Jess and I made a semi-spontaneous (come on, we're all Ravenclaws) trip down to Cincinnati in the middle of the week to see a wizard rock show, and we made it back for Annika's and my 8 A.M. classes the next morning. The dance concert, New Beginnings, was in March, and it was a really fantastic show. I was very pleased with how my piece turned out, and I had a wonderful time working with my dancers. April brought Diva Night and the annual Theatre Department banquet, and the decision that I want to pursue Spanish translation in grad school.

But I just don't want it all to be over.

Sblogging and star words

I'm sitting on the couch in the family room, and my sister is sitting next to me. She's just started a blog as a project for herself in 2011, and she's typing a post right now too. She just decided we're "sblogging," or synchronized blogging.

So...it's 2011. It seriously feels like 2010 just whizzed by, and I don't know what to think about this new year. I have to graduate college in May, which is a terrifying prospect. In July I'm going to LeakyCon 2011, which I can tell you right now is going to be the highlight of the year, but I still need to find myself at least $400 more before I go. I guess everything will work out somehow...It always does.

I'm sure everyone has their own start-of-the-year traditions. We have a tradition at my church that my pastor started about six years ago called "star words." On the Sunday closest to Epiphany, we pass baskets of paper stars through the congregation. Each person takes the star on top of the pile and turns it over to see which word is written on the other side. They take that star home and hang it somewhere they'll see it, like on the fridge or the bathroom mirror, and that word becomes the basis for their journey with God for the year. The results are always astounding...every single year, I find that God puts my word in my life over and over and over again.

My word for 2010 was "Gratitude." I try to always be grateful for the many blessings in my life, but this past year I really did feel gratitude so much more than usual. At the beginning of the year I was still adjusting to life after Ecuador, and I was grateful to be home with my friends and family whom I'd missed so much, but as I shared my stories of the trip with people who didn't quite understand or appreciate them, I was so grateful for the experiences I had in Ecuador -- experiences that most people never get to have. I went to my first hp-ohio Crystal Ball, which I will never forget, mostly because of all the friends I made there. As I ran into a few rough spots with friends at school, I was so grateful for my friends from home who have always been there for me, any time of the day or night. When summer rolled around, I was grateful to have a job and be earning money in this difficult economy, even if I didn't particularly enjoy my job. I was so grateful for the love and fellowship of my church family at Montreat, and of my real family at our fabulous reunion in July. School started and I met my friend Annika, whom I feel like I've known for years already! I was grateful for my summer job again when I took my sister to Wrockstock 4 as an early birthday present, and I was so glad to be able to watch her revel in her first con experience, to meet some awesome musicians, to make lots of new friends, and to spend time with old friends. By the end of the semester, I was extremely grateful just to have survived and passed all my classes, let alone with good grades. All year long, I felt so much gratitude to all the members and staff of the Harry Potter Alliance, the Harry Potter community at large, John and Hank Green and the Nerdfighters, and all the other awesome YouTubers who are committed to decreasing worldsuck. Together we raised $123,000 for relief efforts in Haiti, worked together to win the HPA $250,000 for future programs in the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook, comforted each other as we mourned the loss of Esther Earl and vowed to never let her star go out, and raised over $135,000 for various charities and took over YouTube with the Project for Awesome!

2010 was an insanely awesome year, and I'm so grateful for everything that happened. My star word for 2011 is.......drum roll, please........"Strength." I have to admit, my immediate reaction was "Oh, great!" So I'm likely going to be needing a lot of prayer this year, but I know God will give me the strength to make it through whatever comes my way. *sigh*

Best wishes to all as we start the new year. What are you looking forward to in 2011?