Thank you, JK Rowling

Pardon any and all ramblings in this post. I'm going on 2 hours of sleep and no caffeine.

I saw the final installment of Harry Potter last night and thus have concluded a 13-year chapter of my life. Sounds dramatic? Well, it kind of is. How many things have you loved consistently, looked forward to consistently, for 13 years? Now, I'm still young. 13 years is over half of my life. That's a whole lot of time for me.

So I'd like to take this post to thank the woman who made it all possible. JK Rowling.

Thank you, JK Rowling, for creating characters that turned into friends that I was fortunate enough to grow up with.

Thank you, JK Rowling, for developing this imaginative, unique, creative world that allowed my imagination to run free as I pictured (and then later watched in the movies) witches and wizards and goblins and unicorns and banshees.

Thank you, JK Rowling, for introducing a story that was so engaging it got some of the most resistant readers to read 400+ page books and then ask for more.

Thank you, JK Rowling, for reminding us that the ends do not always justify the means. That good will triumph over eve. That no matter how dark it might look at one moment, something wonderful could happen the next.

Thank you, JK Rowling, for showing us the power of friendship and love and reminding us that those are the most important things in the world. Power, money, prestige, grades, none of that matters if you cannot love and be loved in return.

Thank you, JK Rowling, for giving us someone to relate to. Whether someone is the jock (Harry), the brains (Hermoine), the loser (Neville), even the bully (Malfoy), everyone has a chance to be a hero, even in the smallest way.

And thank you, JK Rowling, for the countless moments that I couldn't even put into words. The moments where I cried with the characters, laughed with them, cheered for them, even for the moments that I could not stand them (hello book 6 anyone?). Thank you.

Some people might say it's stupid. It's just a story. It's just something out of the mind of one woman who made billions of dollars off of it. Yeah, maybe, but if you look around this past week: in newspapers, magazines, on television, you'll see it. You'll see the people whose lives were forever changed by the orphaned boy wizard who overcame impossible odds to save the wizarding world from evil. Maybe they weren't changed in a big way, but they were changed.

So thank you for the past 13 years, JK Rowling.

Mischief Managed

Hello. My name is Lisa Rose, and I am a huge nerd.

SQUEEEEEE

That's the sound that's going through my brain right now. Honestely, if I wasn't at work (ON MY LUNCH BREAK, CHILL) I would be jumping up and down in excitement over pottermore.com.

Now before you go over there and say "Wait a minute, there's nothing there. Why are you so excited about a purple background, a few owls, and the words coming soon?"

Well, maybe this picture will explain things:

Seriously. I have  been a Harry Potter fan for half of my life. Literally, half. How many things can you say that you have loved for over 10 years without any dwindling passion? 2 for me, but I am not going to get into my Indiana Jones obsession now. I'll save that for later.

Anyway, when the final book came out I was happy. JK Rowling ended it perfectly, in my opinion. But I was also crushed. What do I have to look forward to out of my favorite fantasy franchise? Oh right, the movies! Phew.

Now, with less than a month to go until the final half of the final movie is released, I started to have that feeling that I hate more than any other feeling ever: The "Now What?" feeling. Until today.

I was browsing the internet and thanks to a certain Dark Lord's twitter I found the tag #pottermore. I'm sorry, what? Pottermore... potter more... MORE POTTER?!?!?!?! I easily found the site he referred to: pottermore.com.  That's when the SQUEEEEEEE started. True to JK Rowling's nature, she hasn't released any information (that I can find) about what the site is all about, although I'm sure she knows exactly what is going to be on it and has been planning for years. And you know what?  I'm not mad about it.  I, like my fellow Potterheads, are just curious and eager to find out what this site is all about and hopefully be able to rejoin the lovely world of Hogwarts once again.

Although I'm still holding out for my Hogwarts acceptance letter...

Welcome to the dark side, little bro

You are never too old to discover the magic of reading.

I love to read. I mean, I LOVE it. I always have. By the time I was eleven years old I had read every single Nancy Drew Mystery in my public library system. I say system because my town has two libraries and I devoured the books in both.

I. Loved. Nancy. Drew.

Unfortunately, my siblings did not share my enthusiasm for the written word. Luckily I was bigger and stronger at the time so they kept their puny little mouths shut. It took a few years, but my younger sister finally succumbed to my teachings, though she wasn't as into Nance and her powder blue convertible as I was. I'd take it. My brother... Well at this point I'd considered him a lost cause.

Then something magical happened.

One month and twenty four days shy of his seventeenth birthday, I come into my family's house and see my brother on the couch. At first I was confused. Where were the sounds of idiotic cartoons, fighting men, or other typical boy television? Why was it silent?

"Are you in trouble?" I immediately asked.

"Nope." 

I just stared at him as I noticed what was in his hand. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. Aka, a book.  A BOOK! HE WAS VOLUNTARILY READING A BOOK!

I tried to ask him what made him read it but I promptly got shushed before he went outside and posted up in my favorite reading spot on the deck (one that I claimed over a decade ago, thank you very much). 

It must have been a fluke, right? Just some weird mood that he was in.

Lo and behold, a few days later he comes into my room with a question that brought tears to my eyes: "Hey, can I borrow the second Harry Potter?"

Yes, Grasshopper. Yes you may.