(no subject)
Originally, this was going to be a little nostalgic edit to my prior entry, but I suddenly realized it became a lot more. Up to a certain point, this is copy-paste, written as I remembered it.
Okay, watching the trailers also on the DVD seriously are making me nostalgic, remembering seeing them randomly, starting to read the books probably a week after seeing the first trailer, which wasn't even spurned by the trailer, more was caused by wanting to read with Ryan and then, well, he was reading Goblet of Fire. At least, well, I believe that's how it went. All I know was at that point Ryan and I had to share a bed for some reason and he had been awfully engrossed in this series of books. I recall when I had my own bed -- I have no idea when this was, all I know is I recall this moment -- asking my mom to read me the first chapter of of the Sorcerer's Stone because I wanted to keep up with Ryan and I was-- well, I couldn't have been more than eight or nine. At least a year before I would actually start reading them myself.
Anyway, I was adamant about it. I was a little bit of a "anything big brother does, I will do too" sort of girl. When my mom saw how many pages it was -- 16, I remember -- she said that there wasn't enough time before I had to go to bed. If I agreed to get in bed earlier, then she would, when she wasn't so tired. Well, I was a stupid little kid. No way would I do that. And I, being a stupid little kid, didn't see this as something I could do on my own, I saw it as a bedtime story. Now, I think I'm sure I was eight, because when I was nine I suddenly loved reading, after the learning center teacher -- Mrs. Nelson, I still remember her -- read to my second grade class and didn't finish the book at the end of the year. It was called The Castle in the Attic and it entranced me fully. It was the first time literature had done something like that.
Immediately at the start of third grade, I ran down to her office and asked if I could borrow a copy of the book. I figured out where we stopped and read it every day during free reading -- I wouldn't hear the teacher sometimes when she said it was done, and I, unlike the other kids, would just flop down on the rug in our classroom and lay there, reading. I didn't quite care if I looked stupid, because as soon as I started, I was gone. It was, maybe, because my best friend and I had been separated that year -- I went to a two-class-per-grade elementary school, kindergarten to sixth grade -- and I didn't really want to try and make many connections. I retreated into books, it seemed, though that wasn't much of a problem.
Back to the point, I finished that book and then suddenly discovered there was a sequel. I borrowed that as well, and as soon as I finished it, later on in the year, I asked Mrs. Nelson for more fantasy recommendations. I don't recall everything I read that year, though I know The Bridge to Terabithia was in there. Maybe it was after The Battle for the Castle (that sequel), but I recall a book called Half-Magic toward the end of the year and I suddenly was all into the magic thing.
And this was, for prospective, 2001, barely. At the end of my third grade year, it was 2001, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had been out for nearly a year. I'm probably getting some of the details wrong with Ryan, because only he can truly recall when he started reading these books, but I remember we went on a trip that summer -- the summer of 2001. Before that, I had asked Mrs. Nelson for any summer reading recommendations, because this was a time where summer reading was unheard of as an a school assignment. She read off some things, The Chronicles of Narnia being among them. I had read....four of them that school year, though. I'm pretty sure of that. I got them the same year as The Castle in the Attic and The Battle for the Castle in my Christmas gifts, right after I finished those two books, and then I started reading them over holidays and I stopped when school started getting tough and I could only devote time to the books I was borrowing -- ah, yes, here we are.
So they were among the recommendations, but she finished it with, "And that Harry Potter series is very good too. I don't know if you're old enough for that, though." And she'd given me The Bridge to Terabitihia. Mrs. Nelson had an odd taste for what was too old for me. ;)
I was older than most of my classmates, though, so she might have forgotten that when she was recommending. It had been a long year, after all. Anyway, I was turning 10 that summer and Ryan was reading The Goblet of Fire at one point, maybe during the end of the school year/middle of the school year, maybe a little bit later. All I know is, I suddenly wanted a bedtime story again, and he was determined to read that book (though the more I think of it, he may have been re-reading it, because by the time I started reading it, it was falling apart). I whined and begged and eventually he read me the very first chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. As a bedtime story.
Naturally the first thing I said was, "I don't get it" and I launched into many questions. He just sighed and said I had to read the rest first and that was incredibly daunting. But the point is, whenever this was, when summer started and we went on our road trip, before I had developed motion sickness when reading in cars, I was happily reading The Sorcerer's Stone. I had finished it by the time the summer was done. Keep in mind that this was the year I discovered fanfiction and took to concealing myself away in dark corners for hours because of an incident with the sun a few months prior, but that's a story for another day.
So then, I watched the previews for The Sorcerer's Stone and grew really excited. I started looking around for the other books. We didn't have Chamber of Secrets, but Prisoner of Azkaban was laying around. There seemed to be a summary of the previous year anyway, so I picked it up and got five chapters in, I think, before I realized that this was a copy Ryan had been borrowing from a friend...and away it went before I could ask if he could request more time with it. I wasn't too happy about that, no. Again, I was a very stupid kid who now was hoping to receive my Hogwarts letter the next year.
School had stated up by this point and we had a book fair at the start. We got little sheets and they showed what books were available and I always asked for way too much, but I told my parents that I would only get one book this year if it could be Prisoner of Azkaban. And there we go, it was mine a few weeks later. I'd read through it by the time Sorcerer's Stone came out, and I honestly don't recall much of fourth grade besides that. I remember I was doing some writing -- really lame stuff, I still have it, I'll burn it one day -- because it was the previous year that I decided I wanted to be an author.
It was this series that cemented that.
What do I remember when I think "fourth grade"? Besides 9/11, because of course I remember that, I remember the end of the year tests, which really took place in -- what was it, Ryan? was it March or April? -- April after spring break and I hadn't finished Goblet of Fire -- Chamber of Secrets still did not have a place in our house, sadly -- and I finished my English test early and I took it out from under my chair--
And the next thing I knew, my teacher, Miss Neville (oh, I loved that so much, I loved that her last name was the same name as a character in the books), was tapping me on the shoulder, telling me that Reading had began three minutes ago and she'd have to take the books (I had all three that I owned in my bag, well, one that I owned, one that I borrowed from Ryan) from me if I didn't pay attention.
Naturally I finished this one with time to spare because all I could think was, but Harry's still fighting the dragon and Ron's mad at him, I have to see what happens and it was a wonderful inspiration to get my brain going.
Ryan's book died by the end of the year. Before it, honestly. I bought Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire in the next book fair -- Goblet was paperback, Chamber was hardcover, or maybe Ryan bought Goblet and I got a copy for myself at a bookstore. Either way, by the end of the school year I had all the books that were out, I'd read through them, and our school had shown The Sorcerer's Stone three times as a "holiday treat" throughout the year.
A year before, I barely knew what they were. And from then on...well, I always had a book with me. It got a little rocky sometimes, with school work and everything, but I'm still the same way as I was when I was nine -- I'll curl into the most uncomfortable -- for anyone else, maybe -- positions if it means I can curl up with a good book. I was completely upside-down in a chair once in eighth grade, curled in a ball and legs tucked in. Didn't matter.
I promise this will end soon, just one more memory -- Order of the Phoenix was my first midnight anything. I remember we got it at the midnight release. I also remember -- yes, Ryan, you had to be re-reading Goblet of Fire because this is clear in my mind -- three years earlier when Goblet of Fire was released Ryan had already read the others, and he really wanted to go to the midnight release of it. But, well, I was nine, he was twelve, and our parents would've never agreed. This was bed-sharing years, and for nights on end we'd stay up talking about how we'd get there. I hadn't even read the books yet and Ryan insisted I'd come along and read them and love it. I was to start my book reading adventures a few months later. Well, we talked about hitch-hiking, about walking, about waiting until the parents were asleep and leaving promptly at ten, because we didn't want to miss the party, and then returning right after we got the book, which we were sure would be soon after midnight.
We were stupid kids and never followed through, but wouldn't it have been grand? So in 2003 I was not-quite twelve. My Hogwarts letter had not come and I was put out, but hoping maybe they'd sent it late and I could join the third years this following September -- because as soon as a new Harry Potter thing started, my mind ran into fantasy mode -- and if you ask me about the midnight release, I'll honestly say I can't remember much. I remember standing in line, though, and people in costume, and suddenly it's the car outside and Ryan and I have the car lights on because dad said we could, just this one, and he started to say something and, like the twins or something, we told him to be quiet-- because we were reading-- and we wouldn't listen to anything-- until we finished. Something like that. It was magic.
I stayed up nearly all night reading it, and this is what prompts the memory, it's my cat Tiger coming into my room. I'd gotten my own room again...a few years before, probably towards the end of fourth grade. I closed the door after Tiger walked in, because I couldn't let my parents see my light. (I realize I've been writing this for an hour now.) Tiger curled up right in front of me and at one point or another he got almost tucked in to my spare covers. And I was leaning against a headrest that was big enough so I was nearly sitting up, and I had the book poised above him.
And I fell asleep towards the early hours of the morning, and you all remember how big that book was, right? Well, it slipped from my hands and gently rested on my sleeping cat. He couldn't move it at all. My parents didn't notice when they opened my door (my light was on) because he was still asleep and very nicely hidden beneath covers and book. I woke up to him growing in the early afternoon, though it wasn't angry, just annoyed.
I finished the book later that day, and Tiger made sure not to return to my room that night.
It was...amazing. I think I know why some of the books were, for the longest time, my favorites -- Prisoner of Azkaban was the first I'd read after Sorcerer's Stone. Order of the Phoenix was my first midnight release. They were tied at my top list for a long, long time. I can't tell you my favorites now, it's all very difficult.
But to imagine -- to imagine one little trailer could suddenly set off so many memories. Like my friends and I predicting what it would be like, predicting what House we would be in, who would be playing Quidditch, etc. I had the longest, waviest hair of all the girls in my grade (again, two classes, 50 kids, 25 girls), so sometimes when we played on the playground I was Hermione. That was exciting. I was all wrong for it, of course, but it was still fun. And even better yet, after The Order of the Phoenix, we were in sixth grade, and we were the big kids on campus, and they were tearing down our tiny school because it was literally older than most of our parents and so our fun playground disappeared and the only real place with shade was just an area under some trees.
So our recesses were spent not playing but discussing Harry Potter. This wasn't a once-a-week thing. It was daily. Some times we'd take a break, if someone wanted to play something or go down the slide or one person wasn't there. But mostly...mostly it was just us discussing what would happen in book six, who would end up with who (I admit fully to going through a dreadful Harry/Hermione phase, right around this point, and I was freed from it I think in seventh grade), why one of the girls was crazy for having all these theories (that all turned out right, I think I met the first person to ever ship Remus/Tonks, to ever know for a fact that Snape was a double-double agent who did not hate both of Harry's parents, to ever claim that Neville would, eventually, become the biggest Bad Ass Motherfucker ever), why everything. How the next movies would turn out, too.
Just from one little trailer...there's my childhood. There's my life. I want to write. I want to entrance a little girl like The Castle in the Attic entranced me, make her run to her teacher on the first day of the new school year and beg for the book, and then create something so amazing -- so marvelous like Harry Potter that that little girl forgets she's taking a test and keeps reading, and then spends her time outside talking about the books instead of playing sports. And then when she grows up, she looks back and smiles and says, "Oh yeah, that was fun," and she carries it with her forever.
It's a pipe dream, but it's what started it, really. The desire to make someone want so badly to finish your story that they shake with anticipation and joy and fear and everything.
You know I accidentally wrote a fanfiction in third grade before I even started reading Harry Potter? Ryan and his friend (who he borrowed Prisoner of Azkaban from) and my friend, we all went down to the park the summer before and pretended we were wizards and a witch and they killed Voldemort while I looked for a Basilisk (which they explained to me about in great detail) and we stayed out far too late and we marched back behind mom, who Ryan told me was "Professor McGonagall." I wrote it all for a storytelling thing we had to do for school, except I didn't realize that I couldn't use Voldemort because of copyright and Hogwarts was a place in a book, and I cut it down to half a page of four young mages fighting an evil wizard and "defeating him with magic" and I had to record it. I felt like an idiot and I kept wondering why I didn't think of it all sooner (stupid, stupid kid). Before I even read it.
But I promised just one more memory and I lied, and it's running far too late. Or far too early. I was going to try and look at some more special features tonight, but I suppose I'll be saving them for tomorrow.
What a remarkable series. I think, when it comes time for the last movie, I'll be one of those people crying in the line before even getting into the theater. I know I will. Because this isn't just my childhood. It's my inspiration.
Okay, watching the trailers also on the DVD seriously are making me nostalgic, remembering seeing them randomly, starting to read the books probably a week after seeing the first trailer, which wasn't even spurned by the trailer, more was caused by wanting to read with Ryan and then, well, he was reading Goblet of Fire. At least, well, I believe that's how it went. All I know was at that point Ryan and I had to share a bed for some reason and he had been awfully engrossed in this series of books. I recall when I had my own bed -- I have no idea when this was, all I know is I recall this moment -- asking my mom to read me the first chapter of of the Sorcerer's Stone because I wanted to keep up with Ryan and I was-- well, I couldn't have been more than eight or nine. At least a year before I would actually start reading them myself.
Anyway, I was adamant about it. I was a little bit of a "anything big brother does, I will do too" sort of girl. When my mom saw how many pages it was -- 16, I remember -- she said that there wasn't enough time before I had to go to bed. If I agreed to get in bed earlier, then she would, when she wasn't so tired. Well, I was a stupid little kid. No way would I do that. And I, being a stupid little kid, didn't see this as something I could do on my own, I saw it as a bedtime story. Now, I think I'm sure I was eight, because when I was nine I suddenly loved reading, after the learning center teacher -- Mrs. Nelson, I still remember her -- read to my second grade class and didn't finish the book at the end of the year. It was called The Castle in the Attic and it entranced me fully. It was the first time literature had done something like that.
Immediately at the start of third grade, I ran down to her office and asked if I could borrow a copy of the book. I figured out where we stopped and read it every day during free reading -- I wouldn't hear the teacher sometimes when she said it was done, and I, unlike the other kids, would just flop down on the rug in our classroom and lay there, reading. I didn't quite care if I looked stupid, because as soon as I started, I was gone. It was, maybe, because my best friend and I had been separated that year -- I went to a two-class-per-grade elementary school, kindergarten to sixth grade -- and I didn't really want to try and make many connections. I retreated into books, it seemed, though that wasn't much of a problem.
Back to the point, I finished that book and then suddenly discovered there was a sequel. I borrowed that as well, and as soon as I finished it, later on in the year, I asked Mrs. Nelson for more fantasy recommendations. I don't recall everything I read that year, though I know The Bridge to Terabithia was in there. Maybe it was after The Battle for the Castle (that sequel), but I recall a book called Half-Magic toward the end of the year and I suddenly was all into the magic thing.
And this was, for prospective, 2001, barely. At the end of my third grade year, it was 2001, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had been out for nearly a year. I'm probably getting some of the details wrong with Ryan, because only he can truly recall when he started reading these books, but I remember we went on a trip that summer -- the summer of 2001. Before that, I had asked Mrs. Nelson for any summer reading recommendations, because this was a time where summer reading was unheard of as an a school assignment. She read off some things, The Chronicles of Narnia being among them. I had read....four of them that school year, though. I'm pretty sure of that. I got them the same year as The Castle in the Attic and The Battle for the Castle in my Christmas gifts, right after I finished those two books, and then I started reading them over holidays and I stopped when school started getting tough and I could only devote time to the books I was borrowing -- ah, yes, here we are.
So they were among the recommendations, but she finished it with, "And that Harry Potter series is very good too. I don't know if you're old enough for that, though." And she'd given me The Bridge to Terabitihia. Mrs. Nelson had an odd taste for what was too old for me. ;)
I was older than most of my classmates, though, so she might have forgotten that when she was recommending. It had been a long year, after all. Anyway, I was turning 10 that summer and Ryan was reading The Goblet of Fire at one point, maybe during the end of the school year/middle of the school year, maybe a little bit later. All I know is, I suddenly wanted a bedtime story again, and he was determined to read that book (though the more I think of it, he may have been re-reading it, because by the time I started reading it, it was falling apart). I whined and begged and eventually he read me the very first chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. As a bedtime story.
Naturally the first thing I said was, "I don't get it" and I launched into many questions. He just sighed and said I had to read the rest first and that was incredibly daunting. But the point is, whenever this was, when summer started and we went on our road trip, before I had developed motion sickness when reading in cars, I was happily reading The Sorcerer's Stone. I had finished it by the time the summer was done. Keep in mind that this was the year I discovered fanfiction and took to concealing myself away in dark corners for hours because of an incident with the sun a few months prior, but that's a story for another day.
So then, I watched the previews for The Sorcerer's Stone and grew really excited. I started looking around for the other books. We didn't have Chamber of Secrets, but Prisoner of Azkaban was laying around. There seemed to be a summary of the previous year anyway, so I picked it up and got five chapters in, I think, before I realized that this was a copy Ryan had been borrowing from a friend...and away it went before I could ask if he could request more time with it. I wasn't too happy about that, no. Again, I was a very stupid kid who now was hoping to receive my Hogwarts letter the next year.
School had stated up by this point and we had a book fair at the start. We got little sheets and they showed what books were available and I always asked for way too much, but I told my parents that I would only get one book this year if it could be Prisoner of Azkaban. And there we go, it was mine a few weeks later. I'd read through it by the time Sorcerer's Stone came out, and I honestly don't recall much of fourth grade besides that. I remember I was doing some writing -- really lame stuff, I still have it, I'll burn it one day -- because it was the previous year that I decided I wanted to be an author.
It was this series that cemented that.
What do I remember when I think "fourth grade"? Besides 9/11, because of course I remember that, I remember the end of the year tests, which really took place in -- what was it, Ryan? was it March or April? -- April after spring break and I hadn't finished Goblet of Fire -- Chamber of Secrets still did not have a place in our house, sadly -- and I finished my English test early and I took it out from under my chair--
And the next thing I knew, my teacher, Miss Neville (oh, I loved that so much, I loved that her last name was the same name as a character in the books), was tapping me on the shoulder, telling me that Reading had began three minutes ago and she'd have to take the books (I had all three that I owned in my bag, well, one that I owned, one that I borrowed from Ryan) from me if I didn't pay attention.
Naturally I finished this one with time to spare because all I could think was, but Harry's still fighting the dragon and Ron's mad at him, I have to see what happens and it was a wonderful inspiration to get my brain going.
Ryan's book died by the end of the year. Before it, honestly. I bought Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire in the next book fair -- Goblet was paperback, Chamber was hardcover, or maybe Ryan bought Goblet and I got a copy for myself at a bookstore. Either way, by the end of the school year I had all the books that were out, I'd read through them, and our school had shown The Sorcerer's Stone three times as a "holiday treat" throughout the year.
A year before, I barely knew what they were. And from then on...well, I always had a book with me. It got a little rocky sometimes, with school work and everything, but I'm still the same way as I was when I was nine -- I'll curl into the most uncomfortable -- for anyone else, maybe -- positions if it means I can curl up with a good book. I was completely upside-down in a chair once in eighth grade, curled in a ball and legs tucked in. Didn't matter.
I promise this will end soon, just one more memory -- Order of the Phoenix was my first midnight anything. I remember we got it at the midnight release. I also remember -- yes, Ryan, you had to be re-reading Goblet of Fire because this is clear in my mind -- three years earlier when Goblet of Fire was released Ryan had already read the others, and he really wanted to go to the midnight release of it. But, well, I was nine, he was twelve, and our parents would've never agreed. This was bed-sharing years, and for nights on end we'd stay up talking about how we'd get there. I hadn't even read the books yet and Ryan insisted I'd come along and read them and love it. I was to start my book reading adventures a few months later. Well, we talked about hitch-hiking, about walking, about waiting until the parents were asleep and leaving promptly at ten, because we didn't want to miss the party, and then returning right after we got the book, which we were sure would be soon after midnight.
We were stupid kids and never followed through, but wouldn't it have been grand? So in 2003 I was not-quite twelve. My Hogwarts letter had not come and I was put out, but hoping maybe they'd sent it late and I could join the third years this following September -- because as soon as a new Harry Potter thing started, my mind ran into fantasy mode -- and if you ask me about the midnight release, I'll honestly say I can't remember much. I remember standing in line, though, and people in costume, and suddenly it's the car outside and Ryan and I have the car lights on because dad said we could, just this one, and he started to say something and, like the twins or something, we told him to be quiet-- because we were reading-- and we wouldn't listen to anything-- until we finished. Something like that. It was magic.
I stayed up nearly all night reading it, and this is what prompts the memory, it's my cat Tiger coming into my room. I'd gotten my own room again...a few years before, probably towards the end of fourth grade. I closed the door after Tiger walked in, because I couldn't let my parents see my light. (I realize I've been writing this for an hour now.) Tiger curled up right in front of me and at one point or another he got almost tucked in to my spare covers. And I was leaning against a headrest that was big enough so I was nearly sitting up, and I had the book poised above him.
And I fell asleep towards the early hours of the morning, and you all remember how big that book was, right? Well, it slipped from my hands and gently rested on my sleeping cat. He couldn't move it at all. My parents didn't notice when they opened my door (my light was on) because he was still asleep and very nicely hidden beneath covers and book. I woke up to him growing in the early afternoon, though it wasn't angry, just annoyed.
I finished the book later that day, and Tiger made sure not to return to my room that night.
It was...amazing. I think I know why some of the books were, for the longest time, my favorites -- Prisoner of Azkaban was the first I'd read after Sorcerer's Stone. Order of the Phoenix was my first midnight release. They were tied at my top list for a long, long time. I can't tell you my favorites now, it's all very difficult.
But to imagine -- to imagine one little trailer could suddenly set off so many memories. Like my friends and I predicting what it would be like, predicting what House we would be in, who would be playing Quidditch, etc. I had the longest, waviest hair of all the girls in my grade (again, two classes, 50 kids, 25 girls), so sometimes when we played on the playground I was Hermione. That was exciting. I was all wrong for it, of course, but it was still fun. And even better yet, after The Order of the Phoenix, we were in sixth grade, and we were the big kids on campus, and they were tearing down our tiny school because it was literally older than most of our parents and so our fun playground disappeared and the only real place with shade was just an area under some trees.
So our recesses were spent not playing but discussing Harry Potter. This wasn't a once-a-week thing. It was daily. Some times we'd take a break, if someone wanted to play something or go down the slide or one person wasn't there. But mostly...mostly it was just us discussing what would happen in book six, who would end up with who (I admit fully to going through a dreadful Harry/Hermione phase, right around this point, and I was freed from it I think in seventh grade), why one of the girls was crazy for having all these theories (that all turned out right, I think I met the first person to ever ship Remus/Tonks, to ever know for a fact that Snape was a double-double agent who did not hate both of Harry's parents, to ever claim that Neville would, eventually, become the biggest Bad Ass Motherfucker ever), why everything. How the next movies would turn out, too.
Just from one little trailer...there's my childhood. There's my life. I want to write. I want to entrance a little girl like The Castle in the Attic entranced me, make her run to her teacher on the first day of the new school year and beg for the book, and then create something so amazing -- so marvelous like Harry Potter that that little girl forgets she's taking a test and keeps reading, and then spends her time outside talking about the books instead of playing sports. And then when she grows up, she looks back and smiles and says, "Oh yeah, that was fun," and she carries it with her forever.
It's a pipe dream, but it's what started it, really. The desire to make someone want so badly to finish your story that they shake with anticipation and joy and fear and everything.
You know I accidentally wrote a fanfiction in third grade before I even started reading Harry Potter? Ryan and his friend (who he borrowed Prisoner of Azkaban from) and my friend, we all went down to the park the summer before and pretended we were wizards and a witch and they killed Voldemort while I looked for a Basilisk (which they explained to me about in great detail) and we stayed out far too late and we marched back behind mom, who Ryan told me was "Professor McGonagall." I wrote it all for a storytelling thing we had to do for school, except I didn't realize that I couldn't use Voldemort because of copyright and Hogwarts was a place in a book, and I cut it down to half a page of four young mages fighting an evil wizard and "defeating him with magic" and I had to record it. I felt like an idiot and I kept wondering why I didn't think of it all sooner (stupid, stupid kid). Before I even read it.
But I promised just one more memory and I lied, and it's running far too late. Or far too early. I was going to try and look at some more special features tonight, but I suppose I'll be saving them for tomorrow.
What a remarkable series. I think, when it comes time for the last movie, I'll be one of those people crying in the line before even getting into the theater. I know I will. Because this isn't just my childhood. It's my inspiration.