Sep 08, 2011 16:57
- What sort of profession in the wizarding world would you choose and why
You know, if you asked me this question while I was reading Books One through Six I would have said that I wanted to be an Auror. What’s more attractive than an Auror when reading about massive injustices in the wizarding world? Shit’s exploding, people are dying, freedom is waning, and all you want to do is do something to help. And Harry himself wanted to be an Auror! What better way to relate to the main character than in fictional career choice! But now that the series has finished and consequently I’m seven years older, I would seriously consider a career in wizarding law after Scrimgeour said Hermione would be good at it in the 7th book. I am in law school right now, after all, and I love it. I think law is fascinating. I also think the wizarding world is fascinating. Can you imagine the amount of fascinating that would ensue if the two combined? I think my head would explode. I mean, the reading of Dumbledore’s will in Book Seven was pretty much wizarding property law. I’m thinking about going into intellectual property, so I often muse about the IP problems present in the wizarding world. If someone invents a spell, would that be a patent or a copyright? And if it’s a patent, how do licenses and fair use work? At the end of the day, law is something I’m intellectually interested in, and - I am willing to bet much like the “real” world - it is a career that provides much monetary reward too, which, let’s be honest, was the main reason I chose law to begin with. ;)
- You have to venture deep into the Forbidden Forest one night. Pick one Harry Potter character other than Hagrid and one object (muggle or magical), besides your wand, that you'd want with you.
Mad Eye Moody and his whizzing magical eye had better not leave my side for even a second in the effing Forbidden Forest. (I am counting his magical eye as a separate entity from Moody himself. If this is not to your liking, I will edit my app to include another object. But I think this is legit because I don’t think Moody and his eye are necessarily a pair. It’s not an inherent part of him; it’s not like Moody was born with it - he got it fitted when he lost his real eye in battle. I also think of the eye as having kind of a distinct personality from Moody himself, as weird as that sounds.) I’d like to think of myself as a brave person, but my braveness is very selective, unfortunately. When it comes to venturing into deep, dark unknown woods filled with bloodthirsty beasts and possibly Lord Effing Voldemort, you bet your fanny I want an able, intelligent and constantly vigilant man by my side. Why Moody, you ask? Why not Shacklebolt or McGonagall or Dumbledore? Because Moody strikes me as the type to use his knowledge of self-defense spells to protect someone (either himself or - in this scenario - me) at any cost. There’s a kind of savagery about Moody that I think would be really useful in an unpredictable place like the Forbidden Forest - a savagery that I lack. For example, he turned Malfoy into a ferret in the Book Four. (Okay, I am slightly ignoring the fact that that was actually Crouch who did that, but he was emulating Moody, wasn't he? ;D) Even though his action can be viewed simply as a “creative method of discipline,” it is very clear that Moody acts on impulse: react to the situation at hand first, then face the consequences later. Let’s face it: I would never in a million years venture out to the Forbidden Forest by choice, so for whatever reason I’m forced to go there, the first thing on my mind would be self-preservation. Moody seems a little unhinged to me, so in order to diffuse any sort of serious danger to my person, I would have him and his magical eye by me at all times.
- If you had the opportunity to live forever, but your family and friends did not, what would you choose? And if you did choose to live forever, what would you do with eternity?
I have absolutely zero interest in living forever. Regardless of the fact that everyone I loved would be dead and gone, and I would basically have to isolate myself from people for the rest of eternity so as to go through the pain of losing people again and again and again, I just don’t think it would be any fun. Because my time would be unlimited, I would use it to learn as much as I could: I’d try to learn all the languages, read millions of books, try my hand at all different sorts of art. But eventually I would get bored with learning too. What would I even do with all that wisdom and knowledge? All that it would do is remind me how utterly lonely it is to bear the burden of living forever. I really like to learn new things, I do! But my interest in learning for the sake of learning is very short-term: I cannot see myself gaining all this wisdom and not being able to use it. That would frustrate me to no end. And honestly this world is on a downward spiral environment-wise for me to want to stick around and see it degrade forever and ever. Jesus, I cannot think of a more terrible thing than that. No, thank you. I would like a swift and timely death please.
- If you could travel back in time to one point, when and where would you go? Why?
I apologize if this seems like a non-answer, but I would not choose to travel back in time at all. Sure, I think going back to see what dinosaurs really looked like would be cool, and having tea with a young, sardonic Kurt Vonnegut would be an excellent way to spend a day, but these things are mere musings of mine, and I would never actually go through with it. If time travel really existed and I was really given a free ticket onto the time machine ride, I would decline. I am a firm believer in living in the present and not looking back. Have you guys seen the recent Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris? (If you haven’t seen it, and plan on seeing it, you may want to stop reading now, as this next part contains spoilers, lol). It’s about this man named Gil, who is obsessed with the past, and with nostalgia in general. One night in Paris, at the stroke of midnight, he’s picked up by a mysterious car that transports him back to 1920’s Paris. As it turns out, everyone in the 1920’s daydream about the Enlightenment. And everyone in the Enlightenment era daydreams about the Renaissance. This movie reaffirmed everything I believe in: that romanticizing about the past is a very dangerous thing to do and you can lose touch with reality very quickly. I’d like to think that I live life with feet firmly planted on the ground, and in order to do so, I tend not to dwell on the past. The past is the past and nothing can change it, and it is more important to live life as it happens than to go back and try to fix your mistakes or learn new lessons.
- What HP character do you identify with most and why?
This is an extremely difficult question for me because I never really compared myself to any of the characters. I was always more interested in the story than with the characterization! Thinking about it now…I would have to say Hermione Granger. I have to admit, I am not nearly as smart as she is; not very much comes naturally to me when I study, and I have a bit of an attention problem. Sometimes it takes me three times as long to get a certain concept as my peers because I process information in a very detail-oriented (and sometimes inefficient) way. That said however, I felt myself relating to Hermione more often than not because of her will to prove herself. She comes from a Muggle family, having not had any previous exposure to this unknown and unfriendly world in which she was expected to function and learn. She faced so much prejudice because of her blood and it was all very undeserved. Even when she was being praised for her smarts it was with an air of surprise that someone with non-magical parents would be so good at magic herself. Even Slughorn, who thought Lily Evans was one of the best students he had ever had, still spoke about her through the lens of her Muggle upbringing and blood. I believe that all this prejudice only drove Hermione to study harder, and to answer more questions correctly, and to gain more points for Gryffindor than if she were someone like Ron, whose magical abilities were never questioned based on lineage alone. It also didn’t help that Hermione is a girl. It’s true that women are never taken as seriously as men are, and JKR was smart enough to write this important theme into her books. I’m pretty sure that Snape, on more than one occasion, commented on the fact that Hermione was a “silly little girl,” like it was the worse slur he could utter without being sanctioned by Dumbledore himself. Being a woman of color myself, I relate very much to this type of prejudice and also - like Hermione - try my best to fight against the “silly little girl” stereotype by fighting my way out of the trenches.
- What would you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised?
I would see myself shaking hands with a man in a sharply tailored suit, having just been made partner at a major international intellectual property law firm. My salary would be upwards of $250K per year. (I originally had half a million, but I changed it so as to not seem unforgivably greedy, haha!) Growing up, my family didn’t have much. We pretty much lived in the ghetto for the first five years after immigrating to the United States. Slowly, through good old hard work and perseverance, I witnessed my mother and father fight against racism and classism in order to make something amazing of themselves. Monetary success has never just been about buying nice clothes or expensive jewelry (don’t get me wrong, that would be wonderful too!), but it’s been about personal and familial honor, about making sure that my parents’ sacrifices weren’t for nothing. Pretty much every goal I’ve ever set for myself has been in order to prove myself in some way: whether it’s acing an exam (omg, is “acing” really spelled like that?!), or perfecting a piece of graphic art, or learning how to do the god damn moonwalk (that shit is hard!!).
- Do you believe that moral actions should be judged by the intentions behind them, or by the consequences they create?
The latter. I hope you will forgive me foraying into some legal jargon here, but even in criminal law, if the mens rea of a crime is negligence, the criminal is still punished, albeit with a lighter sentence than someone who committed the crime knowingly. Even if someone runs over a pedestrian with his car with the intention of changing the radio station, not to commit murder, at the end of the day, that pedestrian is still dead. Mr. Radio Changer still killed someone, and that action can’t be taken back. I actually have a very low tolerance for the excuse, “Well I didn’t mean to!” So what?! So many bad acts in this world are created out of sheer unthinking, that doesn’t mean they should go free of scrutiny. I also think judging those for consequences instead of intentions acts as a deterrence to such hasty behavior.
- What was your ideal job as a kid? Has that changed? What is your ideal job now?
When I was a kid I had a lot of grand ambitions that were always half-baked. I wanted to be a marine biologist before I realized how many years of schooling would be involved. Then I wanted to be a fashion designer before I realized how volatile that industry is. Then I wanted to be an architect before I realized that it takes more than sketching a few pretty buildings to be successful at it; there is surprisingly a huge amount of physics and shit involved, who knew?! And if there is one thing I am worse at other than the effing moonwalk, it is physics. As I grew older, more mature, and less idealistic and prone to romanticizing my ~*artistic abilities*~, I realized that I do have an analytical mind that would be at least semi-good at law. Plus, it's a fairly stable career with much monetary security, so there I went: I majored in PoliSci in undergrad and applied to law school four years later. Law is something that I am intellectually interested in and also something that I can actually make money doing. That’s all I need, really.
- If you were able to invent one spell, potion, or charm, what would it do, what would you use it for or how would you use it, and what would you call it?
Oh goodness I have no idea. This is a hard question because it seems like JKR has thought of everything already. As kind of a silly answer to this question, I would say I would want a charm that somehow projects my dreams so I could watch them like a film and show them to others if I wanted to. I think my dreams are sometimes really ridiculous, and I really like talking about dreams with my friends, but as the metaphor goes, trying to remember a dream is like trying to hold water in your hands: the harder you try to hold on, the faster it disappears. As a serious and kind of lame answer to this question, I would invent some kind of spell that makes legal researching a helluvalot easier and more efficient. I hate hate hate researching. It’s the one thing about my chosen profession that I despise, which is unfortunate because researching is a huge part of being a lawyer. If I could make that easier for myself, I would jump at the opportunity hahaa.
- If you were to face a boggart, what would it turn into? And what does it turn into when you throw the counter-spell, Riddikulus?
Boggarts are supposed to turn into what you fear, right? Well there is nothing I fear more than psychopaths. Psychopaths are usually characterized as being manipulative, promiscuous, easily bored, predatory, and worst of all - charismatic. These qualities alone don’t offend me at all, we can all be a little manipulative or promiscuous or easily bored at times, can’t we? But the scariest thing to me is the fact that psychopaths lack a moral compass. So they will use their charisma or charm to wring whatever it is out of you that they want - money, validation, sex, whatever - and then they will toss you aside and move on to their next victim without hesitation. This scares the daylights out of me. I hate being lied to, and I hate being manipulated, and to become a victim of both to someone who has no notion that what they’re doing is morally reprehensible…I just can’t even imagine.
As for the counter-spell, something that would be really hilarious to me that could happen to a psychopath is them getting punched in the face. So it would just be them getting punched in the face. And then I would laugh until I peed my pants. I’m pretty crass, lol.
- What do you look for in a friend?
Probably the most important thing is that they have something to offer for me. I can’t be friends with someone who is just passive and takes; they have to give as well, whether it’s in the form of actual exchanging of gifts on respective birthdays or a certain kind of intelligence that I admire or the fact that they can teach me how to do the moonwalk. (I’m really hung up on this, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.) A couple examples come to mind regarding this. For example, if I’m always calling the other person to hang out and spend time together, this is going to annoy me because there’s no balance. Further, if the other person laughs at my jokes but never supplies his or her own, I would have a problem with this as well. (I mean, I only think myself funny to a certain extent!) It just seems like a huge waste of my time, energy and effort for me to be friends with someone who doesn’t offer me anything in return. I have absolutely no patience for that.
- What trait most annoys you about other people?
Okay, so this question says “annoys,” so I’m going to rule out things like racism, sexism, and most other forms of bigotry. I guess the most annoying thing to me is people who do not have an appreciation for other people’s time. This can take several forms.
First, I dislike people who are unpunctual. As in, I tell you to meet me at the movie theatre at 7:30 so we can get popcorn and choose good seats before the show starts, and you show up at 7:50. (I guess 20 minutes is my limit before I start to get angry, lol.)
Another form this kind of inconsideration can take is when I send a text message or an email and we make plans to do something, and then the other person bails on me for no good reason. I’ve gotten excuses ranging from the legitimate (“I have too much studying to do/My grandmother is in the hospital”) to the anger-inducing (“I don’t want to drive all the way to your house/it’s raining.”) The latter category pisses me off soooo much. It’s just so inconsiderate to not realize that other people’s time and effort may be important too. If I take the time to set up plans with you, and you don’t even respond or keep your promise, my entire day is thrown off too! The time I spent working around my schedule so that we could hang out could've been spent doing something else! This odd phenomenon is helped along by Facebook, definitely. How often do people click “I’m attending” to 4 events happening on the same night just to wait and see which one they will actually go to? Sadly, this has transcended Facebook and has now become a common occurrence
in every day interaction even off the internet. This is so fucking annoying to me, I can’t even tell you.
The worst part is being a total unapologetic douchecanoe about it too. If you’re late, or you don’t reply to my texts and you don’t even say you’re sorry, or recognize that it is a legitimate thing to be upset about, then I get really angry.
- What do you think are your top five abilities or qualities?
01. Self-Aware. I’m constantly thinking about how my actions come off to other people. I know that I sometimes have pretty weird mannerisms and I do my very best to not make people feel awkward around me. I want people to be comfortable around me because I hate it when relationships are stiff and forced (this is probably also why I hate small-talk.) I’m also always thinking about myself in relation to other people. For example, if I think Alex is the closest friend I’ve made in law school, I will wonder about how Alex perceives me. Does she think I’m her closest friend too? It comes down to the fact that I can self-critique very well: I know my strengths and weaknesses and I live my life in accordance with them.
02. Well Groomed. When I was younger I would roll my eyes if someone ever told me that one of their best qualities was something purely physical, but I’ve come to realize that being well dressed is not about outward physical appearance at all. It’s really about inward confidence. You could say that I’m interested in fashion to the point of being a mild shopaholic. You could also say that the amount of money I’ve spent on jewelry, handbags, and other accessories might rival the GDP of Sri Lanka. You might further venture to say that the amount of time I spend getting ready in the morning is the equivalent of two sections of exam taking for the LSAT. You would not be wrong. But I’ve always thought my sense of personal style was a hobby that showcased my personality and represented a very outward projection of my inner calm. To me, it's worth spending money, time, and energy on.
03. Confident. I would say that I know myself pretty well. I have solid, achievable goals, a boyfriend who I love very much, and a close-knit group of best friends. I feel like my life lacks all those nagging insecurities that some of my peers are plagued with, and words cannot describe how grateful I am for that.
04. Rational. I had “analytical” here before, but I don’t think that’s quite the right word for it, so I went with “rational” instead. Emotionally and mentally, I feel like I am a very rational person, especially when it comes to personal problem-solving. I’ve never been the one to get “swept up in it all,” so to speak. When I get angry, I usually have enough rationality to take a step back and wait until I cool down before taking any action. If something is really bothering me, I will let it stew in the back of my head, then sleep on it. If it’s still bugging me the next day, then I will know that it’s legit and not a spur of the moment “OMG I H8 U” type thing. After I recognize that something is a legitimate problem, then I go about tracing its origins. Once I've done that, then I start thinking of ways to prevent it from happening again. I think my approach to problem-solving works for me because I have both feet planted firmly on the ground. That is not to say that I always react this way. Sometimes I do lash out, and it’s not a pretty sight for any party involved. XD
05. Future-Oriented. A similar answer to my answer to the time travel question. I dislike looking back. Whenever something goes wrong, my first thought is always “How do I go about fixing this problem so it never happens again in the future?” My parents always give me shit for not remembering things that happened to me when I was younger, especially the really negative things, like getting bullied, or living in poverty, or experiencing racism. My parents chalk it up to my poor memory, but that’s not really it. It’s not that I simply don't remember all these things that happened to me, it’s that I choose to forget. I probably learned from the experiences as they were happening, then filed them away and moved on with my life. I have absolutely no interest in digging up terrible experiences of the past in order to “better myself.”
- What do you think are your top five weaknesses or worst qualities?
01. Dismissive/Judgmental. I put a lot of stock in first impressions. If someone doesn’t impress me, or seems like a jerk, or they overall have a negative impact on me from the first time I meet them, I will peg them a certain way and not really try to get to know them that well. But my judgments don’t stop at acquaintances. I judge everything and anything I can, because I have this narcissistic complex of “Ellen Knows Best.” Every time my girlfriend tells me about a new crush she has, I go to his Facebook page and I try to get a sense of who this guy is from his seven profile pictures. Every time a classmate doesn’t do their homework, I feel superior knowing that I’ll probably do better on the exam than he will. Which is completely not true, and I know I would feel terrible if someone judged me in that way. So it definitely one of my worst qualities.
02. Prone to the One-Woman Pity Party. This is really the flipside of my “Self-Aware” positive trait. As confident as I am about the “big picture” things in my life, sometimes I really sweat the small stuff, to the point where it’s debilitating. For example, the first couple rounds of exams in law school I threw myself pity parties because everyone else had started their outlines weeks in advance, and being the procrastinator I am sometimes, I only started them one week before exams. That was really not a good move on my part. Instead of buckling down and doing my outlines as fast as I possibly could in order to catch up, I withdrew and spent almost an entire day wallowing in self-pity and not even bothering to work on it because I just thought “well what’s the point, I’m already so behind.” And then I wallow and wallow and wallow until something snaps. One thing that really infuriates me is wasting time, so my pity parties don't help that at all. I wish I were better at controlling them.
03. Socially Anxious. I guess another facet to my self-awareness is that it makes me really socially anxious. Sometimes I get so caught up in perceptions - whether it’s other people’s perceptions of me, or how I’m perceiving other people - that I forget to just let go and have fun. I get very caught up in my own head, and sometimes I’m not thinking about anything in particular, but whoever is around will think that I’m being rude and not making conversation. And if I get that vibe form people, then I shut down even more. I have a lot of trouble making friends because of this, and I don’t really know how to go about changing it, which is a great source of frustration for me.
04. Passive Aggressive. When things piss me off to the extent that I don’t have time or the willpower to rationalize them, I react in a very passive aggressive way. I can say things that really push people’s buttons and play on their insecurities, which is something I really regret about myself. You could say this is a defense mechanism, targeted against others so they don’t do the same passive aggressive shit to me, but it really is just me being an asshole sometimes. I ain’t got no alibi, as they say. I think the problem is I don’t realize that everyone makes mistakes and says or does things that don’t necessarily warrant such a bitchy response from me, but I guess that’s easier said than done, huh?
05. Unforgiving. You could say that I’m a grudge-holder, but that would be a nice way of putting it. “Forgive and forget” is something that I have never been able to do, no matter how hard I try. For the small things, I’m pretty laid back about people making minor mistakes. If I tell you I would like a vanilla ice cream cone, and you come back with chocolate, that’s certainly not cause for me to banish you from my life forever. But if you’re terrible to me or to the people I love, if you lie to me for no good reason, if you are just a pain to be around, it’s very hard for me to get past these faults. I guess some of this stems from my impatience. If I think that another person is constantly fucking something up, it’s more my nature to cut them loose and move on, rather than wait around for them to change. Change is a volatile thing and not everyone is capable of it. Again, (jesus I keep hammering this to the ground huh?) I just don’t want to waste my time. I realize that this is a huge fault of mine because it has caused me to be isolated from many people, and I don’t want that for myself. I would rather have more friends than less friends, and I have an honest curiosity and willingness to know and respect others. It’s very perplexing.
- Define in your own words the following key traits:
- Courage: To me, courage means nothing without adversity. (I feel like I’m writing a college admissions essay HAH!) One cannot be courageous in a vacuum. It is persevering against all odds. It’s not about impulsiveness; those who are impulsive are not necessarily courageous, and those who are courageous are not necessarily impulsive. It is all two often that the two traits get mixed up. Sometimes, courage comes in the form of knowing when to not exercise courage. Sometimes, it is important to let our fears rise to the surface and to recognize weakness.
- Loyalty: Loyalty is the absence of doubt. Here is an example: the best and most inspiring instance of loyalty I have ever witnessed was when my friend Anna and I were talking about abortion. She grew up Catholic and is very, very pro-life. On this we disagreed wholeheartedly, and it got to the point where I was wondering if we could continue being friends when she said, “I might not believe in abortion, Ellen, but I sure as hell will come hold your hand in the hospital room if you ever decide to get one.” I never doubted our friendship again after she uttered that simple sentence, and it was Anna’s lack of doubt about the strength of our friendship that was truly eye opening to me.
- Intelligence: Well, I’m sure this is a common answer but like many others I think that intelligence comes in two forms: book smarts and common sense/rationality. I honestly don’t think that one is more important or impressive than the other. I think if you have both types of intelligence, then congrats! That’s rare and truly a gift. The most dangerous thing is when people mistakenly believe that having one type of intelligence automatically guarantees that you have the other. How intelligence is important to me, however, is that I think intelligence is wasted if it’s not exercised for the furtherance of something. Whether it’s used for the furtherance of more knowledge, or to get into your dream university, or to learn how to cook Indian food, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that intelligence not be idle: that it be used to further the good of something, someone.
- Ambition: I think ambition means different things to different people. But true ambition, to me, is about inspiration and pride. I don’t care what form it takes. It doesn’t matter if you want to be president of the United States or an ice sculpture on a major cruise liner. Ambition means setting concrete goals for yourself that you are proud to display to other people, no matter how stupid or unachievable the rest of society thinks they are. Concrete goals are key, in order to have true ambition, one must have a plan of action on how to achieve those goals. It’s one thing to say, “I want to be a pop star” and leave it at that. Rather, it is something like “I want to be a pop star and I’m taking voice lessons and making demo tapes and sending them out every week.” I think having dreams and having ambitions are two very different things. Ambition is about proving yourself in some way shape or form, whereas dreams exist in a more intangible, vague space.
- Name: Ellen
- Age: 23
- Where did you find out about us? Sorting community search!
- Do you plan on being active in the communities once you are sorted? It depends!
sorted: slytherin,
term xxi