Logic, Winnipeg, and the Electric Boogaloo

I told Little Sister that if she wanted another Ask Awkward Mormon Girl post, now was the time. She said okay, then sent the questions when I was sleeping at one a.m. on a Sunday morning.

• If six people were in a room and there were four flavors of potato chips, which type would the person on your left eat first?

Statistically speaking, apparently America's favorite chip is Cheetos. But I am not having that, so that's not my final answer, Alex.

I'm pretty sure that this puzzle is solved with logic. Like that riddle in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You know "poison sits on the nettle wine's left side" and all that stuff. I'm going to run that through the logic part of my brain and get back to you.

• If you could pick one country to never take a cruise to, what would it be?

I was going to say Winnipeg as Winnipeg is landlocked. Too bad, because I'll never get to cruise there to enjoy their *Googles frantically* jazz festival and hot-smoked fish. But then I remembered that Winnipeg isn't a country. It's part of the country of Canada, which apparently you can cruise to if you live in New England.

So instead I'm going to say Andorra. To which you might say, "Where's Andorra?" to which I say, "Exactly."

• Should your sequel blog be entirely dedicated to posts about Little Sister?

Meh, I was actually thinking of something more along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel. I didn't particularly like that movie, but it did well enough for them to make two more, so.

I am also considering Awkward Mormon Girl 2: Electric Boogaloo.

• Better yet- should Little Sister write your sequel blog?

Sure. It can be ghostwritten. If you can find the time for that. (Spoiler: Little Sister is too busy to find the time for that.)

Love,
Little Sister

I've figured out the answer to the riddle.

The only time I can think of where I'd be in a room with five other people and also four kinds of potato chips is opening presents with my siblings on Christmas Day. Based on where we usually sit to open presents, the person to my left is Little Sister, who should be eating the Pringles that came in her own stocking first. Unless she's a stealer. In which case she might be eating the Pizza Pringles from my stocking.

Book Recommendations

From time to time, people ask me about my favorite book. The truth is that I have fifteen favorite books. They're not the only books I recommend to people, but they're often the first ones I recommend.

They are (in no particular order):

Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl: This might be the only children's book Roald Dahl wrote that has no magical hi-jinks. It's all stuff that conceivably could happen in the real world, including a vivid scene of teacher-child beating taken straight from his own life. (The teacher is basically a more violent version of Severus Snape.) The main plot of the story has nothing to do with teachers; it's about a boy named Danny who lives with his father just outside of a small British village. His father is a very exciting person and, it turns out, secretly a poacher. (Almost everybody in the book is secretly a poacher.) They concoct a mad plan to make a statement by poaching every single pheasant from a nearby wood. The plan involves raisins and a baby carriage. It doesn't involve Danny's friend Sidney, who does almost nothing the entire book except exist unnecessarily. IT'S A GOOD BOOK, THOUGH.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J. R. R. Tolkien: I know, I know. Cliché, but I do love 'em. They are far, far better than the live-action versions in every conceivable way. The Return of the King might actually be my favorite book of all time. Except that the ending has always been difficult for me to swallow. Although just recently, I've started to accept it.

Harry Potter, books one through seven, by J. K. Rowling: I've talked quite a bit about Harry Potter on this blog, so you should all know my feelings. My favorites are the first and the fifth. The fifth book is amazing. So intricate. So many good jokes. So much Luna.

Romeo and Juliet: Together (and Alive!) at Last, by Avi: I actually kind of hate Avi, but this book is comedic gold. Well, it was before I read it 10,000 times. It's about a group of students who decide that the only way their friends will confess their love for each other is if they star in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Combine all the awkwardness of elementary school crushes with all the cringeyness of student-directed productions, and voilà.

Bloomability, by Sharon Creech: This one's about a girl named Dinnie who has been overlooked her entire life. She ends up studying abroad in Switzerland, and...well...this book has some complex ideas about people and political conflict and language and all sorts of interesting things. It really makes you think.

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, by David Lubar: This book is also pretty complex. It features an aspiring teenage writer named Scott Hudson who's just trying to figure out high school. It raises some interesting questions about being true to yourself no matter how much you may not fit in and why treating other people well matters, even (especially) when they have nothing that benefits you. There's also a lot of English language cleverness in general. No one that I've recommended this book to has ever disliked it. After Best Friend Boy read (well, listened to) it, he was inspired enough to take me to see a movie that had a similar story (called Tim Timmerman, Hope of America). Good stuff.

Hogwarts Mystery

They finally made it!

A game where you feel like you're attending Hogwarts, that is.

Meet Hogwarts Mystery. In this game, you create a cute avatar of yourself that gets to attend Hogwarts. You start seven years before Harry, so the story line is all-new, but you do see some of the same characters from the books.

First I made a friend named Rowan. (Rowan's gender is the same as the player's avatar's gender, and he/she goes automatically to whatever house the player chooses ['cause the Sorting Hat lets you choose]).Then I found out that my brother Jacob was a crazy person who was expelled from Hogwarts/kidnapped/murdered/a Death Eater/something. Then I found out that there was a mystery in Hogwarts (thus the title) involving something called the Cursed Vaults. Then I had to keep poking my nose in said vaults, despite repeated warnings, punishments, and threats of expulsion.

The game is mobile, and the mechanics are simple. You mostly just click on things repeatedly, but it's actually pretty fun. It really feels like I'm attending Hogwarts! My avatar goes to classes, wears Gryffindor robes and other swag, eats in the Great Hall, plays Gobstones, and drinks butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. I can win points for my house by performing well in class and by making decisions that align with the Gryffindor way (which is to be daring to the point of stupidity; I actually got house points for daring to ask Snape for some of his hair).

As much of Harry's experience has been incorporated into the game as possible: Snape hates me. Filch hates me. My own Draco Malfoy-type character (Merula Snyde) hates me, and Dumbledore loves me. I'm a bit famous because of my brother's infamy and my own exploits, and I have loads of friends.

Rowan Khanna: Gryffindor. In my year. The first friend. The Ron, if you will. Except in personality, she's more like Hermione. She's very smart, kind of naive, and adores me to a point that's almost creepy.

Ben Copper: Gryffindor. In my year. Neville Longbottom if Neville never developed a personality. But really. GROW A SPINE, BEN.

The back of my avatar's head, Ben, Penny, and Bill.

Penny Haywood: Hufflepuff. In my year. Pretty, nice, smart, super popular, and super good at potions. One of my favorite characters. You're allowed to invite characters on quests with you, and I invite Penny a lot.

Bill Weasley: Gryffindor. Two years above me. Yes, that Bill Weasley. I never cared much for Bill in the books, because long-haired boys with earrings who marry hot French girls are not my type. But in the game, he's a sweetie. He asked my avatar to be the go-between for him and his crush, but his crush ended up being a jerk, and then my avatar had to console him over butterbeer: "Don't worry, Bill; you're going to marry a hot French girl who won't care about your long hair, earring, or your recently acquired werewolf tendencies."

The back of Bill's head and my avatar.

Nymphadora Tonks: Hufflepuff. In my year. You remember Tonks, right? The cheerful Auror who can change her appearance magically at will and who married Lupin and had a baby and died? She's in this game too! Mostly she just hates on the librarian.

Tulip Karasu: Ravenclaw. In my year. If you're wondering what kind of a last name Karasu is, the Internet says it can be either Japanese or Turkish-Jewish. Tulip has red hair but dark eyes, so I wouldn't put it past her to be part Japanese or Turkish-Jewish! Or both! Sadly, she might be the least favorite of my friends. I think they wanted her to be the Luna of the game, but though she's weird enough, she's not likable enough.

Tulip, my avatar, Barnaby, and Tonks. Tonks is about to play a trick on her nemesis, the librarian. And yes, my avatar is wearing pajamas and slippers. I wear what I want.

Barnaby Lee: Slytherin. In my year. At first, Barnaby acted all tough 'n stuff, but it turns out that he's actually really nice, and he loves animals! He's just...not super bright.

Drinking butterbeer with Tulip, Ben, Rowan, Barnaby, Penny, Bill, and Tonks. And Madam Rosmerta, who for some reason won't leave us alone.

Andre Egwu: Ravenclaw. In my year. If Tulip isn't my least favorite, then Andre is. Don't get me wrong; I like him as a person! He's a smooth individual who loves fashion and Quidditch, but he isn't very helpful. While the rest of my friends (even Tulip) are striving to help me find the Cursed Vaults and locate my brother, Andre just shows up, drops fashion or Quidditch advice, and leaves. Er...thanks?

Charlie Weasley: Gryffindor. In my year. I always did have a soft spot for Charlie, even though he's barely in the books. Like Barnaby, he loves animals, and in the game, he's incredibly kind.

The creators of the game have hinted that eventually, your avatar will be able to date your friends. It wouldn't be Hogwarts without crushes, right?! I'm torn between Bill and Charlie, but since I know Bill ends up marrying somebody else, I've landed on Charlie, the perpetual Weasley bachelor.

"Charlie, why don't you love me?"

But really, wouldn't it be amazing to be Harry Potter's sister-in-law? In-law?

"But—" you say.

Shhhh. I know it's not real. But this is everything I've wanted since I started reading Harry Potter nigh on 20 years ago, so I'm just...I'm just gonna enjoy it, 'kay?

Are You Ron Weasley?

Tomorrow is Harry's birthday, and I already have a Harry Potter-related post lined up. But as I was thinking of what to write today, another Harry Potter topic came to mind. So you're getting twice the Harry Potter for the same price! (Which is free. It's all free. But...you know.)

A year ago, someone told me that as they were re-reading the Harry Potter books, they found they were disliking Ron more and more. This person starting listing all the actions and traits of Ronald Bilius Weasley that they disliked. As I listened, I was amused and amazed. Because goldarn it if the actions weren't things that this same person had done and if the traits weren't ones that this same person shared.

I think that people can't appreciate Ron if they don't believe in redemption. Ron reminds us of all the thoughtless things we've done to people or that they've done to us, so it's easy to just say he's a jerk and be done with it. To see Ron clearly, you have to measure him not by what he failed to do for Harry (and Hermione) but by what he did do for Harry (and Hermione). He would do anything for them, and he pretty darned well did. It's not just lip service when during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Ron is the "thing Harry would miss most."

"But Ron screwed up!" Yeah. Ron screwed up. So what? Are you really going to say that a lifetime of loyalty and love and friendship means nothing because of a few bumps? Please note that every time Ron screws up, he admits his mistakes and tries harder and does better. Ron gets the second chances we all wish we could have, and he doesn't take them for granted. We should all want to be more like Ron.

Of course, you can't be Ron if the people in your life aren't Harrys and Hermiones. In a word: forgiving. Most people are, though. Most people don't want to throw cherished relationships away with both hands, and they're more likely to greet you as a prodigal than they are to cast you aside.

If you feel like a Ron right now—if you hurt someone and regret it and want a second (pr third or fourth or fifth) chance, try to get one. Tell the person that you hurt that you're a Ron. I mean, don't tell literally them that. (Unless the person is me. I'll understand what you mean.) But tell them that you did something stupid and you're sorry and you want to try again. You'll have to humble yourself first. Do it anyway.

And always remember:

"Dumbledore knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn’t he? He—well," Ron’s ears turned bright red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe, "he must’ve known I’d run out on you."

"No," Harry corrected him. "He must’ve known you’d always want to come back."

The First Day Is Always the Worst Day

I needed a vacation.

I hadn't gone on a real vacation since Disneyland eighteen months ago. I've gone out of town, sure, but always for reasons fraught with family obligation. I've taken days off work, but always for illness or holiday or church reasons or special events. I never get a chance to recharge or relax, and my ability to hold myself together has worn thin.

In January, I was investigating a possible trip back to Europe; I'd been tentatively planning to go in spring of 2018 for a while. So I didn't vacation at all in 2017, and I saved...and I saved...and I saved. I had plenty of money to go on a trip! My plan was book and pay for the trip in January...go in the spring...and buy a new car in the summer. I couldn't find anyone to go with, but I wasn't giving up; there was still time.

I ended up buying a new car in January instead, and I was hesitant to dip any more into my savings for an expensive trip. I felt like Heavenly Father was saying, "DON'T GO TO EUROPE THIS SPRING" because nothing was coming together. So I didn't book anything, though I was still toying with the idea of going later in the year. Then my appendix had to come out, and I had to pay the people who took it out, and it quickly became apparent that this year was just not going to be my year.

Little Sister and her husband went back to NYC around the same time I bought my new car, and she could only gush about the awesome Jim Henson exhibit that I'd wanted to see in New York City three years before. So when I was weighing the idea of going on vacation, I decided: what the heck? Why not go back to New York City so that I could finally see the dang exhibit, eat whatever I wanted, and spend time with Older Sister? The idea appealed to me, particularly because Older Sister would be working, so I could do whatever amused me. The subway system is easy to use; I could get around with no trouble and generally have a good time. And I could stay with Older Sister, which would be very inexpensive.

So (after several weeks of hemming and hawing), I finally committed to Older Sister to come and visit. However, after I'd done so, my mother cornered me and said that I should take Little Brother with me.

That kind of killed the point of the vacation, especially since Mom wanted me to take him to the Statue of Liberty and to Trinity Church and to her favorite restaurants and generally do a bunch of things that I had no intention of doing. So I laid it out straight for Little Brother: this was my trip, and while he could come, he would more or less have to do whatever I wanted.

He said okay, and the plans commenced.

Now, before you think I'm a mean older sister, let it be known that I made sure to include Little Brother in the plans. I made room for the things that were non-negotiable for him: going to the Times Square Disney store, going to the 9/11 Memorial, getting dim sum in Chinatown, a museum called the Museum of Jewish Heritage. He also wanted to go to the Jim Henson exhibit as much as I did.

The flight was booked and the musical tickets were purchased, and in what seemed like no time at all, the day of the trip had arrived and Little Brother and I were waiting at the airport late, late at night.

A few things to know about Little Brother:

• He loves Disney and knows the most about it. Of anyone. On earth. Probably.
• He loves theming.
• He loves beautiful things.
• He loves our Jewish heritage and taught himself to make delicious challah bread. Unlike me, he looks like a full-blooded Jew.
• He loves most of the things I love, except for Harry Potter, and his appreciation for Jim Henson has turned him into an accomplished amateur puppeteer.
• He secretly kind of wants to be YouTube famous.
• He has about a million original stories, musicals, and TV shows hiding inside his brain. They come out if you listen to him talk long enough.
• After our sibling date where I introduced him to sushi, sushi became his most-favorite food.

While we were waiting, he showed me a bunch of his Snaps from Snapchat, something I've never used. It would appear that Little Brother mostly uses it to send droll pictures to his friends.

As usual, we were red eyeing it out to New York. The flight was uneventful, but...odd. First of all, when we were loading onto the plane, a man with an accent I couldn't identify asked me (I think) to check one of his items in my name. He said (I think) that he and his wife and his two kids had too many items to check even though the flight had just announced complimentary checking since there was plenty of room.

They were a cute family, but they were strangers, so I refused. I felt bad, but it's basic airline safety not to accept things from people you don't know! Luckily, we saw later that the flight had checked their extra items with no fuss.

The other odd things about the flight were as follows: 1) The plane was abnormally loud. Little Brother was sitting next to me, but I could barely hear him all night. 2) The flight attendants were weirdly sneaky. I was half-asleep the whole flight, so I barely remember, but I seem to remember that they...didn't really talk? They just communicated with a series of gestures mostly, so that they didn't wake up passengers, I guess. But it was really hard for me to see said gestures since I was trying to sleep and wore no glasses or contacts! 3) The girl sitting next to us promptly fell asleep about as soon as the plane took off and barely moved all night. I even climbed over her to reach the restroom, yet she didn't stir. (Note: I went to the restroom barefoot. That was a mistake. The floor was gross.) Then, just moments before we landed, she woke up like clockwork. ???!

Neither Little Brother nor I slept well. I don't know about Little Brother, but I'd gotten up pretty early the morning of the day we'd left, and I was miserable and exhausted. I do know that at one point I accidentally squirted hand sanitizer in his eye, and he screamed at me. But it was a controlled scream. No one heard it but me. Not even the sleeping girl; she didn't move an inch.

I was adamant that we book our flight to JFK so that we could utilize the air train. Once we'd disembarked and gathered our luggage, we took the train, no problem, to Jamaica Station. Then we took the E Train to Times Square, walked a very long time through the subway to get to a connecting station, and took a 1 Train uptown.

Finally, we made it to the Upper West Side, where Older Sister lives in a beautiful 100-year-old building with 11 roommates. Yup, count 'em—11.

A few things to know about Older Sister:

• She's crazy ambitious. She took a double courseload and finished her six-semester graduate school program in three semesters, something that had never been done before.
• She's always wanted to live in New York City.
• She's always claimed to hate "Asian" food, saying it all tastes the same and is gross.
• She works for a non-profit that teaches underprivileged kids to dance.
• She, too, looks like she could be full-blooded Jewish. When she first moved to the city, she did some babysitting for a Jewish family and would sometimes be mistaken for a relative. On Saturdays, she wears her Sunday clothes to the Manhattan temple for a shift as a temple worker, and on the streets she's often mistaken for a Jew from a more conservative sect.
• She, too, secretly wants to be famous, but not YouTube famous.
• She loves the finer things in life and has never cared much for discomfort.

So even though I knew that she was living in a crowded apartment with no space to herself, it still amazed me. It's a testament to how much she loves New York City, because she's always been the kind of person who's always wanted to live somewhere that was nice and cutely decorated and very much her own.

Not that the apartment wasn't not nice, it just barely had room to exist at all. The whole thing, square-foot-wise, surely didn't exceed the amount of space I share with my two roommates. And her bedroom, which sleeps two people, is about the same size as my bedroom minus the closet. My bedroom is okay, but on the small side, for a single person; for two people, it would be pretty cramped!

The roommate had kindly stayed elsewhere so that Older Sister could have us in her room with her. I got the top bunk of the bunk bed. Little Brother got a cot-type bed on the floor. We could hang out in the apartment, but we couldn't wear shoes while we did so. We could shower in one of two bathrooms (except if it was after 11:00 p.m., in which case we had to shower in a tiny little bathroom—more on that later). Before she left for work, Older Sister presented us with a brassy-looking set of keys. One for the apartment building; one for the apartment. We were cautioned to be very careful not to break the lock, which had apparently happened before.

We crashed for an hour or so. Then...the city.

I gave Little Brother a first day similar to my first day on my first trip. First, the Disney store, which was everything Little Brother had dreamed of. Then lunch at Junior's. I'd heard that the food was better if you ordered something Jewish-style.

Sadly, it was still kind of meh. However, it pleased Little Brother to order a brisket sandwich with a latke and applesauce.

After, we took a subway downtown. At this point, we discovered that while the subway was easy to use (seriously—this was the first trip where I was the subway navigator, and there were hardly any bumps), our smartphones didn't seem to operate properly on the streets. (Over-saturation of people sucking up data?) It took us approximately six million years to find the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

The museum was not what we were expecting. The lady at the front desk asked us how we'd heard of it, and I breezily said, "We were just looking for a good Jewish museum!" But whether it was a good Jewish museum is...up for debate. There was some good stuff, but it wasn't very well-presented, and they kind of brushed over the Holocaust, mostly focusing on Jewish culture before it and how said culture recovered after. There were some cool artifacts, but I didn't learn very many new things. The most interesting tidbit was the fact that in some countries during Hitler's regime, Jews who didn't have "Jewish" names were required to take on the name or middle name of Israel or Sara.

Following the museum, we crashed. I was incredibly exhausted: dead on my feet and barely aware. I had no idea how I was going to stay up to watch Anastasia that night. But after lazing in Older Sister's apartment for a bit, I summoned the energy to arise, dress, and lead Little Brother to Tonn Ramen.

Older Sister, she who hates all Asian food, picked Tonn Ramen for dinner. She'd tried it and actually liked it! However, she ended up staying at work late and then babysitting afterward, so she didn't join us for our first taste of restaurant ramen.

Tonn Ramen is one of the more eccentric places I've been in New York City! Little Brother described the restaurant as "in a garage." It was below street level, tiny, and crowded. Everything about it seemed to be designed to make diners as uncomfortable as possible so that they would order, eat, and leave. The whole front of the restaurant was open, so we could feel the breeze from the street. The bar stools were difficult to keep a seat on, and I could never quite get myself into a position where I didn't feel I was about to fall off. The waiters whisked from place to place, quickly collecting orders which were then assembled in a matter or minutes. Not that anyone was rude or made us feel unwanted—but there was a slight feeling of, "Oh, we're very busy, so you should be glad we could squeeze you in!" Coupled with the fact that the restaurant was open during limited hours, the general air was one of exclusivity.

In any case, we quickly ate our ramen and paid. Mine is pictured below. It was tasty, although it was still ramen.

The vegetables and spices woke me up a bit. By the time we got to the Broadhurst Theatre, I was feeling much more excited about taking Little Brother to his first Broadway musical!

However. While Anastasia was delightful, it was rough. They completely rewrote the plot and dialogue, losing a lot of what made the animated movie so good. There also was a nice opportunity for them to tie up one character's philosophical qualms (his father was one of the guards who shot the royal family to death, so he is committed to making sure Anastasia is actually dead; his turn of heart would have been more realistic had it been revealed that his father actually helped Anastasia escape), but they passed that over for some unconvincing mumbo-jumbo. Overall, the movie, with its magic and demons and sold souls, actually seemed a lot more realistic than this historically accurate version. The special effects were dope, though, and the performers did do a good job with what they had.

We briefly stage-doored so that Little Brother could get a quick video of Christy Altomare for his friends. Then we took the subway home, utterly exhausted. (Confession: I'd fallen asleep for several seconds during the show.) As I showered (in the big shower) and hauled myself up the bunk bed ladder, I was wondering if this trip was a good idea or if I would regret it.

Running Away From Your Problems

Have you ever run away from your problems?

Most people have at some point. (Except Harry Potter. Harry Potter seldom runs from his problems. Harry Potter runs towards his problems. The whole series hinges on Harry being a reckless, restless maniac with zero self-preservation skillz.)

Guess what characters do run away from their problems?

Star Butterfly and Marco Diaz do. Constantly.

Allow me to demonstrate. Here we have Marco slamming his bedroom door to escape his problems (coughStarcough)...

...Star leaving a concert early to escape her problems...

...Marco climbing out a window to escape his problems (again, the problem he's escaping is Star)...

...Star trespassing into a city aqueduct to escape her problems... 

...Marco hiding under his suit jacket to escape Star his problems...

...Star jumping out a window and flying away on a magical cloud to escape her problems...

...twice...

...Marco walking slowly backwards...

...running across a beach...

...and sharing his hoodie with this girl he barely knows, all so he can escape his problems.

(I'll give you one guess as to what problems that might be.)

Don't get me wrong; Star vs the Forces of Evil is a great series. But everybody in it does run away from their problems on the regular.

I'm more like Harry, I guess. I like to walk up to my problems and punch them in the face! Metaphorically! Sometimes literally! But one time I did leave town unexpectedly to get away from some stuff.

What problems have/are you running away from? How drastic is your particular form of running away? (These are rhetorical self-help questions. You don't have to respond. Although I'd be curious to hear if you did.)

Random Updates

What's new with me? Not a ton. But there's a lot new with almost everyone else. So...

The Seamstress is getting married. Obviously this is a good thing, but because of this everything is slowly being moved out of the apartment. Like the piano. And the TV. And the things we sit on. Also, it's been a while (think over three years) since we've had any turnover in this home, so that's a little jarring. But it's grand for the Seamstress to get to move on to the other parts of life.

Flower Child is also getting married.

So is Valiant.

Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister went to New York to visit Older Sister a few weeks ago. Not long before that, Rosebud and her husband were in New York. When they returned, Rosebud said to Little Sister, "Oh hey, there's this Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image you might like..." And Little Sister was all, "YEAH I KNOW." Because the exhibit finally opened in summer 2017. And Little Sister got to go this month, and she geeked out a ton on Instagram, videoing the Cantus and Gobo puppets and the like. She brought us back nice Fraggle souvenirs, too.

Baby Sister is still loving the mish. Here's a recent email snippet that I found particularly amusing: 

Little Brother is starting to scare me on account of his Disney collection (which was augmented with the Robin Hood display piece over Christmas).

EARTHQUAKE HAZARD. BEAUTIFUL EARTHQUAKE HAZARD.

A Blessing to this World

I have my own personal rules/theories about how each social media site works.

Facebook: Facebook is like going to a party with everyone you know and have ever known. My rules about Facebook are:

a) I have to Facebook friend everyone I know and keep them as a Facebook friend unless they're creepy. If I find them offensive, I unfollow them but remain friends.

b) Facebook is for keeping up with people's lives. I understand why people use it as a platform for voicing opinions about important issues, but for me that feels like yelling out my personal views in the middle of a crowded party. So I very rarely talk about anything of substance on Facebook. If I have something important I want to say, I lure people off Facebook and onto this blog. That way people who don't want to hear my opinions don't have to be subject to them. (Also, I feel like people who know me should already know what I think and believe based on how I conduct myself. But if you're morbidly curious and want me to spell out my political or religious views in great detail, just ask. Really.)

Instagram: Instagram is more of a feel-good, slice-of-life platform. On Instagram, I will talk more in-depth about what I care about but to a wider audience that sometimes includes people I don't know. Unlike Facebook, Instagram is almost always positive and thoughtful. It's also a good way to find out what's going on in a celebrity's life, but it's not a great place for interacting with one on equal footing—because of all social media, Instagram is probably the most one-sided and easiest to curate.

Twitter: Twitter is very American; if Alexis de Tocqueville ever heard of it, he would roll over in his grave. It's the great equalizer of social media because it's a forum where everyone talks to everyone else regardless of status or fame. You're judged almost solely on your content. This means that if you want to connect with a celebrity, Twitter is usually the place to go. If you want to interact with people privately and be limited just to talking within your own social circle, Twitter is not for you. Also, I feel like by its nature, Twitter is the appropriate place to debate something if debates must be had.

One of the real reasons that I have a Twitter account is so that I can reach out to celebrities whose work I admire. I enjoy these interactions, probably for the same reason that I enjoy meeting celebrities at Comic Con. In fact, the other day I was bored, so I tweeted at Adam McArthur.

If you're wondering, "Who's Adam McArthur?" then that is shameful. A few weeks ago, I didn't know who Adam McArthur was either, but I have since repented of my ways and forsaken them. I now know that Adam McArthur is the voice of Marco Diaz in one of Disney's finest cartoon series, Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

Seriously. It's reeeaaally good. And Marco, who is the male lead, is a reeeaaally good character. He has the most personality of any Disney princess's male love interest ever.

I've been on a Star vs. kick in the weeks since I started watching it. Baby Brother even gave me a book featuring Star and Marco for Christmas (here pictured with many other wonderful and nerdy items which I received).

He was so excited about giving me the book as a gift, he could barely stand it.

Since I've been enjoying Adam McArthur's work so much, I decided I'd let him know.

And he responded.

Ideal use of Twitter = executed.

Rejected Fanfiction Chapter Titles

I recently mentioned that Viola and I once spent an entire baseball game working on our Harry Potter fanfiction. I lied. I just came across the notebook we were using that day. It appears that we actually spent most of the game trying to come up with a title for the chapter we were composing.

Here is the fine selection of rejected titles from that evening:
-"The Buffalo Eater's Apprentice"
-"The Naive Mariner"
-"The Foolish Bee Herder"
-"Take Me Out to the Quidditch Game"
-"I Hate Everyone: The Chapter"
-"To Thine Own Self Be True"
-"You Belong With Me"
-"We Knew This Would Happen"
-"The Quibbler's Truth"
-"The Flying Bratwurst"
-"Alack. $3 for Parking."
-"The Fanfiction of Fanfictions: The Fanfiction"
-"The Fanfiction of Fanfictions: The Chapter"
-"How Voldemort Was Defeated and Other Things"
-"Receive a Drink or Slush for Free"
-"The Chapter that Shouldn't Exist"
-"I Object"
-"Hit Her Now, Hit Her"
-"This Chapter Is Not Titled"
-"We Couldn't Think of a Title"
-"The Foolish Flirt"
-"The Dice Dilemma with Dogs"
-"Poor Poor Draco, Whatcha Gonna Do?"
-"I Like Eating Dumplings. & Kisses."
-"Tests, Tricks, and Kisses"
-"The Overzealous Sports Fan"
-"The Annoying Girls Who Couldn't Speak in Coherent Sentences"

A few things: 1) No, I don't remember the context for most of these; 2) In case you were wondering, the titles of the ten preceding chapters in the fanfiction included such delights as "Harry Potter and the Magical Radio Braces," "The World Crashes to the Ground," and "The Escape of the Scented Sticker;" and 3) This is a pretty good representation of how being a writer is like 90% rejection of your own ideas (and 90% of your ideas being rejected by other people, which you might say doesn't make sense mathematically except it does because both of those things are happening simultaneously).

19 Years Later

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real? -Albus Dumbledore

I've posted soooo much about Harry Potter this summer on account of all the important things that keep happening. You probably thought I was out of things to say on the subject, but naw son, I'm not!

I'll keep it brief, though. All I want to say is this: For those of you who don't know, today is a significant day. It's the last day shown in the Harry Potter series, the day in the epilogue when Harry's son Albus heads off to Hogwarts for the first time. Today is the day of saying goodbye to the official end of the original series. (A few years ago, I saw someone comment online about how Harry Potter fans are lucky because we have so many opportunities to say goodbye. First the last book came out, then a few years later the last movie. Now we have this one last opportunity to revel in this thing we love.)

So, because of a children's book series, today an entire generation is going out of its mind...in a good way. Maybe the eclipse brought this country together to an extent, but we all know that the thing that really brings this country (and the world) together is Harry Potter. Somehow, this boy, this story, transcends political parties, races, languages, religions, countries, and ages in a way that the most ardent pacifists can only dream of.

It's my growing belief that good stories can change the world. They change us on a personal level by giving us something to laugh with, cry over, and relate to. But they also change us on a broader scale, I think, because when you add up billions of people laughing and crying and relating over the same thing, it's a strong bond. Love may be the power that heals our rifts, but the healing is done through stories—big and small, true and imagined, scripture and novel.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Before this summer, I'd been to two baseball games that I remember.

One was when I was five or six, maybe. I was there with my dad, Older Sister, my uncle, my uncle's older daughter if not his younger one, and possibly my dad's dad. My uncle gave us all peanuts and crackerjacks. That's literally all I remember.

When I was a teenager, I went to see a friend of mine sing the national anthem at a baseball game. I went because he'd offered me and Viola free tickets. He forgot the words to the national anthem and instead sang, "I don't remember this part." After that, Viola and I spent the rest of the game working on our fanfiction. We left early.

This summer, though, I've been to two baseball games. In the space of ten days, I doubled the quantity of my baseball experience.

The first game was for a ward activity. I'm on the activities committee now, so I basically do all kinds of stuff I normally wouldn't do simply because I help plan the activities. Since getting the calling, I've gone on hikes, helped purchase three shopping carts of food at Costco, and gone shotgun shooting. And gone to this baseball game. I had some stuff I needed to catch up on, so I spent a fair portion of the game sending emails and writing in my journal.

The second one was for my dad's work party. His company had secured a private box at a game and provided a delicious barbecue dinner. For the first inning or so, I was doing some research on my phone. But for the rest of the game, Baby Brother, Little Sister, Mr. Little Sister, and I were all staring at the field. (Little Brother would have been there. I even got him to commit to reciting "Casey at the Bat" for us. But then he had to go do an activity for his own ward, so he didn't come.)

And that's when I made a discovery: I can't pay attention to baseball games.

I've watched whole basketball, football, soccer, and even softball games and paid attention most of the time. But with baseball, I can't do it. I don't know why.

Anyway, the whole evening went like this:

BABY BROTHER AND I: We're going to pay attention now.

BABY BROTHER AND I: Wait, it's the third inning?

BABY BROTHER AND I: Wait, we got another run?

BABY BROTHER AND I: Let's talk about something for a minute and then pay attention again!

BABY BROTHER AND I: ...we haven't been paying attention, have we?

Long story short, we left early.

Harry Potter and the Religious Undertones

Context: In a previous post, I mentioned that I could write an entire post about religion in Harry Potter. A friend from my ward later approached me and requested that I write said post. So, this year for Harry's birthday, I'm essentially dishing up an essay about Christianity in Harry Potter.

For the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter, I bought a special edition copy of TIME. I haven't yet had a minute to sit down and read it, but when I was flipping through it the other day I saw that one of the articles within appears to be on this same topic. I decided not to peruse further so as not to taint my own thoughts. So disclaimer: this post is composed entirely of the beliefs and thoughts I've had about the series for years and has not been influenced by any outside sources.

Not long after my parents started getting into Harry Potter, my mom taped a documentary/interview-type piece about J. K. Rowling and her journey in writing the series. I think this was a little before the first movie came out. It was definitely before the Internet's heyday, which would explain why the interview seems to have never made its way online.

There were a couple of things in this piece that I've never really heard people talk about. The first thing I remember was a few minutes talking about how Hagrid's story is actually based on the story of some minor Roman or Greek god. The second thing I remember was J. K. Rowling telling the interviewer that for her, writing these books was a way to explore her religious beliefs.

Being a smallish child, this made me feel uncomfortable. I was still coming to terms with my own religious beliefs. I remember thinking something like, "Should she do that? Can she do that? Can a fun action-adventure-fantasy series actually be religious?" (I didn't yet realize that both Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings are based on a religious model.)

I never knew J. K. Rowling to bring that topic up in an interview again, but it really impacted me. As the later books were released, I examined each one through a religious lens. When seen through this lens, the entire series is pretty much about Christ.

Let me lay out my case. We know that Harry's mother sacrificed herself for him, which resulted in a protective magic. Dumbledore is aware of this from the beginning; he shares it with Harry in the first book. At the end of the fourth book, Voldemort also talks about how Harry's mother sacrificed herself. He calls it "old magic" and says that he should have remembered it. I believe I read the fourth book for the first time not long after seeing that interview, and when Voldemort mentioned this old magic I immediately thought of Christ's sacrifice. I've always believed that's what Voldemort was referring to. He was raised by Muggles, so he would have known the Christian stories. He disdained anything that had to do with Muggles, though, so it makes since he would have dismissed the notion of a protecting "magic" through sacrifice until he was faced with it.

Now, Dumbledore wasn't raised by Muggles, so it's less obvious how he would have been acquainted with this idea. It's unclear through the series exactly what role religion plays for witches and wizards, but we do have a few hints. Godric's Hollow, where both Dumbledore and Harry were born and where both their families perished, is a wizard-founded village that appears to be predominantly wizard-populated. Yet we know from the series that there's a little church there. Whether it was built by the wizards or whether it was built by Muggles, in the seventh book it appears to be well-attended. And, since Dumbledore's mother and sister are buried in the church graveyard, the church has probably been there since before Dumbledore's time.

Dumbledore was born in 1881. Had he and his family not attended church, it would have drawn undue attention to them in a time where pretty much everyone attended. So we can probably assume that, whether his family believed or not, they probably went to church to at least keep up the appearance that they were an ordinary, non-magical family.

I've always thought that this is where Dumbledore's knowledge and belief in the power of love and his (eventual) acceptance of death came from. I imagine that in J. K. Rowling's world, the miracles of the Bible would have been viewed as a kind of "magic". Maybe they're even considered Muggle interpretations of encounters with great magicians. (I'm not saying I believe that prophets are a kind of magician! I definitely don't believe that. I'm just explaining how I feel like religion would fit into Harry's reality.)

Either way, we know Dumbledore reads the Bible. He put a Bible verse on his family's graves: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:21) (Remember that he was very young when he would have chosen this verse: another suggestion that he was raised religious.) He also put one on Harry's parents' graves (at least, I assume he arranged their burial since he seems to have been the executor of their estate): "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Even if everything I've said up to this point is all baloney and the entire series isn't supposed to have Christian undertones until (SPOILERS!) Harry's death, no one can question that his death itself is supposed to be a reference to Christ. I cried and cried the first time I read that scene. Because, yeah, I mean, it's Harry, and who knows how he's going to get out of this one? But also because I suddenly understood how personal Christ's death and Atonement were. I knew how much Harry cared about the people he was dying for...I suddenly understood how much Christ must care about me. I also suddenly understood how Christ's Atonement must work. I could somewhat grasp how a great sacrifice made from love could shake the world and generate enough power, enough "magic" to save other people by proxy.

It goes without saying that the afterlife scene between Dumbledore and Harry is one big fat religious allusion. Also, the scene where Harry comes back after being "resurrected," besides the obvious reference to Christ's Atonement, also helped me to understand sin and repentance. As Harry then points out a few times, Tom Riddle could have put himself back together if he could have felt remorse for what he'd done. However, he was at a point where having a fractured soul was actually less painful than facing what he'd done and trying to make amends.

Now is a good time for me to mention that even though I love the end of the series, I hated the way it was done in the final movie. It was rewritten in such a way that a lot of the religious symbolism was destroyed. That really disappointed me!

Anyway, those are my thoughts. If I missed anything that seems important, or if you want to add to the conversation, feel free to leave a comment.

Escapé

In October, we (Little Sister and I) finally made it to an escape room.

It was everything we'd ever dreamed of and more. So we did it again. And again!

I find escape rooms to be delightful and novel things. Someone essentially turned my penchant for collecting random knowledge and my desire to be a super sleuth into a social, interactive, team-building activity. Is this what sports are like for other people? Is this why some people like playing sports?

I'll tell you all about my experiences!

The first escape room we did was an escape room in a mob boss's office. We were accompanied by Mr. Little Sister, Rosebud and Mr. Rosebud, and some other friends. Little Sister and I quickly realized that this really was just like a real-life Nancy Drew game. We spouted the same kind of crazy theories, picked up objects and examined them over and over, and worked on solving different puzzles in fits and starts. We could even get hints from the moderator lady when we were stuck. The group actually worked really well together. Everyone pulled their weight, and we found the mob boss's gold and got out with several minutes to spare.

The second escape room we did was a zombie escape room for Little Sister's birthday. This time, it was me, Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister, Baby Sister, Rosebud and Mr. Rosebud, Little Sister's mother- and sisters-in-law, and Little Sister's sister-in-law's boyfriend.

Before we did this escape room, we'd heard that there was an actor playing a zombie chained in a corner and that his chain got longer as the time ticked away. Um. NO. That's not what it was like at ALL. The zombie was chained, but he was only in the corner for five minutes. Then he came out of the corner as far as his chain would let him (which was actually, like seven or eight feet), so by the end of the time we spent in the room, he could literally reach every corner. Did I mention that if he touched you, you had to be quarantined? Also, there were nine of us, and we spent legitimately about ten minutes cowering in one corner of the room, trying to stay away from the zombie. In this particular escape room, the moderator was actually in the room with us, which was strange and also very inconvenient as we tried to run around the room without getting touched by the zombie.

For me, the physical stimulation was a little too much, and I found it hard to stay away from the zombie and work on the clues. By the end, the zombie was actually climbing on the furniture, and we made it out with only a few minutes to spare.

The third escape room was definitely my favorite. It was...drum roll please...a Harry Potter escape room!

The Utah siblings (including Mr. Little Sister) wanted to do an escape room together before Baby Sister headed off on the mish. Little Sister and I determined that, if all possible, we would find a Harry Potter-themed one.

Well, it was all possible, because we did. We drove for about forty-five minutes to a new escape room facility so that we could enjoy a Horcrux-themed escape room. The idea? Find all six of Voldemort's Horcruxes to get the door to unlock.

Before she locked us in, the lady said something like, "You can do this escape room without knowing anything about Harry Potter."

She was right. You could do the room without knowing anything about Harry Potter...IF YOU WANTED TO FAIL.

Because sure, you could probably figure out most things using logic, but it really really helped to have an intimate knowledge of all seven books.

For example, a portion of the escape room used a riddle from the Triwizard tournament. It's a pretty hard riddle, and I was glad we didn't have to actually solve it by using actual thinking. That same portion also included Snape's potion riddle guarding the sorcerer's stone in the first book. Little Sister called me over to help her solve it. Now, that scene is not included in the movie, probably because it literally consists of Hermione pacing and muttering, clapping her hands and pointing, and telling Harry what to do. There's not a lot of action. And I'll be honest, I don't completely understand how the riddle works, because without visuals of the potions I have a hard time picturing what's going on. So while Little Sister was trying to work through it logically, I was just like, "Dude, I don't know. I've never understood this part. But I can tell you right now which bottles Hermione selects after she's done pacing and muttering." It turns out that I was 100% correct. It also turns out that Little Sister (with minimal help from me) was able to reach those same answers by working through the riddle. There's the Ravenclaw for you. (Although the riddle did make more sense to me when I could actually see the potions.)

It just so happened that with there being six of us, each of us got to recover one Horcrux. Later, we said that the Horcrux you ended up with determined which character you were. Baby Brother got the diary (Harry; coincidentally also the first Horcrux we found), Mr. Little Sister got the ring (Dumbledore), Baby Sister got the diadem (Crabbe), Little Sister got the locket (Ron), I got the snake (Neville), and Little Brother got the cup (Hermione). (Baby Sister was not very happy when we worked all this out.)

The best and nerdiest part of the experience, though, was when a wand dropped out of a wall (yup, not even lying, but I'm not going to explain) and we were trying to use it to figure out how to open a door in another wall. I had a thought that maybe I should try casting a spell on it. But then I was like, "Do you know how hopelessly nerdy of Harry Potter fan you're going to look like if you try to cast a spell on that wall and nothing happens?"

With some encouragement, though, I waved the wand and said, "Alohomora."

A door clicked open, and everyone made audible noises of awe and excitement.

Did I mention that I really enjoy escape rooms?

My Harry Potter Journey

It's been 20 years since the first Harry Potter book was published in the UK. Sooo even though I'm sure I'll be talking about Harry for his birthday in July and again for the epilogue day in September, I'm going to take this opportunity as an excuse to talk about him. (Like I needed an excuse.)

My journey with Harry began in July 2000. A few weeks earlier, my parents had picked up their family of four daughters and moved us all from one part of Hometown to another. Everyone adjusted well to the move...except me. I had an extremely difficult time with it. I, uh, might have written all over the walls in the rented house we were leaving...maybe.

So my mom, demonstrating that she understood the needs of her young daughter, bought me a Beanie Baby and a book at a sidewalk sale. I was thrilled. I felt like these gifts almost made up for the fact that my parents had uprooted my life and forced me to move a whole three miles.

Well, okay, I was thrilled with the Beanie Baby. The Beanie Baby was actually a plush Beanie Baby named Franny. She was dressed in a very patriotic red, white, and blue dress. I wasn't sure about the book...Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I wasn't sure about this book because first of all, the cover was real weird. I did not like the illustration style at all. Also, my mom had tried to talk to me about the book in a parking lot a few weeks before.

MOM: I've heard this Harry Potter book is really good!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I've already read that book! It wasn't that good.

MOM: Really?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Yeah. It's a picture book about a weird old farmer with a balloon farm.

MOM: That doesn't sound like what I'm talking about...

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Didn't you say Harvey Potter?

MOM: No, I said Harry Potter.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Oh. Okay.

(It still didn't sound that good.)

Anyways, a few weeks after that sidewalk sale, I sat down with that book, and I started reading it. It was a rough one, I tell you. The beginning wasn't that interesting. It wasn't that interesting and it wasn't that interesting and then when Hagrid arrived it was kind of interesting and then when Harry met Ron it was very interesting and then by the time they were heading out for the wizarding duel I was hooked. (J. K. Rowling has said many times herself that she's not great at beginnings. The slow beginning was also a problem in Fantastic Beasts, in my opinion, but that's neither here nor there.)

And that was that. In July 2000, I started Hogwarts with Harry.

In July 2007, amid many tears, Harry and I finished our seven (literal and metaphorical) years together.

My attachment to Harry Potter far outweighs nostalgia. For one thing, I've reread the books many times, and I'm always amazed at J. K. Rowling's talent. Some people like to say that J. K. Rowling's writing technique is not good, but I couldn't disagree more. There are many different styles of good writing. We all have our personal preferences, but just because you don't like a particular style doesn't mean it's not good. J. K. Rowling will never be a great prose writer, but she really excels at building worlds and characters with a few well-placed words. She also has quite a talent for dialogue. When I'm working on a novel, I often reread the Harry Potter series to get inspiration from her style.

For another thing, it's a joyous journey. I love this world. I love these characters. I think that Ron is a particularly complicated and interesting character, as is Luna. People have a tendency to reduce both of them to caricatures, but let me tell you, they would be tough to write as well as they are. Hermione is also quite complicated, although not in the way they chose to portray her in the movies. (Harry's not very complicated...bless him.)

Finally, there are loads of philosophical and religious moral lessons to glean from the books. I'm not joking when I say that these books have helped me understand my religion better. My parents (who started reading the books a few years later, once I'd finally convinced Older Sister to push past the first few chapters of the first book and she'd gotten really into the series, too) felt like the books were actually great religious teaching tools. They said that they wanted us to read them because they showed a clear difference between right and wrong. (If anyone's interested, I could write a whole post about the religious aspects of Harry Potter, but I won't bore you right now.)

I'm proud to be a member of the Harry Potter generation. My generation is fractured in our beliefs, but here we have common ground. For instance, I'm pretty we all agree that knowing one's Hogwarts house is very important. Surely we can build off of that shared belief! I look forward to the day when we use principles from Harry Potter to guide our political and ethical discussions.

Long live the Boy Who Lived, and thanks, Harry, for all the magic.

Please Be Nice to My Baby Sister

I just spent an hour going through a Facebook friend's posts.

I won't explain just how far back I went, but suffice it to say that there was some stuff about Mitt Romney in there.

What was my intention? My intention was to find a status that this person posted years ago, when Older Sister was on her mission. To the best of my memory, the status said something along the lines of how Mormon missionaries don't deserve any kind of respect unless they've earned it. I suppose that's a fair statement, though I didn't love it. What upset me was that, if I recall correctly, in the comments of this status this person and some friends were trading stories of ways they liked to troll the missionaries.

I got really close to leaving my own comment: "Hey, my sister is serving a mission right now. If she were serving here, would you do those things to her?" Something like that. Something just to remind them that, hey, missionaries are people too, and just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they deserve to be harassed. Yeah, I get it that no one likes to be approached by people they disagree with, but when I went to Nameless Utah College, I was approached by so many political and religious activists that I didn't agree with. I still managed to engage with them civilly, even when brushing them off. I didn't go out of my way to harass them, because why would I do that? (Okay, well, that's mostly true. There was one time when a girl brought voting registrations to the school. She explained to me that the political party that most people in my college supported needed help in the elections. She asked me to register and offer my support. Since I wasn't registered to vote, I took that opportunity to register...for a party that believed the exact opposite of the party she was promoting. And then she had to mail my registration in. So I guess that was a little harassing. But it was still civil.)

The reason I'm thinking about this long-ago status now is that Baby Sister is due to ship out on her mission any day now. Consider it: she has something she believes in so much that she's willing to give up her family, her job, her schooling, her friends, her right to sleep in, her free time, the many Netflix and YouTube shows that she follows, fry sauce, the premiere of How to Train Your Dragon 3 next summer, the ability to celebrate the epilogue day of Harry Potter (September 1st 2017—so close!), and her beloved makeup palette with approximately 7,000 kinds of eyeshadow. Whether you believe that sharing the gospel helps people, she believes that sharing the gospel helps people. And in the end, it's those people that she must be going on a mission for, because the enormous amount of sacrifice required of her suggests that she's sure not doing it for herself.

I guess the title of this post is misleading, because if you see my cutie baby sister when she's out in the mission field, you sure don't have to be nice to her. But I hope that you will not be actively rude to her...and not just because if you are, super irrational Big Sister! Awkward Mormon Girl will track you down and give you several paper cuts.

Rollercoaster

This post doesn't have anything to do with the Phineas and Ferb episode "Rollercoaster." Although now that I've said that, I'm having deep regrets about my choice of subject matter for the evening. Why do I blog about anything else when I could blog about Phineas and Ferb?! I need to sort out my priorities.

I don't have the hardest life, but I don't have the easiest life either. My life is sort of like that episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender when the fortune teller tells Sokka, "Your future is full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted." Many of my problems are self-inflicted. It comes of being the type of person my generation commonly refers to as Gryffindors. Gryffindors do things they're afraid of. They do things they know might not turn out well. If anything, they do them because they're afraid of them and know they might not turn out well. If they were more passive, if they tried a little less and cared a little less, Gryffindors' lives would be so much easier.

I know someone who, when I'm wrestling with one ongoing problem or another, advises me to give up. This person says that it's easier to be happy when you don't try or hope for anything because then you never have to be disappointed.

While I understand the logic behind the thought, it's not something I agree with. Life is for being sad just as much as it's for being happy. I don't necessarily like being down, but I do like the sensation of having gone down and then back up again. Like on a rollercoaster (now you understand the post title). On a rollercoaster, you often go down before going back up. And if you embrace the bumps instead of bracing against the bumps, things may go better for you.

In closing, here's another Avatar: The Last Airbender quote.

"I know sometimes it hurts more to hope and it hurts more to care, but you have to promise me that you won't stop caring."

-Katara
Oh, and since I brought it up...

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF PHINEAS AND FERB ON A ROLLERCOASTER!

The Fanfiction Life

For my birthday, I put together a trivia game about my life. As soon as I invited my loved ones to play, things got crazy. First Viola declared a determination to win, then Little Sister. They both asked me for study guides. I was gratified by their interest, amused by their competitiveness, and a little taken aback by the whole thing.

Baby Brother and I had a conversation about it along these lines:

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (to Baby Brother) Viola and Little Sister asked me for study guides for the game.

BABY BROTHER::I need a study guide!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (now completely taken aback) You don't need a study guide! You know me.

BABY BROTHER: (practically in tears) No, I don't! I don't know you!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Yes, you do!

BABY BROTHER: I know you, but I don't know stuff about you! What's your favorite color? I think it's blue, but I don't know!

And so on and so forth.

One trivia question was loosely related to fanfiction.

Yes, that's right.

I was a fanfiction writer.

I published a few fanfictions on fanfiction.net. Fanfiction.net is like self-publishing. Anyone can post anything they want there. Viola and I published a joint Harry Potter fanfiction there. I also posted half a Tokka fanfiction there.

The real prestige, though, came from publishing fanfictions on sites like mugglenet. mugglenet.com's fanfiction site is heavily moderated. Nothing gets posted there without the okay of a mugglenet employee. I submitted several fanfictions but only ever published one. I still remember the comments from the moderator who okayed my humor fanfiction. She said that my writing was "bubbly and effervescent" and that my style reminded her of Lemony Snicket.

Please note that at mugglenet, you only had to be 13 to publish a fanfiction. The moderator had no idea how old I was. Nor did she have any clue of my educational background or lack thereof. My work was judged solely on my writing skills. It was a proud day that mugglenet finally published one of the five or six fanfictions I'd submitted to the site. I published seven of eight chapters of the fic on the site. Unfortunately, I got severe writer's block for chapter eight and didn't update the fic for about a year. Right around that time, the site made a rule that unfinished fanfictions that hadn't been updated for over a year would start getting deleted. All seven chapters of my fic, the 300+ reviews, and the many, many views all disappeared in the blink of an eye.

It was a sad day.

I'm not much for fanfiction anymore, although occasionally I will still read a good Harry Potter or Avatar the Last Airbender one. However, I do see a lot of value in fanfiction, especially for amateur writers. It's great to practice your writing skills using previously established worlds and characters.

Who's Alex?

A few months ago, I was writing business articles for my workplace. This involves reading lots of other people's business articles.

During this process, I read this article about storytelling.

Towards the beginning of the article, this sentiment was shared:

...Alex?

Alex?

ALEX?

WHO'S ALEX?

I AM SO CONFUSED.

Because look, first of all, this isn't just any old movie. This is Back to the Future. It's written into the DNA of our culture. Not as much as, say, Harry Potter, but still quite a bit.

Say that the person who wrote this article (it looks like that person was named Paul White) had never seen Back to the Future. That photo of Paul in the article looks kind of old, so it's plausible. Maybe he likes the Lone Ranger and the Hardy Boys and never cared about 1980s time-travel movies. Okay. Whatever. In any case, he obviously knew enough about it to reference the movie specifically. If you've heard of Back to the Future enough to make that specific of a reference, you must know the main character's name is Marty McFly, right? Marty McFly is a fairly iconic character from American cinematic history. But if Paul didn't know that, or if he just forgot, couldn't he have looked it up online? Since Paul apparently submitted an article to this website, he must know how the Internet works.

But if somehow all of that escaped Paul and he still called Michael J. Fox's character "Alex," what about the copy editor? Someone must have proofread this article! Why didn't that person catch it? HOW DID THIS GLARING MISTAKE MAKE IT INTO PRINT? AND WHY HASN'T IT BEEN CORRECTED IN THE ENSUING YEAR AND FIVE MONTHS? Because there are people on the Internet telling everyone else how to live literally every aspect of their lives and correcting their grammar and obscure Harry Potter trivia, so how did this particular error escape notice?!

Someone please explain. K thnx bye.

St. Valentine's Day

As a Perpetually Single Person, I'm apparently supposed to hate Valentine's Day. However, I actually really like it...and have pretty much my whole life.

See, to me Valentine's Day is about all love. In certain South American countries, they actually call it El Dia de Amor y Amistad, otherwise known as the Day of Love and Friendship. I'm all over the "and Friendship" part, and I don't really feel like I'm missing much on the Love part. But maybe that's a blessing of being a Perpetually Single Person instead of a Sometimes Single Person: I've never had a romantic Valentine's Day, so I don't really know the difference.

I have a lot of fun Valentine's Day memories. When I was in first grade, my mom made me take Valentine's cupcakes to an elderly neighbor I didn't really know. He was (weirdly, I thought) touched, and he kissed me on the cheek. Then, late that night, he and his wife came by with three Beanie Babies! Apparently they knew that my parents had a bunch of little girls, and they'd heard Beanie Babies were all the rage for little girls. And that was how I (and Older Sister and Little Sister) got my very first Beanie Baby!

Another, less fun Valentine's Day memory is the year that I was in fourth grade. I was so excited for Valentine's Day that I made decorated envelope mailboxes to put on my sisters' and parents' bedrooms. Then, the night before Valentine's Day, I put valentines in everybody's envelopes. What fun!

Apparently I'd just assumed that everybody in my family would be on my same brainwave. To my severe shock and disappointment, there were no valentines or treats of any kind in the envelope bearing my name. I was crushed. My parents, belatedly realizing how very seriously I was taking the whole thing, quickly announced that we wouldn't look in our envelopes until that night. Sure enough, when I went to bed, there was a lollipop, a Valentine's Day pencil, and at least one valentine in my envelope. I felt better, but I'd had a rude awakening that not everyone was like me. Not everyone wanted an excuse to shower people and be showered in tangible emblems of love.

This year was nowhere so dramatic, but it was oh-so-fun! Among other things, I bought French macarons from Rosebud to give to friends and family.

Cute, huh?!

A little plug for Rosebud's macarons...they are great! And maybe it's just that the only other places I've bought macarons are California and New York City, where everything is tres expensive, but I thought these ones were very reasonably priced.

I also got roses from my parents!

Yellow roses...the kind I've always wanted someone to give to me! Plus red, pink, and orange. Little Brother helped my mom pick them out.

The Seamstress made brownies and wrote notes for me and Pepper, and Pepper gave me and the Seamstress necklaces and homemade cards.

Earlier this week, Best Friend Boy and I were talking about gifts. He said of people who give me gifts: "At least if it's Harry Potter related they can probably rest assured that you liked the gift."

All in all, a great day! I'm sad that we have to wait a whole 365 days to do it again.

P.S. One upsetting thing did happen...I brought my family their valentines in the morning, before  went to work. Baby Brother wasn't home, so I left his valentine on his bed. When I returned to my parents' home that evening, I asked Baby Brother how he liked his macarons. He said, "What macarons?"

Baby Brother had never found the valentine on his bed...and he had apparently gone all day thinking that I'd brought valentines and macarons for everyone in the family but him! He handled the perceived snub pretty well, but I kept having flashbacks to empty envelopes.