Dragon*con is almost here! (and Uni and Pottermore)

I think my nasty cold will be gone by then. I have been doped up on cold meds all week. And I have taken more vitamins than I can count! Yesterday I had given up hope of being better but today I seem a lot better. Or course last week I was almost well wehn cold 2.0 slammed me. SO hopefully this time it is for real. I want to be well!

This year I wil be debuting my Aeris costume. She is from Final Fantasy VII. My sister will be Yuna from FF X. Anna will be Lightening from FF XIII. Lana will be a mystery FF person - she won't tell us. We have to wait.

I had bought new Narcissa clothing but they didn't work out. The shirt is BEAUTIFUL but it is sooooooooooo hot. I was sweating in the movie theater just sitting there. Imagine if I try to have fun at the Yule Ball! So I will be back in my traditional Cissy clothes. It's okay. They aren't bad or anything, I just wanted an upgrade is all.

My son is coming this year. He will be Brock from Pokemon. I am excited for him.

I guess that is it for now. I have so much homework today - it's the last day of the semester. Next week I start my 15 credit semester. Why do I torture myself this way?!?! Because I love it. I do.

Also, my Pottermore email hasn't come to let me in/in. Most of us Beta testers aren't in yet. They are letting us in really slowly. I'm still glad to be a Beta. I know my time will come soon enough. 

Pottermore survey

I saw this on Kristina Horner's blog and liked it. So I filled it out too!

1. What's your Pottermore username? ChaserWolf60
2. What House do you think it sounds like? Ravenclaw. I say this because I think ChaserWolf sounds like a spy name. I basically could call James Bond and be like “007, this is ChaserWolf..” and spies have to be really smart.  
3. What House do you want to be in? From the beginning of my Potter obsession I have identified with Slytherin. I am ambitious. I can be cunning. And I have been known to be a snob from time to time. Still, in all honesty I see some of all the houses in me. I’ve always considered myself a Slytherin and at first I was in a full panic of “What if I don’t get sorted into Slytherin?!?!?!” but I have really gotten to where I am just excited to see what the Sorting Hat does. I will be thrilled with being sorted into Slytherin because then I know I was right when I identified with it. But, if I don’t get into Slytherin I will be okay. Getting into Gryffindor will freak me out. Seriously. But Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff will be fine with me. My preference order is Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor.
4. Does your username relate to you at all? I think so! I’ve been Werewolf obsessed since I was a kid (took the book The Howling to Girl Scout camp when I was 10 – yeah, I was THAT girl.) I’m constantly chasing things such as wisdom, peace, Keanu Reeves, and the perfect glass of iced tea..  
5. What kind of wand would you wish to get? In my mind I always imagined Willow with Dragon Heartstring but I trust Pottermore to do what’s right. Whatever I get, I think it will be good for me and probably awesome.  
6. Are you pure, half-blooded or Muggle born? Half blood.  Ugh - there.. I said it publicly! UGH!
7. Which day did you get into Pottermore? Day 3. The sun wasn’t even up! It was pretty awesome. I stumbled across Pottermore being open on accident. All the other times I had tried it was not clue time. So I wasn't expecting it to be open this time either - but I had to look. I was putting on makeup for work, stopped to check Pottermore just out of curiosity and boom, there it was.. open with a clue! My heart stopped, my hands shook.. but I got in!  
8. What shape is your Patronus? Lion. Hands down, this is a no brainer.
9. What does your boggart look like? A fish. Merlin help me – a fish.
10. Would you rather be an Animagus or a Matamorphmagus? Matamorphmagus. That would be super cool. Animagus would be cool too, don’t get me wrong.
11. If you were an Animagus, what animal would you be? Wolf. That would be super awesome.

Reading: the right to do so wherever and however

The thing about e-reading is that you don’t get the feel of cover, the smell of the pages.. the nostalgia of curling up with a good book beside a fireplace while it storms a winter snow outside.

The reality of my life is that I don’t have time to curl up by the fire and sip cocoa while I shut off the world and lose myself in a book. I did when I was 19, but I also had very little responsibilities. I now work full time. I attend Saint Leo University full time. I am a single mom of two. I run errands. I cook dinner. I am also a taxi. I am blessed that my daughter does dishes and my son helps with laundry. But I also try to spend some quality time with my kids, even if it’s not as much as some say I should.

So where do I have time to read? Where do I have time to pull a book off a shelf, lower the lights, pour some wine, turn Mozart on low, and forget the world?  I don’t.

What I DO have time for is reading on the fly. Waiting for my child in the dentist waiting room I can pull out my cell phone and use my Nook app. Boom, 20 pages later we leave the dentist go to the next destination. At my sister’s house, her husband calls her and wants to chat from work. I whip out my e-reader and score several pages before I have her attention again. The pharmacy forgot to have my prescription ready – I sit in the chairs and find 11 pages gone before they call my name. I’m about to pass out when I finally get to bed. I cram 10 pages in my head before falling asleep reading. In the old days I scrambled through the paper book to see where I might have left off. My electronic reader bookmarks for me. All is well.

So whereas I still love hard bound books, and I still dream of having a massive library in my house some day when I have one big enough, I also live in the real world. So many people are living in the romantic ideas of hard books that they shun those of us trying to scramble for time to read whenever and wherever we can. Isn’t the entire point of reading – to read? Why does it matter if my book is hardbound, paperback, or even an e-book? I. Am. Reading. I have every right to get lost in a story as you do even though I can’t always lug around a hardcover just incase I can squeeze in 10 minutes to read. I would rather read on my e-reader than never have time and opportunity to sit with the traditional books. Do not judge me. I am a story lover just like you. I deserve your support as a fellow reader – not your attitude because you’re a paper snob. 

Pottermore.. getting in was an experience!

My alarm goes off at 6:07 in the morning. 6:05 is too early, 6:10 is too late. So at precisely 6:07 the alarm sounds off like a rally cry to start the day. I have snooze set for 5 minute increments. Normally I hit it once. Sometimes twice. Today I snoozed until 6:32. I followed my normal routine. Restroom, take the dog out for his morning relief, then feed him. I sat in my chair and applied my moisturizer. Typical morning. A little behind, but otherwise typical.

While waiting on the moisturizer to absorb I normally check Twitter and Facebook on my phone. I left the phone in the bedroom. No biggie. Grabbed my laptop. Saw a post from Kristina Horner on Twitter that had her user name for Pottermore. I smiled and thought “YAY Kristina!”. I moved over to Facebook and saw my friend Andrew, aka, Mad-Eye Moody, posted he got into Pottermore and it was time stamped 28 seconds ago!

My heart hit my stomach, or my stomach lurched to my heart. Not sure which organ moved but I was immediately excited and nervous all at once. I rushed over to Pottermore.com. It was sitting there with a clue! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

The clue read: "In the Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quidditch match, in Harry's third year, how many points is Gryffindor leading by before Harry catches the Golden Snitch? Multiply this number by 35."  Yeah, I know THAT off the top of my head!

Anyway, after getting the answer I did the URL thingee you have to do. Low and behold a page showed up that looked much like a random webpage talking about Harry Potter. It was a UK site (I saw that in the URL). I was confused, and grumpy. How could I have messed up?!?!?!?!?!  Then I saw, on the right, was a purplish square and a quill sitting at the bottom of the square. I was in the right place! Now, I had to make the quill float.

Saying Wingardium Leviosa did not make it float. It was worth a try. I ran my mouse in the area and it began to float. Then it crashed back down. AH! Don’t tell me I was going to miss out on Pottermore over THIS part. So I tried it again. Same results. A third time. Same results. My hands were trembling intensely. Nerves were raw. Heart was racing even harder. I was going to miss out over the quill!  Then I heard Hermione’s voice in my head remind me that repeating a pattern will repeat results. So I tried something different with the mouse. And my quill floated!!!!!!!! Thank you Miss Granger! 10 points to Gryffindor!

I was given a link to click to “Begin your journey.”  This was like being handed a note saying to go to Platform 9 ¾. My heart was still pounding. My hands were still shaking. I arrived at the next step and was asked for my name, birth date, email address, country, and password. The excitement was so much that it took all I had to stay in my seat! I wanted to jump up and down! But I wasn’t done. I clicked enter and was taken to yet another page.

It was the book with the names of magical children who should receive Owls to Hogwarts. My name was at the top of the list. I screen printed! Then I was at a place where I was given 5 randomly selected names to choose from.  I didn’t screen print this page to show you all the random choices, but in the end I chose ChaserWolf60. As most of you know, I am of Werewolf, Vampire, Klingon, Wizard blood. So Wolf made sense to me!  Am I a Chaser? Not in the Quidditch sense. But I am a chaser. Of dreams, of knowledge, of enlightenment, of the perfect glass of tea. So ChaserWolf makes complete sense.  

I. Was. In.

I hit Twitter and Facebook straight away to announce my joy. Sorry about the all caps folks but I was more excited than you can imagine.  With Pottermore only taking a million beta testers before it opens up in October for everyone it is a special thing to us die hard Potterheads.  The release of clues is at random times and they only take less than 150K people per day. This is intense. I feel very lucky.

I received my email a little under an hour later. This was like my letter to Hogwarts. I nearly died. What I wait for now is my invitation to officially explore Pottermore. This will roll out in the next few weeks. That, my friends, will be like boarding the Hogwarts Express. No words for how exciting this is.

One of the things I most look forward to, in addition to all the new material (we rabidly want that!) is the Sorting Hat quiz. These questions were written by Queen Rowling herself. This is as close as we will come to being actually sorted. I am sure it will come out Slytherin, but I really want to see it for myself. I want to know that I have been right about who I was all this time.

Good luck to those of you still trying to get into the beta. It’s okay if you don’t make it – there is October and it will be open for everyone. I look forward to seeing you all around the Castle!