Monday has this notebook . . .

Hello girls! It’s Monday! And I’m leaving for New York (state) in just a few hours! Gotta love impromptu road trips. :)

Alexandra: I can completely understand your viewpoint about charities, and I’m glad you went local! Supporting community is always important, especially local artists, farmers, small businesses, etc. I think you found a great cause! Also, yes, I think we can give you a blog extension during your wedding week. :)

Carlyn: IRL announcement: I miss you already. I look forward to your punishment. Should I remind you on Wednesday morning that it is, in fact, Wednesday morning?

Casey: I’m sorry you’re so crazy busy – that can get stressful! But I look forward to reading about your challenge completion as soon as you’re able to post it!

Christina: Great charity. It’s certainly a huge and growing problem in this country. Thanks for the challenge! Also, do we still owe you a punishment?

And now, onto Harry Potter. Again.

Hello. My name is Cassie (*waits for “Hello, Cassie” to echo around the room) and I am a Neville-holic.

Seriously. I love Neville Longbottom. I love Neville Longbottom probably more than is reasonable (Boyfriend in the background: “Probably?”). I would leave my boyfriend in a heartbeat for Neville if he weren’t fictional (he knows this. He’s come to terms with it). So I think it is only appropriate, during HP minutiae week, for me to talk about Neville.

I have always liked Neville’s character. He was the sweet, bumbling boy who was awkward and clumsy, and your heart went out to him because we all know a Neville in real life. And back when I was reading the first six books of the series, before I’d really learned to read critically or learned about how storytelling works, I didn’t give him much thought beyond that. I rooted for him in Order of the Phoenix, and I was proud of how far he’d come, and I was greatly interested in the fact that the prophecy could have been about him, but I didn’t really think about his role in the series overall.

But then I went to college, and I took a class on literary genres and a class on critical thinking, and I started to learn about things like the hero’s journey and how storytelling worked, and so when the seventh book came out the summer after my freshman year and I reread the series in preparation for Deathly Hallows, it was dozens of lightbulbs turning on in my brain as things clicked together and I started to figure out what she was doing and where she was going and how things were being set up. And I started to get very interested in Neville.

And then I read the seventh book and OMG, I became a Neville fangirl overnight. Seriously. This boy is awesome. And a BAMF. And Harry’s parallel hero, going through his own hero’s journey, albeit one condensed into three years instead of seven. But I’m getting ahead of myself with that last bit. We’ll return to that in a moment.

Neville became one of the most fascinating characters in the books for me after Deathly Hallows, I think largely in part to the fact that his transformation is so sudden. When we hear about Neville throughout the book, we picture him as we’ve always known him: round-faced, bumbling, awkward. But then he shows up, and he is not that person anymore. It takes Harry, Ron, and Hermione by surprise, and it takes us as readers by surprise, too. And more importantly, it serves to underline the idea that things have changed drastically at Hogwarts, and that’s forced the people there to change as well.

That’s why I had a little bit of a problem with the last movie’s treatment of Neville. Don’t get me wrong – I loved that they gave him all his badass moments, but they kept his awkwardness so that there would be that familiarity, but the point of his appearance in the seventh book is that he’s not awkward anymore – he’s a warrior, and he’s not going to stand and make a speech about banding together in front of Voldemort, he’s going to say “I’ll join you when Hell freezes over!” and kill a freakin’ snake. Just saying.

But anyway, fast forward past the book’s release to spring of ‘08. My favorite professor of all time offers a Harry Potter based seminar, specifically focused around Deathly Hallows. I, of course, sign up for it the very first moment I am able to. We spent two weeks doing an in-depth reading and discussion of the final book, and then we read essays and critical analyses of all aspects of the series and debated those as well. And our final project for the class was a paper on pretty much any Harry Potter related idea we wanted to explore. And I wanted to explore Neville.

My professor expressed concern when I showed him my prospectus, saying he didn’t know if I could generate enough material for a character analysis that was an in-depth as he wanted. I may or may not have laughed in his face at that and said, “Watch me.”

In preparation for this paper, I kept a notebook. When asked produce the belonging that serves as my badge of ultimate nerdiness, I bring out this notebook. Words don’t do it justice. Here are pictures.

This:

  is my Neville notebook.

And this:





is what I spent a weekend doing.

Each of those half-page segments represent a book in the series. I skimmed all seven for every mention of Neville and wrote down the page number. The colored squiggles next to each page represent one of sixteen different categories that I separated Neville’s mentions into: physical description, Trevor, family opinion, memory, clumsiness, courage, friendships, academics, personal history, magical abilities, the DA, Potions class, bullying, miscellaneous activity, the prophecy, and BAMF moments.

For those of you with raised eyebrows/dropped jaws, I’m not done yet. It gets better.

This:

 

is my six-page cross referencing system. Each category above has a quadrant, and books and page numbers are listed chronologically, so that when I needed to reference the times Neville was bullied, I could go to that quadrant, find all the references, and pick the one that best suited my point.

This was all before I even started the paper, by the way.

I am a nerd. Of freakish proportions. And proud. :)

Anyway, as you should not be surprised to learn, I had more than enough material to work with. I wrote a 19-page analysis that outlined Neville’s role in the series as a parallel orphaned hero to Harry and as a child of the prophecy. I put forth the argument that because the prophecy had once applied to both boys, it continued to do so, even after Voldemort made his fatal choice. I argued that Neville as well as Harry fulfilled every particular of the prophecy, and that it was only when both boys were equals that Voldemort was able to be defeated. If anyone should be interested, I am more than willing to talk about these arguments in more depth, but I won’t recreate all 19 pages here. :)

So yeah, basically, I love Neville, and I’ve kinda made myself into an expert on him. He is my all time favorite character. I’ll be honest, I like him more than Harry. His journey is incredible, and the parallels that JK sets up for him? Brilliant! If you’re reading for them, it’s clear from book one that Neville was always going to grow into what he became. When he takes on Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in book one, it’s a direct parallel to taking on Voldemort and his Death Eaters in books seven. When he stands up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione before they leave to go through the trapdoor, it’s book seven Neville in the Room of Requirement telling the Trio they can’t just show up and then leave. Neville is the boy who Could Have Been, and his job, therefore, is to remind Harry and the rest of us that this was everyone’s fight, not just the fight of the Chosen One(s).

I look forward to hearing more about Potter from all of you this week!

Week 22 - More Potter!

This week's theme comes from Alexandra. In honor of Pottermore early registration (whether we registered early or not or even care about such things), this is the week to talk about a favorite book series in more detail than was previously done. We've given an overview - now let's get into minutiae. Dig down deep and go in depth on your favorite character, favorite plot point, favorite pet theory -- whatever you like! Sky's the limit, and there's no such thing as too much Potter!

Challenge Friday

This will need to be a quick post because I'm going to try to get up tomorrow for morning yoga at 6:30 (spoiler alert: I don't think it's going to happen), but nevertheless, I'm going to try so I need to go to bed!

It probably won't be a surprise that when I proposed this challenge I already had a charity in mind. I live in Ann Arbor, MI where the homeless population has been steadily increasing for the past few years. Streets that were void of homelessness just a couple years ago now have homeless people every block or so. It's really sad and I wish there were something I could do to help at least one person get back on their feet. However, as a poor new college graduate, I've never felt like there was much I could do that would directly affect someone's life. In the future when I have a steady, secure income I want to be more involved in helping the homeless, but in the meantime I decided to donate to a homeless shelter in the area. I found the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County (annarborshelter.org) which provides homeless shelters, food, and services to get people back in jobs and homes.

I'm sorry I don't have much else to say about it! Homelessness is something that, although I have no personal or familial experience with it, I really care about. I may not have an expendable income, but with how lucky I am (apartment, food, education...) how could I not help out people that don't have those luxuries? I just don't think I'd be able to live with myself. So yes, there's my charity!

(And also, Alexandra, yes I think it's totally fine if you don't blog the week of your wedding! And good luck/congratulations/BEST WISHES!)

Thursday is really busy!

I'm writing this post now so that I'm not punished again, but I don't have time to get the full challenge post out yet, so I'll edit this post as soon as I've got more than five minutes at a computer. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your posts!

Wednesday is for the birds

Casey: Ants suck.

Christina: What an awesome trip! That must have been quite an experience, and you got to share such a good tradition with friends. Awesome. Also… Fruit Ninja is AWESOME.

Cassie: What a great charity. Cancer affects us all, healthy siblings more than most. I’m glad to know that an organization like that exists. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Alexandra: Props for all that consideration and research. There’s a lot out that there that needs charitized… but it’s tough to find one.

For my own charity challenge, I knew immediately what I would choose. The day before the challenge was issued, I was visiting friends and we found a tiny baby bird on the doorstep. Its eyes were still closed and it was quite featherless. We promptly built it a nest out of a Tupperware container, fed it shredded wet cat food, and named it Winston Chirphill. Of course, it was quite late at night (because that’s when all the baby birds come out to play [?]), so we called and left messages with as many nature preserves as we could find. In the morning, after twelve hours of incessant chirping and near-constant feeding, I got a call from Nature’s Nursery. They could take Winston Chirphill! My most excellent girlfriend and I made a mild roadtrip of dropping him off.

Nature’s Nursery is a small wildlife center in my state. Its goals, from the website, are “to improve the well-being of [local] wildlife populations and habitat through public education and rehabilitation of injured, ailing, and orphaned wildlife with an emphasis on coexistence.” I am of the viewpoint that humans expand. It’s what we do. We encroach and do all sorts of other human activities. But that doesn’t mean we have to hurt our planet or its inhabitants. Nature’s Nursery is dedicated to improving how we interact with our wildlife, and I think it’s a great idea. I have a pretty serious admiration and adoration for my local fauna, and that is in large part due to the education I received as a child at my own home nature preserves.

I chose to donate to Nature’s Nursery because (a) I hope Winston Chirphill is doing well, (b) it is small enough that my donation will make a direct impact in what NN will be able to do, and (c) I want future children (and adults, etc.) to be able to understand how they can best interact with their world.

In terms of my punishment… Cassie, I think you are fair. Everyone can look forward to next Wednesday’s post including another exciting installment of "Why the #@!% Is Bella Flying?".

Pleasantest days to you all!

Tuesday is Conflicted, but Charitable

Charities are a tough subject with me, truth be told. Many of the issues that concern me have few charities attached to them, and donating to small charities is often like tossing a penny in a well: good thoughts, empty ends. And the largest of charities have their bad histories, need I bring up the Red Cross? I have my biases as well, I think we all recall Hank's recent video on this. There are some concerns, such as illiteracy, which I consider to be very important, and it leads me to want to donate to causes that help children learn to read. Objectively, however, I can't justify that sort of donation. Treating the symptom, all that. I also considered the Heifer International, but I have donated immensely to them in the past, and I wanted to find something new.

There is also policy to consider. I am fond of the works of Chalice, but I cannot in good conscious donate my money to a Catholic organization. I ran into the same issue with Samaritan's Purse, a Christian organization. Indeed, a great deal of organizations are directly tied to the Church, and I cannot find it in myself to sign a check for such a charity. Further, I found it hard to justify a donation to any specific disease. I wanted to donate to breast cancer, originally, but I realize that my reasons are selfish. I grew up on Long Island, which has an abnormally high (for America, at least) rate of breast cancer, and I've had several unpleasant 'lumps' I needed to get checked out, while not cancerous they are certainly not a good sign. Inevitably, choosing a charity to donate to is quite the challenge indeed.

In fact, I avoided it to the greatest of my abilities by donating to the Vancouver Foundation, the local community foundation which distributes its wealth across various fields to aid the people of British Columbia. It is a thorough charity, eliminating any bias I may have towards certain causes over others, donating to youth programs, hospitals, the arts, young philanthropists, the homeless, the disabled, the environment, animal rights, etc. Just checked off 'donate my money to where the need is greatest' and the burden of bias is out of my hands.

Of course, I still donated quite specifically to a Vancouver-based foundation, one which combats problems found in the city and province I live in and ultimately will better my way of living, even though I am not the target of its charity. Still, it was the best one I could find in Canada that was efficient with its funds and not directly linked to any cause or organization I do not agree with. They have an excellent track record, as well. If you care, you may read more about them here. So there it is.

Before I forget, I must also ask for an extension or an excused absence (haha, what is this, high school?) on August 16th, the Tuesday after next. I am getting married on the 15th, and admittedly I doubt I will have the time on my first day as a newly-wed to write up a blog post.

Monday is exhausted . . . but still giving to charity!

Okay, so super fast and short post this week. I am in the midst of moving and it's 237 degrees outside and there's not AC or Internet in my new apt, which all kinda sucks and doesn't give me much of a window for, you know, posting things.

But onto the challenge!

Now, I'm familiar with an awful lot of charities, as my extended family has now started giving to charity every Christmas instead of giving individual presents to everyone. So I'm familiar with First Book and Heifer International and Adopt a Classroom and Autism Speaks and all the other charities my family has been involved in receiving gifts for or giving gifts to. And much as I love all those charities, I really wanted to find a new one for this project.

So I started to realize what time of year it was, and I thought, what better way to honor Ethan's memory and his sixteenth birthday than by finding a new cancer-related charity to donate to?

Anyone who knows me in person has probably noticed the bracelet I wear all the time. It's one of those rubber band bracelets, orange and purple (goes with nothing and therefore goes with everything!), and it reads, "Hope Street Kids -- Join the Fight Against Childhood Cancer." I've been wearing this bracelet for going on seven years now, first in Ethan's honor, then in his memory. My cousin Heather bought them for the family one Christmas.

So, first I thought, Great! I'll give to Hope Street Kids. Unfortunately, when I went to their page, I found that it's been inactive for the past couple of years. However, their page lead me to a charity called CureSearch, and I did a bit of research into them, and I really like what they have to offer. They're a children's cancer research center that places emphasis on research and education, which I appreciate. Also, something like 97% of the money donated to them goes to the charity itself.

I was all set to make my donation when something made me search for childhood cancer groups one more time. That's when I found Camp Quality USA. Basically, this is a camp organization that takes kids with cancer for a week and gives them the normal kid's summer camp experience. Each child has a companion assigned to them for the whole week that is trained to assist the kids with whatever needs they have, and they also have year-round programing available. But what really sold me is that Camp Quality also has a Sibs Camp option.

When a child in a family is diagnosed with cancer, everyone is affected. And it's really easy for the healthy children to feel neglected and pushed to the side.When I discovered that Camp Quality recognizes the healthy siblings and supports finding ways to assist them as well, I knew I'd found my charity.

Here's their website, if anyone wants more info: http://www.campqualityusa.com/

Can't wait to hear about everyone's charities!