Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Around the holidays, I always get really in the mood for movies like Harry Potter (and want to go to Hogwarts even more badly). Well, basically I'm always in the mood for Harry Potter, but even more so October through early February. Hogwarts for me is always this nice cozy castle surrounded by old growth forests and lots of good food and slightly crazy/eccentric people. It's the same for a lot of people. Unlike in the HP7 movie poster, Hogwarts NEVER gets trashed by Death Eaters. Its teachers never die. McGonagall gets to teach transfiguration forever. And yes, even though Voldemort threatens everyone inside it with death, it's still a semi-paradise. Will my obsession with Hogwarts last forever? Probably. Aunt Petunia's jealousy (over Lilly) lasted a nice long time. Of course, that's from the perspective of a slightly...hmmm...over-excited, indecisive, person basking in the glow of such a recent movie release. I am a little embarassed to admit that I saw HP7 for the third time last night. Three times, I felt, would be a little much even for me. But actually, I enjoyed it the third time the most. For a variety of reasons. One, I wasn't either starving or deliriously tired. Two, I actually started to accept that HP could be HP without Hogwarts. Three, I got over the sadder aspects (gone are the happy innocent days at Hogwarts) and was able to appreciate some of its more quirky "wizarding-world" scenes that accounted for so much of my fascination early on. And lastly, I wasn't the only one in the theater to yell at Snape's first appearance. My friend sitting next to me--as big a Snape fan as I am--nearly mauled me in her excitement. Anyways, there's this great line about his robes billowing out behind him, like they always do, in the sixth book. It reminded me exactly of that first Malfoy manor scene, as he climbs the staircase. Quite dramatic. Yes, I reread a good portion of the ending of the sixth book this morning (surprise, surprise). I was trying to figure out why in the world Ms. Rowling decided to name it "and the Half-Blood Prince". But the exciting conclusion to that story--after we know who it is, of course--is that Snape's witch mother married a muggle. Shocking. Just like Voldemort's. So, I have a couple possible theories:
1. She was trying to let the reader know that Snape is more important than they previously imagined by devoting the title to him. Even though the potions book, I believe, doesn't do much to further the plot besides introducing Snape as the Half-Blood Prince. And we never hear about it again.
2. She wants to draw attention to half-blood Snape and his early involvement in helping Voldemort form the "perfect pure-blood society" so-advertised in HP7, then in so-doing bring attention to Voldemort's identical situation and thus the hypocritical/ironic status of their work. Though really, Voldemort uses it as a facade for his rise to absolute power.

If you have more theories, please enlighten me. And my family. They watched the sixth movie last night without me, even though the night before my dad asked me not to watch it because he was going to bed and wanted to see it too. Yes. I know. What is this horror? And then they had the nerve to bombard me with plot questions, such as the one I posed to vous (respectful/you plural in French), which I happily tried to answer. Anyways, so...theories. That would be good. Also, a little peeved that Bill was left out of the sixth movie and Peeves for all of them. I really like Bill. I don't know why. Maybe it's just the way he carries himself, and his good nature even though he's been mutilated by a werewolf. Bill, and, of course, Fred and George. I couldn't help but snicker loudly at that part with Ginny, where George walks into the kitchen with the toothbrush sticking out of his bandages. Ginny is so...obnoxious. I had a dream, about a week ago, where I was at Hogwarts. The classroom looked like a normal Lakeridge classroom, except that Daniel Radcliffe was sitting right next to me and the class was having a competition to see who looked the most like a Harry Potter character. Obviously, the entire class voted for him...except for him, who voted for me. It was a pretty good dream, even though he thought I looked like Ginny. And then an abnormally large spider started spinning glowing silver webs all over the school grounds and my dream went downhill from there. I just thought it was cool that I was at Hogwarts. Anyways, on to art.

So, yesterday, I got most of the primary painting done on my concentration piece and a good portion of the tree trunk finalized. Never before have I seriously applied paint with a palette knife, nor done a tree in acrylic, but it was quite fun. Hopefully everyone else will think it looks like bark. Oh, but using a palette knife was so much fun.