Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I know a lot of people who complained about this book because a) it's pretty freaking huge and b) Harry's super moody through the whole thing. I didn't mind either of these things. I love Harry so much that I would have been happy with a 1,000-page book—in fact, that's what I was secretly hoping for when book seven came out.

As for Harry's moodiness, let's take a little look at what this poor kid has gone through: He witnesses a fellow student's death, which would be traumatizing enough. But on top of that, he witnesses Voldemort, the most evil and most feared wizard in history, return to full power. Umm, scary. Then he is forced to listen to Voldemort monologue about murdering his parents and about how much he wants to kill Harry. Then Voldemort tortures and nearly kills Harry, a situation from which Harry only narrowly escapes. Then he has to go back to the Muggle family that treats him like dirt, and where he gets absolutely no news from anyone, including his very best friends, who seem to be leaving him out of all of the festivities. Then he has to fight dementors, for which he is nearly expelled. Then he learns that no one believes his story and that everyone thinks he's a delusional show-off and that the Ministry of Magic is doing their best to discredit him. Then he goes back to Hogwarts, where he is supposed to feel at home, to find that his fellow students are afraid of him and that the school is coming under the tyrannical reign of Dolores Umbridge, which means that his one safe place in the entire world has been taken away from him.

Whew, that's quite a list. I think I'd be a little moody, too.

Harry's moodiness makes him real—it makes him believable. Rowling is too good of a character writer to allow Harry to be just as carefree and glib as he was before. It wouldn't have made sense. If Harry had seemed to have no lasting effects from everything that he was going through, I would have hated this book. As it was, I loved it, because I love everything about real, deep, complex, true-to-life characters. Character development is my favorite part of pretty much anything I read.

The Good: The whole opening sequence of Harry fighting the dementors and then having to explain everything to the Dursleys—the juxtaposition of the wizarding world colliding with the Dursleys' gleaming kitchen is fabulous; the war against Grimmauld Place; Luna Lovegood; Dumbledore's Army; seeing Lockhart in St. Mungo's; Harry's exclusive interview with Rita Skeeter; the way the students hide The Quibbler from Umbridge; Professor McGonagall standing up for Harry's ambition to be an Auror; the fireworks: "A sparkler floated past the tower, still resolutely spelling out the word POO"; Fred and George's exit: "Give her hell from us, Peeves"; the way the teachers don't do anything to help Umbridge; seeing Umbridge taken away by the centaurs; Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna's willingness to go with Harry to the Department of Mysteries; Dumbledore showing up and saving the day; the members of the D.A. jinxing Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle; Harry's reception party and Moody threatening Uncle Vernon.

The Bad: The incredible frustration of the way Fudge treats Harry at the hearing; Sirius's anger at Harry for not being as reckless as James was; all of Umbridge's lousy Educational Decrees; Harry, Fred, and George getting banned from Quidditch; Harry's fear that he's being possessed by Voldemort; Grawp; Harry's vision of Sirius getting captured by Voldemort; Kreacher lying to Harry; Sirius going through the veil.

The Ugly: Every single little thing about Dolores Umbridge—I don't care if she's a fictional character—I still hate her (and I hate it when she shows her ugly face again in book seven); Molly Weasley's boggart; Harry's vision of Arthur Weasley getting attacked by the snake; Ron catching the brain.

WLW Week 3

This week sucked badly enough that I'm not going to even write about my progress. Because there wasn't any. I don't think I kept a single one of my goals, and the scale went the wrong direction. Again. I'm starting again tomorrow.

But I do have my excuses. As per the post below, I got sick, and now I'm doing my best to conserve all of my energy so I can do what I need to do tomorrow. Then, after tomorrow is (finally) over, I will get back to my WLW goals. I promise I will. I'm just takin' a little break, is all. I'm gonna go back to my lemon tea now.

My Body Hates Me

My body chose the absolute worst possible time to get sick. And the worst possible place in my body to get sick.

On Friday morning, I woke up with a sore throat, which sucked for two reasons: a) I had an audition (singing required) in four days, and b) I hate sore throats. The sore throat persisted the entire weekend. Luckily, I had decided to go home for the weekend, so I got babied by my mom while I was sick. That was much better than having to take care of myself in my apartment, that's for sure.

By Monday afternoon, my sore throat was abating, which was looking good for my Tuesday night audition. I even practiced my songs some. But as the night went on, my voice got croakier. I probably should have stopped talking in order to conserve what little voice I had left, but I didn't. And I woke up this morning, the day of my audition, with no voice. Brilliant.

I called the theater, and luckily they had openings for Thursday. So now I'm auditioning on Thursday, and I'm really hoping it doesn't conflict with the Relief Society activity that I'm supposed to be singing at for my friend. I'm probably cutting it pretty close, but I'm determined to make it work.

So today and tomorrow will consist of me sipping herbal tea, sucking on lozenges, and refraining from speech. Hopefully those things combined will help ensure that I have a voice on Thursday, because I'm seriously going to need it.

Sports

My dad has officially poisoned me. Not that it's a recent thing, or anything —it's just been a little bit more obvious to me this past week, that's all.

On Thursday, BYU played Florida in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. And they won. It was the first time in 17 years that BYU had made it past the first round of the tournament, which was awesome. I went home on my lunch break so I could watch at least part of the game. It was a good game. Unfortunately, I had to drive back to work right when the first overtime ended, so I didn't get to see the awesome second overtime. Oh well.

Anyway . . . the point I'm trying to make is that I love sports. When I go to the gym and use a machine with a TV on it, I usually try to find a basketball game to keep me entertained while I run. If there isn't a Jazz game on, I'll find a different game. I often wonder how many people look at me funny because I'm a girl who's choosing to watch sports rather than American Idol or TLC or something.

I know there a lot of girls out there who like sports. I'm not incredibly unique in that. But I'm still kind of weird. My dad keeps warning me not to let my sports knowledge spill out too quickly around guys—apparently they don't like it much when girls know more about sports than they do. And I know a lot about sports. You don't grow up with a sports fanatic and basketball ref of a father (and two sports fanatic brothers) without learning about the rules and getting into the games. I've been watching sports my whole life, and I enjoy it. Live, on TV—I enjoy it either way. And that's not going to change any time soon.

All I can say now is, "Go Cougs!" I'm looking forward to (hopefully) watching a win tonight against Kansas State. All BYU's got to do is play their game, and they'll have a decent chance to win this thing. Let's go BYU! Sweet Sixteen here we come!

WLW Week 2

How I did this week:
1. Run 3 times/week: 3/3—check
2. Resistance training 3 times/week: 3/3—check
3. Drink 64 oz. of water: 6/7—fail! Again! Seriously, the weekends are rough for me, man.
4. Stop snacking: I will have to say fail on this one. I was really good the beginning of the week, but then I got bad again. Snacking will be the death of me.
5. Smaller portions: fail! I think. To be honest, I haven't paid that much attention. Which leads me to believe that I failed.
6. No eating after 8 p.m.: check. I'm pretty sure I've been pretty good there.

Results: 
I freaking gained .5 pounds this week! Lame sauce! I was so mad when I weighed in this morning. And since I've been pretty good about working out, I think it has something to do with my eating habits. Therefore, I'm going to make a change this next week! I swear I will. Well, I have to, otherwise my goals are garbage. I'm also going to make a change to the workouts I've been doing between running days. I don't think what I've been doing lately has been particularly effective. Ugh! Today was a frustrating day. But I will press forward anyway.

Going Strong

Last year, I wrote this blog post about my newfound love of instrumental music. I'm here to say that my love is still going strong. I've actually been on kind of an instrumental kick lately—it's about all I want to listen to. Instrumental is now the biggest playlist on my iPod—I never thought that would happen.

Here are some new acquisitions:

I'm especially loving Danny Elfman right now. He's pretty dang awesome. I'm planning on tracking down the soundtrack from The Corpse Bride sometime soon. I also really want to get the Sherlock Holmes soundtrack—it's by Hans Zimmer, who is also awesome.

Just for the heck of it, here are a few old soundtracks that I have recently come to love:

Hmmm...is anyone else seeing a Johnny Depp theme here?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I love Goblet of Fire, probably because it's darker and a bit more mature. I love that the books grow up with Harry, and this one is where that growth really becomes evident. This book is another one with a major twist that Rowling planned beautifully. You never would have guessed it while reading the book, but the revelation doesn't leave you thinking, "Wait, what? How does that add up?" There is so much depth to this novel, and the way it is framed by the Triwizard Tournament is brilliant.

The Good: The Weasleys' arrival at Privet Drive ending with Uncle Vernon throwing china knick-knacks at Arthur; meeting Bill and Charlie; the Quidditch World Cup; "I like a nice breeze 'round my privates, thanks"; learning about the Unforgivable Curses; meeting the students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; Harry beating the Hungarian Horntail and Ron talking to him again; Harry's nervousness about asking someone to the Yule Ball; Dumbledore's complete faith in Harry; "You fail to recognize that it is not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!"; "What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does"; Harry giving Fred and George his Triwizard winnings.

The Bad: Harry's name coming out of the goblet; Ron's silence toward Harry (I always have to read the 92 pages where Ron isn't talking to Harry in one sitting because I hate it so much); Rita Skeeter and all of her ridiculous articles; Harry's incredibly stressful near failure at the second task; Cornelius Fudge's refusal to believe that Voldemort has returned.

The Ugly: Everything that happens after Harry touches the Triwizard Cup: Cedric's death; Voldemort's temporary body; bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the foe; the duel—Voldemort is a grown man who is torturing a fourteen-year-old boy—how sick and twisted is that?; Voldemort in general—I know he's not real, but he's still one of the scariest and most brutal villains I have seen—it's quite brilliant how Rowling manages to make him feel believable even though his complete lack of conscience is so extreme.