Pottermore

One thing you should know about me: I get really obsessed with things. Ask my roommate Nicole. At the beginning of the year, I would spend hours on my computer searching for apartments. I don't need an apartment. I don't even want an apartment. I've got the sweetest living set-up on this side of the Mississippi for crying out loud! I just got obsessed with apartment hunting...

Purpose of this confession: my new obsession is Pottermore. It's this amazing website all about Harry Potter. If you know me at all, you know I love Harry Potter like I love cake - and that's impressive. Basically you join the site, and then proceed chapter by chapter through the books, discovering new information from J.K. Rowling, shopping in Diagon Alley, practicing brewing poitions, casting spells, etc. It's amazing. I feel like I'm at Hogwarts. I got my wand - Elm wood, Phoenix feather core, 14 and 1/2 inches, hard - from Ollivander, of course. And the Sorting Hat placed me in Ravenclaw - no surprises there. Every Sorting Hat test I've ever taken (and let's be real, folks, I've taken a lot of them) has placed me in Ravenclaw. Not that I'm complaining! "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." Hahahahaha.

Anyway, I know a lot of people don't like Harry Potter. They have their reasons, and I get it. But the amount of imagination these books took to write and the detail of the information J.K. Rowling included is astonishing. I love reading about the little nuances of each of her characters, the extra plot lines she wasn't able to include, and the influences of her own life that carried over into the books. She started with nothing and went on to create an entire world from her imagination. It's really quite inspirational.

So my point is not that you have to like Harry Potter (although, I really think you should give it a shot!). My point is that you should appreciate literature, reading, books - anything that encourages imagination. I'm an English Lit major, and oftentimes people ask me, "Why the heck are you majoring in that??" Well, I want to teach English, but also, I love to read. I love the way a book can steal me away from reality for hours at a time.

I really have no idea how my blog is going to work or what the point of my blog really is. And it figures that my first real post would be about Harry Potter! But I'm challenging you, over the span of the next few months, to read a book. Not for school, not for a reading group, just for you. Get lost in the story, get attached to the characters...just READ. Let me know the book you choose :) I'm always scouting for a new series!

"Words, in my humble opinion, are the most inexhaustible source of magic we have." Albus Dumbledore.