In which I begin to write...again.

For the longest time I've wanted to get back into writing.
Everything from fanfiction to original stuff. I think it's really important to cultivate a love of literature in every generation, and a large part of learning to love reading, is learning to love creating and being a part of new worlds. People, especially Children, have to be able to fully immerse themselves in these new worlds. You don't have to be a child to learn to love to read. You can start at any age, at any time.

People who hate reading as a whole, are silly. Once they find the right book for them, I'm sure they'd be just as in love with reading as I am. Anyone who says they hate reading, haven't found the right book yet.

I've begun by writing two short stories and one novel. I've only begun plot work, world creations, character info, etc., but I can already feel the story weaving itself. It's exciting seeing myself sit for an hour and get all these pieces of papers set about me with a new world.
I've only written on a few lined pieces of paper, but I think I'm going to invest in a notebook for this. I don't want to lose anything important!

I'm glad that I started to write again, I can feel my creativity spreading, and I can feel myself feeling like I've been accomplishing something, which I haven't felt in a really long time. It's a good feeling.

In which I admit to tears.

I admit it, I cried. I cried like a baby.
I bawled through the whole thing.

Some scenes I don't even remember watching because I was too busy wiping away my tears.

Of course with every movie, there were differences between the book and the film, but that does not make the movie any worse or any better than the book. This movie was brilliant.

I can't remember a single moment when there weren't tears in my eyes. The movie skipped some scenes I thought were important, but for the most part, they were spot on.

The acting was brilliant, the shots were splendid, and the themes remained true.

We see Neville finally rising to take his place, the potential that Dumbledore saw in him, the courage he always held.

We see the relationships and the breaks and the wonders of magic.

The opening scene, the ending scene, the prologue. It was all just... bloody brilliant, and I have nothing more to say about the movie.

I've waited 11 years for this moment ( as some have waited for 14 ), and it was worth the wait. Harry will never leave us behind, so long as we choose to keep him in our hearts, always. Until the very end.

In Which I Got Hooked on Harry Potter

The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, came out June 30th, 1997.

Today, fourteen years ago, the lives of many changed.

It wasn't until December 25, 2000 that my life changed, as many before mine did.
I was 5 at the time, and it was Christmas.

My brother is five years older than me, and as a kid, I was jealous of him all the time. Whether it was because I felt my parents always showered love and gifts on him, that I never got, or just because he seemed "cooler" than me (which seemed quite unfair at the time). So when my brother began reading the Harry Potter series for school, reading them became the bane of my existence. I begged and begged my parents for a large part of the year to let me read the books. I wanted to be just like him, show him that  I could read them too, that I was old enough to handle it. My brother took every opportunity to rub it in my face that he got to read them because he was old enough, mature enough, cool enough.

Finally, my parents relented and on Christmas, I received a paper back version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I was ecstatic and I spent all day and all night reading as much of it as I could, after all, who needs food when you have magic?
Laying on my parent's bed and just reading. I was happy and excited and jumping for joy as I read all about  Harry, Ron, and Hermione's first adventure together... that is until I got to the part where Voldemort came into the story. The little illustrations that precede each chapter I had imprinted to memory. Every single one of them. But boy-oh-boy did the one of Voldy scare the bejeesus out of mini-Yugina.
I cried that night after getting to that chapter, afraid to go to bed, scared that Voldy might hurt me as he hurt Harry, Quirrel, Neville's parents, and everyone else. It took me a week, before I was able to finish reading the book due to my fears of the Dark Lord. When I finally finished the book, the nightmares went away, I came to respect Dumbledore as I had never respected before, and I've loved Harry ever since.

I love Harry for saving me from Voldemort, just as he saved the wizard world.

To Which I Cry About the Condition of the World

My first discrepancy with this book store was that A SHELF OF TOLKEIN BOOKS WERE IN THE CLEARANCE SECTION. 

Now I understand that sounds irrational. What's so wrong about having some books being on sale? Nothing at all, except... It's Tolkein. 
 His words are magical, his words paint portraits of wonder in the minds of readers- his words are worth every cent. (after all, I hold multiple editions of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings , etc.)


Perhaps I could get over the fact that the book was on sale, after all- It was in a Korean book store. It's doubtful that they sold a lot of recreational fantasy books in English anyways.

But. The. Book. Was. On. The. Same. Shelf. As. Twilight.

 The fact that Twilight and Tolkein were on the same level... at the bottom of the stack (where perhaps Twilight is expected to stay, but hardly the author of Lord of the Rings, one of the greatest fantasy-adventure-epics of all time) irks me to no end. How daft must one be to do that?

It saddens me that those of other cultures, who at one point understood the magic of literature, would fall so low to consider Tolkein and Meyer as equals...in any spectrum.

A Whole New World?

This is my first week in Korea.
It's really ...really...really scary.
Korean kids are so different, korean people are so different, korean society is so different.

How will I adjust once I start hanging out (if at all) with kids? How will I adjust to a place where I barely speak the language? What will school be like?

I've moved before...but this is dramatically different. It's to a whole new country...no...continent.

More on this move once I've "adjusted"

Of Robots and Tardis

It's pretty common knowledge that I classify myself as a "geek".
The thing is, I never expected my friends to really embrace it and help foster it. Every day I feel so thankful for my friends, they always know how to make me feel accepted and cared for.
I still  have all these insecurities from when I was a kid, and despite my outwardly confident appearance, I'm uber insecure on the inside - but I always feel much more okay with myself after a good talk with friends.

So Yesterday, a good friend of mine gave me this gift he got for me when he visited MIT.

Uber exciting stuff, it's a ROBOT HEADPHONE SPLITTER. See, I have this robot hoodie, and it matches ! It's really exciting.


Also today.. I got a DISAPPEARING TARDIS MUG from one of my best childhood friends. Ahhh ! So cool ! Or Hot ! or... both? It MOVES. It.. it's just great.

Baking

Today I baked with two really good friends.
We baked cookies (which were a fail) and brownies (which were a pass!).

The cookies... where to begin. First of all, we didn't have the right ingredients, so we tried winging it... horrible idea, the first batch was just... It was horrible. It was a monster. I think SandMan from Spiderman, would have tasted better than these cookies.

Afterwards, I forced my friends into driving to the local supermarket to purchase the missing ingredients. I prepped the batter by splitting up whatever other ingredients we needed. Upon their return, we remade the batter.

It really felt like we were going to pass this one, and make awesome cookies. The batter tasted delicious! ...Unfortunately, we turned away for one minute too long, we returned to find the bottom of our cookies all burnt ! We then proceeded to split the cookies and just eat the top half from them.

We decided that cookies weren't our thing, and tried brownies... We made the batter and stuff..only to find we didn't have the vegetable oil that was needed. We substituted this with Grapeseed Oil. We felt that it wasn't going to work, but it was worth to at least try. An hour later, we tried a bite of the brownies to find they were delicious!
Can't wait to share them with friends at school tomorrow !