Ravenclaw Common Room

[Jedi Knight26]

Oh man, no one's posted here in awhile.

Well, not much going on in my life. I finally brought my grade up to an A in pre-calc, though we just took a quiz today that I'm positive I got no higher than a B on so that'll bring my grade down big time. Which sucks because I worked so hard to bring my grade up, and I need to maintain an A so it balances last term's C+ so I can get an A and take AP Stats next year. As for my other classes, I finally have a B+ in Acc. Honors English. That makes me beyone happy. And I'm doing well in all my other classes. I've had so much more time to do my homework. I think that's part of why I'm doing so much better now. In English, we also just finished reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Awesome book. It's super short (only 100 pages) and is a really easy read. But it's so good, and so emotional. I didn't think I would like anything we read this year for english, but I've actually liked everything so far except for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Since tennis and marching band are over, I'm back in dance now, and that's really nice. I didn't realize how much I missed dance until started going to classes again. The only bad thing is that I can't sleep in on Saturdays or do anything on Friday nights until after 6:00. Also, Scholastic Bowl started, and we have our first meet next Thursday. I can't wait for the first meet...I'm on varsity this year and a bunch of my friends are on the team. The down side, since it's varsity, the questions are so much harder. And a lot of them tend to be about physics, which I haven't yet taken (taking it next semester).

I FINALLY got around to reading The Hunger Games (still on hold for Catching Fire and Mockingjay), and I finished it in about a day. It was beyond good-I couldn't put it down, and I can't wait to read the next two. I also read the 9th book in The Ranger's Apprentice series, Halt's Peril, and again, I couldn't put it down. Rick Riordan also recently released the first book in a new series, called The Lost Hero (the series is The Heroes of Olympus). It's sort of the next Camp Half-Blood series basically. It takes place a few months after the Titan War (end of TLO) and there are three new demigods: Jason, Leo, and Piper. However, we do still see all the old characters: Annabeth, Thalia, Grover, Percy, the Stoll twins, the Hunters, Chiron, etc. Except this series mixes Greek and Roman mythology, and focuses more on the Roman mythology, however, we do learn a lot of new Greek myths. It took me awhile to read because I couldn't find time, but I started reading it over the weekend and I finished it in three days (compared to Percy Jackson, The Lost Hero is about the size of the first two books plus half of the third one combined, so it's a lot longer). So right now I'm reading the next book in The Immortals series, Night Star, and of what I've read, it's really good, but I barely remember what's going on because I haven't read any of the Immortals books in awhile. Wow, I've read a lot of books lately...and now I think I'm rambling so I'll just stop here.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!  

[Jedi Knight26]

Haha...yeah, I guess we're always talking about books here. But I guess that's what makes us Ravenclaws.

On the subject of books, I finished all the Hunger Games books a couple weeks ago, and I loved all of them. I think the Hunger Games series was actually one of the few series in which I find almost nothing bad about it, at least in my opinion. I also read a novel called Anthem for a research paper in English, and it was really good. It was one of those books I probably never would have read unless someone told me to read it, and I'm glad I read. I would recommend it to anyone. I also read the last three books in the Maximum Ride series. They were alright. I mean, I'm glad I read them so now I know what's going on in the books, but they weren't all that fantastic. I think the thing was that James Patterson had all these great storylines and characters that he could have done so much more with, but he didn't. He would introduce something or someone and then do nothing with it-he'd just let it die, or talk about it, but it would simply go nowhere. I also read the first book in the Pendragon series. And it was fantatstic. I couldn't put it down. And the really weird but cool thing about Pendragon was all the parallels between Pendragon and Doctor Who. So now I'm going to start the second book. They don't take very long to read, which is good because there are 10 books in the series and I just want to finish them so I know what happens because my brother has told me some of the things that happen, but that has left me with more questions and even more reasons to finish the series in record time.

Since it's winter break, I decided to catch up on Doctor Who because I've only seen the fourth series (season), so that leaves three series that I've never seen. So I went to the library and checked out every single Doctor Who DVD that they have. I've watched all of the first series with Christopher Eccleston (love him as the Doctor), and I've seen the series finale for the third and fourth series which totalled five episodes, and the first series was 13 episodes so that's 18 episodes total in less than a week. I still have to watch the second and third series. Unfortunately, all the DVDs for the fifth series were checked out when I went so I won't get to see any of the most recent episodes. Oh well. And also, I now have On Demand so I can keep up with episodes from the sixth series when they start.

I didn't do much over Christmas. I went to my aunt and uncle's house on Christmas Day to have Christmas with my dad's side of the family, and then we went to my grandma's house to have Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Overall, it was fun. Break definitely is way too short. I do not want to back to school on Monday.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and I hope that everyone has a fun New Year's!  

[Dragon In A Tree]

Wow it's been a long time since I've been here.

A lot has happened on my end. Dropped out of High School after it got too much after grandpa died, started seeing a psychiatrist, was put on anti-depressants, got my heart broken twice by the same guy and stayed with a friend in Denmark for an entire month.

Denmark was awesome <3 And my two best Danish buddiies are coming up here on the 11th of February til the 20th. I'll take the plane with them to Oslo, where I'm staying with my cousin til I find a job and save enough places to rent my very own place.

I've been reading the works of H.P Lovecraft lately. He may have been "slightly" racist, but he writes good horror.

I've also written a couple of fanfics and original short-stories - just to kill time.

So, how has things been? Have I missed anything of note around here?  

[Jedi Knight26]

Dragon: Wow, that's a lot, though I'm glad to hear that you're trying to fix your problems, to put it bluntly.

I've never heard of HP Lovecraft before. Which of his books would you recommend to read? I'm always looking for new things to read.

I don't think you've really missed anything around here. It's been really quiet since Halloween. But since I'm bored and don't feel like going to bed (which is weird because I'm sick and quite sleep deprived) I'll tell you all about my life lately-which might get to be a bit lengthy so I'll try and keep it as short as possible.

So, I started brand new classes at my high school last week since it was the start of second semester. I now have Spanish 4, AP Government and Politics (political science), Honors Physics, and AP European History. I love all of my classes but I get a s***load of homework every night. Usually, I don't go to bed til about midnight or one in the morning. I also like all my teachers. I have the same spanish teacher as I did last year-a little crazy old lady, but she's cool and an easy teacher. The teacher I have for AP Gov was the teacher I had freshman year for Honors World History, and he was pretty cool. My teachers for physics and Euro are ones I've never had before, but so far I like them. I guess that's all I can say about my classes-I've only had them for a week.

Over winter break, I had a Doctor Who Super Splurge. I went to our library and checked out all the episodes of Doctor Who that the library has. So I successfully watched all of season one, the first two episodes of season two, last four episodes of season three, and three episodes from season four. It was epic. It was like, seventeen episodes in a little over a week. I actually watched like, eight episodes in one day. Now I have to finish seasons two and three (which won't be that hard) and all of season five (which might be a bit harder because I want to actually watch that one in order), and soon season six will be back on TV and since I have OnDemand, I can watch the new season of Doctor Who. I also want to start watching Torchwood, which is a spinoff of Doctor Who that's also really good but a bit more mature. Okay, rambling now. Bottom line, I LOVE Doctor Who.

I haven't read a lot of books lately, been super busy with school so I'll skip books.

A couple weeks ago, the juniors in the youth group at my church got to go on a retreat to this really awesome log cabin manor in the middle of nowhere for the whole weekend. So it was like, twenty of us plus the five adults. It was sooooo much fun. We did a bunch of different things. Like we had a speaker on Friday, and then on Saturday we did a reflection activity and we could do it where ever we wanted so I went outside with a couple other people. It was so quiet and peaceful out there. It was so weird because you were so close to civilization, but it seemed like you were miles away from anything. Anyway, after that, we had free time and so I went ice skating for the first time ever, and I was actually pretty good-I only fell once. Then late Saturday night (like, 11:00 at night) we played Ultimate Sardines. Now Sardines is basically the opposite of Hide n Seek. In Sardines one or two people hide and everyone looks for them then hides with them once they find them. And with Ultimate Sardines, all the lights are turned off, so it was totally completely pitch dark in the manor. And you can hear every sound people make when they move or when they talk. And of course, since it's an old manor, there are the usual rumors that it's haunted and everything so that makes it even more creepy. It was soooo scary to walk around the manor at night in the total dark but it was really fun. I could go into more detail about what happened, but that would take a really long time.

I've also been religiously watching the Australian Open. I watch it everyday when I get home from school, every morning before I go to school, and every night before I go to bed, so I've been watching a lot of tennis this past week or so.

Anyway, I think that's enough for one post, and my mom says I need to get off and get to bed.

So how's it been going for everyone else here?  

[Flarityxx18]

Well...I haven't posted here in a while.

The biggest thing that's happened in my life lately is that my grandfather passed away yesterday afternoon. The funeral's on Friday. I was just at my aunt's house and we had tacos and talked...but I mostly did the homework I have no choice but to do at home since a new semester just started and I don't have a study hall anymore. Since my grandma lives downstairs from my aunt and uncle, I went down there and I still half expected him to be sitting in his favorite leather chair and watching TV while hooked up to oxygen...he was 81, he would've been 82 in April. He won't get to see me graduate high school...he won't get to see my younger cousin even start high school...he will never know that I now have a boyfriend since he was always bugging me about if I had a boyfriend yet whenever I saw him...he'll never know that I finally got my math and social studies grades up from C's...but what was really hard was that I was never very appreciative of him and I didn't respect him as much as I should've. When I was younger after my mom divorced my biological father when I was a baby, she moved in with him and my grandma and raised me there until I was eleven and she married my step-dad. At that time, to me, he was nothing more than a ride to school in the morning or a babysitter when I was home for the summer with the occasional trip to McDonald's. It's really amazing how you never know how much you cared about a person until it's too late to have any effect.

But, on a bit of a happier note, as I mentioned before, I have found a boyfriend. His name's Jon, he does have an account on here, but he's never on anymore. We've been together maybe...two months, two and a half maybe. But it's not on FB yet, only because he's 20 and I'm 17 and we kinda wanna wait until we're completely legal to do anything except buy alcohol and gamble. He's absolutely amazing. He's someone I can go to for anything and he'll always listen. He told me that he enjoys listening to me rant/complain/vent about whatever because he knows it makes me feel better and, in turn, it makes him feel better. He also says he enjoys snuggling with me on the couch while we're watching Glee (I got the full first season on DVD and I'm making him watch the whole thing), and that's pretty awesome because he was kind of uncomfortable with being so close to people when I first met him, which was about three and a half years ago. When I told him about my grandpa, he was honest in the fact that he didn't really know what to say since he's never been there before, but that he'll always be there for me, even if he can't be physically right next to me. I told him I could use him right now, but it'd be kinda hard unless he could jump through the computer. And his exact words were "If I could, I would do it in a heartbeat". He says that he can connect with me on a level that he can't with most of his friends, even the ones he's known forever. The feeling is mutual. Anyway, right now, I couldn't ask for a better boyfriend, he's sweet and funny and respectful of women...and he gives the best hugs in the freaking universe. Seriously, they're really big and tight and they make me feel safe and protected. I know that I was one of those people who thought that it takes time to love someone, but...maybe a few months is enough, because I'm pretty sure I love him. And he loves me, he tells me every day <3.

But, yeah, there are the worst and best parts of my life kinda summed up...nothing else really worth mentioning here, so I'll just stop before I rant anymore...  

[Jedi Knight26]

Kineka: Sorry to hear about your grandfather. And I'm glad you have a boyfriend that cares that much about you. He sounds amazing.

Not a lot has really happened to me lately. School has been keeping me pretty busy-I have a lot of hard classes this semester. But nothing else really. I'm in dance, but then again, when am I not doing dance, so that's not really anything new. Yeah...my life has been pretty boring lately. I also haven't really done much reading lately because of all the homework. So I'll just stop now so I don't keep rambling on about topics and things people don't really care about.

So how's everyone else doing?  

[Flarityxx18]

Jedi: Thank you. The funeral was...really long. It dragged on a lot. But it was fine. I didn't feel bad about it, really. I knew it was coming and I never was close to him to begin with, even though I lived with him for ten years. It was so weird seeing him in the casket, though. It just looked like he was sleeping...and when we went up to put stuff in there with him, my grandma wanted us all to put something in there, kind of as a symbol of our care for him. I was so nervous when I went up there...I'm not really used to dead bodies...and I still thought in the back of my mind that if I touched him, he'd startle and wake up like he always did when he was sleeping at the kitchen table...but, interestingly enough, I didn't find myself crying. At all. I always thought I wouldn't cry at his funeral because I wasn't as close with him as I was with my grandma, but then I thought that it would be different when it actually happened. But it wasn't...it was like I was part of his extended family or something in terms of emotions...but, on a bit of a lighter note, I figured out that I have a cousin that goes to my school that I never knew about until his funeral. She's technically my half cousin or something since she's my grandpa's daughter's (with his first wife) daughter. In other words, my grandma is not her grandma, her grandma is my grandpa's first wife. But still, that's really strange to find out. That a girl in your chemistry class is really your cousin...

Thank you =). I'm glad I found him too, he IS amazing. It's all on FB now because we kissed at the end of January (my first kiss and his as well). And we figured that we can post it now. So our technical anniversary is January 29th, 2011. I still don't get to see him as much as I'd like to, but once I turn 18, I hope things will change. This weekend, he's going to an anime convention downtown, so he'll be busy. I miss him already since it started today and goes until Sunday night at 6pm (he's not staying there, he's going, then coming home, then going again, for the whole day, etc). I'll be able to text him and he said he'd message me on FB whenever he gets to a computer, but that still won't amount to what we're used to on weekends (him coming over around 10am and staying all day, or staying until we have to go to church to play bells on Saturdays at 4:30, normally). But I got to see him yesterday because, on Wednesday night, my step-dad took me and my mom out to dinner, kind of a post-Valentine's Day thing, and I wanted to take Jon along, but my mom said it would be "inappropriate" because it was meant to be just her and my step-dad, but then my step-dad found out that I'd be home that night, not out like he thought I would be, so I only went out because he didn't want me to feel bad. Anyway, Jon's friend came over to his house around the time we left for dinner. Since I was having a bit of a bad day, I wanted to talk to him when we got home, so I thought it would be perfect timing. I'd go out for two hours or so, he'd get to hang out with his friend, and we'd talk later that night. Wrong. He didn't get back to me until 11:30 that night. I started out really mad that he wasn't on, then after about five hours I started to worry that something happened to him, and I ended up going to bed at 9 because I was in no mood to do anything, and I'm normally talking to him, so I just went to bed. At 10:30, I found myself crying my eyes out because I thought he forgot about me or that he died. Or both, I wasn't really sure...so I finally texted him (even though I had less than a dollar left on my cheap, pay-as-you-go phone) and he said he wasn't dead, and I told him to get his a** on FB if he was near a computer. I told him what was going on and he apologized so much that I think I lost count. He said he felt really shitty for not at least checking in on me since he knew I was having a bad day, and he told me he'd stay up with me, talking to me on FB, so I'd have some comfort, and he said he wouldn't go to bed until I did. Well, that turned out to be about 4 in the morning because I was so worried before (and I had a lot of sugar at dinner) that I couldn't sleep. I ended up falling asleep with my iPhone right next to me, then I woke up when my parents did, around 4:30, and he sent me messages saying "You need to get some sleep and so do I. Go, shoo, you're still online!" Lol. But, to make it up to me, he said that he'd walk me home from school (he lives about a mile away from me and I live about four blocks away from my school and a block away from my church, where we both had bell practice that night) and stay with me until we had to go to bells. Then he walked me home from bells. It was really nice...he was extra snuggly, it was awesome biggrin .

Dang, I rant a lot...anyway, I'm sorry you're bored, Jedi. And I'm sorry you have a bunch of hard classes. That really sucks. =(  

[Jedi Knight26]

Kineka: I was the same way with my grandpa's funeral too. I was young (kindergarten I think), but I still knew what was going on, like I knew he was gone and never coming back, but I didn't cry or anything. Unfortunately, I didn't find any long lost relatives like you did. That'd be really strange to find out someone that you've gone to school with for a long time turns out to actually be related to you. Although recently I discovered that I have family living in Canada and Australia.

Well, I'm glad that you were able to work things out with your boyfriend.

Don't worry, we all need to rant sometimes, and sometimes the best place to let it out is on a place like this. Trust me, I've ranted on here plenty of times.

So I went to my friend's birthday party on Friday, and it was fun, but kind of weird. I didn't know anyone there because she goes to the other high school in my school district. The only reason I know her is because I went over to her school last year for one of my classes, and she was in that class and we became pretty good friends. Plus she's a year younger than me so that didn't really help (I know some people at her school who are my age, but none that are younger). So it was kinda weird because I only knew her and her sister at the party. And the others there would talk about their classes and the teachers and people, and I knew absolutely none of them, I was just kinda like, "yeah, cool, sounds interesting" It was fun though.

Yesterday, I got a new cell phone. My old phone broke last week. Like, it literally broke, right in half. It started breaking around November, like a piece of my phone broke off and got stuck inside my phone. Eventually, that piece fell out and more pieces broke off with it about a month ago, so it was super flimsy. Then finally on Tuesday, I took my phone out of my pocket and tossed it on my dresser and it landed on the broken part and literally snapped in half. When I went to the store to get a new phone yesterday, the two guys who were helping us (getting the phone set up, transferring all the data, etc.) were, for lack of a better word, amazed by it. It was so funny because it was like they had never seen a phone broken like that. They said about 90-95% of broken phones they get are from water damage, so that might explain it. But I'm glad to have a new phone, and I really like it.

Yeah, that's my excitement for now. Don't plan on much more than that from me anytime soon.  

[Jedi Knight26]

This post will just be really quick because I have to finish some homework then go to bed. Tonight, we had a godparent mass (godparents is the name of our youth group at my church). After the mass, we had a speaker. He was totally amazing. His name is Steve Baskis, and he's super young, only 24. He served in Baghdad for about a year when a bomb went off by the humvee he and three other people were in. He was the only one who survived, but he's blind as a result and has little feeling in his left arm, and has had to have multiple surgeries on his legs. This wasn't even three years ago. Basically what he talked about was everything that he has accomplished since the accident. He's done things like climb mountains. He's climbed a mountain in the Himalayas (not Mt. Everest) and the seventh tallest peak in N. America which is somewhere in Mexico. He's done other things like a half Iron Man and is training for the Paralympics, and later this year is planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I mean, that's basically what he talked about. He talked about how he climbs mountains and did the half Iron Man competition as a blind person, and what sort of things he had to do in rehab. But I just thought that it was totally amazing what he's done since his accident which was not quite three years ago. It's just amazing. I mean, he's climbed mountains. Honestly, I don't think I'd ever be able to climb a mountain and I'm not blind. I don't think I could do half the things he does and he's blind. I don't know what you guys will think of this, I just thought I should post it because I thought it was amazing. There's actually a documentary coming out about his climb in the Himalayas. It was him and 10 other wounded war vets (he said he was the only blind person on the team). And if any of you are interested, there is a five minute or so clip of it on www.soldierstothesummit.org Like I said, I might sound like I'm rambling or just repeating a list of facts, but to me, he is amazing and his talk was just so amazing and inspirational.  

[vballlvr5]

I a kitty! meow! 3nodding
Anyway happy April Fools Day! and happy birhtday to Fred and George heart which is totally what I was thinkning aobut all day. I burned myself taking something out of the oven. It was very painful and I think IM going to have a scar seeing as I already have a big red mark from where the tray touched me. Yep that's pretty much it, its so empty here lately I figured Id fill the void a little.  

[turayza]

Hi everyone (: It's been about a year since I logged on...and there are quite a few site changes o__O So confused.

Yeah HP7 is going to be awesomeee. July 15th is so close!

The Dresden Files are a really popular crossover series for HP fanfiction, but I've never read it. Is it a sequential series?  

[Jedi Knight26]

Hello to all the Ravenclaws! Wow, it's been awhile since really anyone has posted.

Don't really know where to start other than the fact that summer is practically here. I only have two half-days left of school for finals, but I don't have any finals to take on those days because I've taken all of my finals so I don't really know what I'll do in school for the next two days. Guess I'll figure something out.

Can't wait until summer is here, hopefully the guild will become a bit more active once summer starts since it's been really inactive for most of the school year. Does anyone have any fun plans for the summer?

On a totally random sidenote, my high school announced that our spring break trip for the upcoming school year is Disney World and Universal Studios...you know what that means? Harry Potter World!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited to go, but I don't really want to find out the cost. When they went to Disney my freshman year, it was about $800. And with the gas prices now, and the fact that since we're going to two theme parks the trip would have to be longer...yeah, not too keen on finding out the price.

Does anyone have good books to recommend for the summer other than the Desden Files (which are now on my to read list)?

Hope everyone's doing great, can't wait for HP7pt2.