Representing Harry Potter in 10 Measly Pictures

So for my Computer Technology class at school, we have to do a little movie/slideshow thing using iMovie consisting of 10 pictures that have to do with an appropriate topic. The second my teacher told us we could come up to him and suggest a topic for approval, I darted to his desk and chose Harry Potter.

I didn't think choosing my photos would be too hard--seven pictures, one representing each book, and then three others that just had to do with Harry Potter. Here are the seven that represented the books that I chose: (and sorry for the weird formatting, I couldn't quite get the pictures to do what I intended)



 (this is the Order of the Phoenix)




And then here are the other three that I chose:




And then I was like, Oh, no! I forgot Dumbledore! So I replaced the Hogwarts crest with this:


And then I was like, Oh, no! I forgot Voldemort! But I couldn't decide which picture to replace because:
--I couldn't replace one of the book-representation pictures, it would be too weird if I had pictures for only six of the books and just excluded one
--I wanted to keep a picture of the great Albus Dumbledore
--I wanted one picture to depict Hogwarts
--I wanted one picture to feature simply Harry, Ron, and Hermione

So I came up with an idea...I replaced my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows picture with this one:


I was feeling pretty pleased, too, until I realized these problems:
--I didn't have anything whatsoever for Mad-Eye Moody. How could I have forgotten Mad-Eye Moddy?!
--There was no Draco Malfoy. Harry Potter wouldn't be Harry Potter without Draco Malfoy.
--Nothing representing Horcruxes or Death Eaters
--No pictures for the Aurors--namely, no Remus Lupin or Tonks
--I didn't have Dolores Umbridge. And I'm sorry, but that lady just cracks me up.
--Luna Lovegood was only in one picture, in the background, and as she is one of my favorite characters, I just couldn't stand that.
--Neville Longbottom received the same treatment as Luna; only in one picture. And I've always liked Neville.
And perhaps worst of all--
NO GINNY WEASLEY. Actually, she was in the Order of the Phoenix picture, but that couldn't possibly be my only representation of her!

Sorry, I know this post wasn't the most interesting one.
Sooo....if you could represent Harry Potter (or any topic, really) in ten pictures, what would they be?

--Audrey

 

Utter Randomness

I quite honestly have absolutely nothing to post about, unless you want to hear about my boring exams and homework and projects, which is highly doubtful. But I'm trying to post often, and seeing as I haven't posted since Wednesday I thought I ought to post something.

Here's a really funny "Procrastination Musical" video that I found on YouTube...

And here's "Grammar Nazis," which is also really funny.

Sorry for not really posting anything but two videos; I'll review A Girl From Yamhill as soon as I finish it!

--Audrey

"Superpowers" Story Beginning

I do have exams this week, yet the amount of homework and projects didn't abate at all! Add on my gymnastics, swimming, flute, and debate classes, and I barely have enough time to eat, let alone blog! But I managed to find a spot of time today and I felt pretty guilty about not blogging at all. Since I still need to do homework and study, I'm just going to paste the beginning of one of the stories I wrote a year ago. It has no ending yet, but later I might try to think of one.



       If you could have any one superpower in the world, what would it be? I used to love this question. Now I hate it. Not because I don't like magic, but because there are simply too many powers to choose from, each seeming to good to not select.
       When I was quite young, perhaps six or seven, I really wanted to have super-speed. It seemed so cool at the time--racing around so fast that you were practically teleporting, never having to worry about being late. Around the time when I was eight years old, it became teleportation. To me, that seemed even cooler than super-speed. You could just disappear suddenly, and then pop out of thin air to anywhere you wanted--Paris, Las Vegas, the Moon...
      In fourth grade, we started studying history--that is, actual history and not the odd, useless 'social studies' that we studied before. I was captivated by absolutely everything--from the Declaration of Indepence to the Mayan civilization to the great Roman Empire. Then, my superpower obsession was time travel. Just imagine going back to any time period your heart desired--to see King Arthur, Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round Table; to witness the Chinese invention of paper; to figure out how the Egyptians built the Great Pyramids; to see how the Incas built their flawless temples!
      At that time, I thought I had decided permantently on time travel. However, I got to thinking, and wondered what would happen if you went back in time and accidentally killed your parents before you were born--then, would you die on the spot, because there were no parents to give birth to you? If I went back in time and took Martin Luther King Jr. back to the present, would society be different?       
       There were too many questions and, of course, no answers as no one had actually traveled back in time before. I didn't have much trouble thinking of a new awesome superpower that I wanted to have: to be a half-mermaid. Okay, so maybe that doesn't technically qualify as a superpower, but I had started watching a television show about girls that could turn into mermaids when they touched water. And their long, glistening tails of shiny scales seemed so incredibly beautiful that I couldn't help but want one myself.
       That superpower didn't last long. In sixth grade, my new official superpower obsession was flying--one power I still want today. Wondering what flying felt like, I tried every earthly thing possible to try to stimulate soaring through the sky with the sun on your wings. Gymnastics, ballet, sprinting, swimming, figure skating, speed skating, roller-skating, high-jumping... Everything was wonderful in its own sort of way, but none how I imagined flying. Even the wildest of roller coasters couldn't cause the feeling I imagined to be flying. Airplanes definitely didn't fit the bill, as I was trapped, sitting, and could hardly even see outside. My failure to find a human replacement further fueled my yearning to be able to fly--so I could find out what flying was really like.
      While I still sometimes consider wanting to be able to fly, in seventh grade I stumbled upon a new superpower that I was quite popular, but had never really appealed much to me: invisibility. I didn't think invisibility was such a big deal, especially not compared to, say, traveling back in time and figuring out the answers to decades-old historic mysteries or swooping through the royal purple and ethereal rose skies, with the clouds hugging your skin and then sinking rays of the sun lighting your path. Then I realized being invisible had more advantages than I had originally thought. There are all sorts of things, like perhaps seeing the backstage of a play, that you couldn't do if you weren't invisible.
      I dropped invisibility very quickly, once I thought about water powers. That is, being able to freeze water, heat water, bend water, turn water into a jelly-like state, and solidify water, which I imagined to be sort of like glass or crystal. Having power over water could come in to be immensely useful, as well as just plain awesome.
     Today, I can't decide between all of the many superpowers in the world. Flying and water powers perhaps still top my list, but I can't help thinking that teleportation, time travel, and mermaid tails are still extremely cool and much too awesome to not consider. Another superpower that I would like to have is power over weather--controlling wing, being able to summon lightning, start and vanish fires, creating blizzards, rain, snow, hail, and clearing clouds.


There's more to the story, and personally I find the beginning (what's above) to be a lot worse than the rest of my story. However, I can't really post the story without posting the beginning, so...
If you could have any one superpower in the world, what would it be and why? Share in the comments! As for me, I think it would be flying--as in, able to summon fairy wings on my back at will. But like the person in my story, I can't decide. There are too many awesome powers to just choose one!

--Audrey
 

Cloud-gazing

Just some nonsensical rambling here, about looking at clouds and stuff. So even though it's January, today was a particularly nice afternoon (for me), and so I was outside supposedly reading Fahrenheit 451 for English but not actually doing so. Because I love books and Ray Bradbury is a total genius, but absent-minded me cannot focus on anything when I'm sitting outside and there are beautifully fluffy white clouds in the sky. Also, on the field near my house there were a lot of pine trees that were swaying in the breeze, and their pointy tipes were right on this section of the sky that was this gorgeous azure...so naturally I just couldn't focus.

       While lying on the grass and watching the clouds, which is actually a lot scratchier than it sounds, I noticed this huge blob of a cloud and for a moment I simply couldn't think of anything that the cloud resembled. And if there's anything I won't give up on, it deciding what a cloud looks like. So while I was pondering on that I opened Fahrenheit 451 again and read a page-ish before my mind wandered off again. I looked back up at the sky and the exact same big-blob-cloud was above me, but that time I just knew what it looked like--the front half of a horse. I don't know the exact wording as I'm not a horse expert, but it looked like when a horse is reared up on its hind legs and kicking the air with its front hooves. Now take that horse and just vanish it's hind legs, tail, and behind, and make that horse huge and fluffy and white, then turn it into a cloud and throw it up into the sky. That's what I saw.
       As usual, I began cooking up the beginnings of a story in the back of my mind about the cloud-horse, imagining it galloping at full speed across the glorious blue sky, racing towards the sunset. Huh...racing towards the sunset. To me it sounds kind of poetic, but then, that's me. And then the wind picked up so I decided to go back inside, and right before I was going to enter the house I turned back to see the magnificent cloud steed, but it had drifted so far away that I could hardly discern it from the other clouds. To flighty, flibbertigibbet me, it seemed like the cloud-horse had galloped over there. And this sounds a lot dumber than it did when I was thinking about it. Oh well.

In completely unrelated topics, did you know that the plural of cow was kine? Kine. Kine. K-i-n-e. I didn't believe it until I searched it on Google and Yahoo and Bing just to verify. Kine. Crazy, right?
Also...my wheatgrass are almost matured so I can juice them, which I'm super excited about.
And...this morning I made my very first omelette ever! Well, actually before I made an omelette-type thing where I would scramble eggs with cheese, cut-up bacon, and cubed potatoes, but then it wasn't actually folded egg. Folded egg...it still sounds funny. Anyway, my omelette looked disgusting and tasted delicious.

Not much else to report, except for the fact that I changed my background to this cheery teal-and-pink thing that I personally like the color of but I don't expect that I'll keep it up very long. It just feels off, even if it is pretty.

--Audrey

A Book Review: The Moonstone Castle Mystery

As I've mentioned before, I'm absolutely terrible at reviewing books. Horrible. Horrendous. Incompetent. Any other synonyms you can think of.... and recently July posted a book review on her blog, www.julyaemmance.blogspot.com and it was wonderfully formatted and amazingly awesome. You can read that post here. And, with July's permission, I'm going to try to do a book review that's all structured like hers. If I haven't given July enough credit...this is the format that July used for a book review on her blog and I didn't come up with the structure; I am only trying it ouy because July said that I could. Okay, I think that's specific enough, but July, if you're reading this and you're not satisfied, just tell me what I should do to make it better.

Now. For the review. The Moonstone Castle Mystery by Carolyn Keene is a Nancy Drew book that I wouldn't normally review but I am trying to review every single book I read this year, sooo....XD


TITLE: The Moonstone Castle Mystery

AUTHOR: Carolyn Keene

GENRE: mystery, quite obviously                                               

SYNOPSIS: When Nancy Drew receives a valuable moonstone as a gift from an unknown person, she is amazed and puzzled. But it is only the first of several startling events in this complex mystery that challenge the ingenuity of the pretty sleuth. Why are the Bowens--a missionary couple who recently returned to the United States--having so much trouble finding their missing seventeen-year-old granddaughter? (from inside cover)

GOOD STUFF: You know, even with July's nice structure I still don't know what to write. Well now, Carolyn Keene does a very good job of making this book suspenseful. There are kidnappings and boat crashes and ghosts and imposters lurking around every corner, just waiting for you to turn the page so they can jump out of nowhere and surprise you. And this is probably because I'm a huge coward, but she also does a great job of making this mystery, and all her other ones at that, spooky and scary... but at the same time intriguing.

BAD STUFF: Um, well...there isn't too much to complain about, but it does end rather suddenly. About ten pages from the end I was still totally in suspense about how the complicated, flummoxing mystery would turn out and then all of a sudden BAM! everything is revealed. And it was just a tiny bit unrealistic in the beginning, but I guess Carolyn Keene had to start the book somehow.

COMMENTS: All in all a great mystery. I like how Nancy is daring and brushes off all the warnings she receives, and doesn't care when a voice with an unknown source warns her away from a supposedly haunted castle. This is one of the classic Nancy Drews, so occasionally the style of writing is a tad hard to understand, but it always makes sense if you just stop to think for a second.  This isn't educational or doesn't have some sort of message buried in the story...just a mystery, to enetertain readers, and entertain me it did.

RATING: Out of five stars, five being the best and one being the worst, I would rate this 4 stars. It isn't a bad book and nothing's really wrong with it--no inappropriate things or violence (I mean, someone was kidnapped but there's no gory descriptions, etc) but it isn't totally amazing.

RECOMMENDED READERS: Er...10 and up? There's crime in the book, so I guess young children shouldn't read it, but there's no mature content or anything.

COMPANION BOOKS: Um...the rest of the Nancy Drew series. I won't list all the titles because there are a ton.


Well, that's all! I've finished reading Much Ado About Anne and Dear Pen Pal but I didn't want to post so many MDBC (Mother-Daughter Book Club) reviews all at once so...yeah. And I've just started Beverly Cleary's memoir A Girl From Yamhill which I will certainly review as well :)

--Audrey

The Mother-Daughter Book Club

There's a series of books called the Mother-Daughter Book Club series, and the first book is...The Mother-Daughter Book Club! I've actually read this book before, but I figure rereads count too for my Book Review Blog Challenge, soooo.....

Here is the cover...you know, I really don't know how to review this book. Out of five stars, five stars being the best and one star being the worst, I would say this book is four and a half stars. I love this series. There are all different types of girls--fashionable, stylish, popular Megan Wong; animal-loving, genius, awesome singer Jessica (Jess) Delaney; smart, kind, bookworm Emma Hawthorne; and athletic, brave, sassy Cassidy Sloane. The author, Heather Vogel Frederick, alternates every chapter so you can read the thoughts and experiences from the point of view of each character. There's lots of drama, I guess...mean students and fashion magazine editors and supermodel mothers and one fabulous mother-daughter book club. The only reason why I knocked off half a star is because a few lines here and there in the book made me kind of mad...I don't want to spoil anything, but I don't think this really spoils anything so...Jess Delaney lives on a farm, and a snooty woman named Mrs. Chadwick made fun of it, calling it a "ramshackle farm." Then Mr. Delaney said that (not a direct quote) the farm was around since the Revolutionary War and Paul Revere himself took shelter there while Mrs. Chadwick's ancestors were "busy turning traitor," because Mrs. Chadwick's in-laws were on the British side. It kind of made me mad because they were insulting Mrs. Chadwick based on her heritage, which obviously isn't fair. But the book is really good...interesting...as I said, I'm not good at reviewing books. Which is part of the reason why I'm even doing this, because I read a ton and I'll be able to practice writing reviews.


In other news....well, there is no other news. I just finished planting three trays of wheatgrass, which took awhile, but I like how wheatgrass grows so fast, and I'm using our wheatgrass juicer to, you know, juice the wheatgrass once they've grown. It's supposed to cleanse your blood or something like that...


--Audrey

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope you have a prosperous 2013. I stayed up until, like 4 AM this morning, and I got up at noon. This morning I was attempting to make pancakes that had 2013 written in them, made of chocolate chips, but it didn't work and I ended up with a big chocolatey gob in the middle of my pancake. It was delicious anyway XD I did manage to make one pancake with a blueberry smiley face, though. Blueberries work a lot better than chocolate chips....haha. Did anyone celebrate New Year's Eve/New Year's Day?
Anyway, to conclude my New Year's blog countdown, it would be very lame if I didn't have a post on the actual New Year's Day. I wanted to post some writing, so this will basically be a boring piece about a girl on New Year's Eve based largely off my New Year's Eve night.



       I curled my body into a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees and leaning against one big plush armrest of the large rocking armchair. Loud voices and laughter carried from the dining room as my parents, aunts, and uncles played a complicated Chinese card game consisting of eight people and four decks of cards. My little sister, Claudia, played Monopoly on the shiny hardwood floor in front of the fireplace with my younger cousins, Josh and Violet. Turning my head, I saw the gleaming silver hands of the living room mantle clock show the time of 8:30 PM.
     Three and a half hours to go, I thought to myself, rocking slightly on the armchair. Delicious aromas of chocolate and cinnamon wafted from the kitchen to where I was sitting.
     Although everyone was stuffed from the New Year's Eve feast that consisted of "lucky foods" like long noodles, pork, greens, beans, round fruit, fish, pomegranate, and cornbread, my mother had still insisted on making dessert. She was baking a ring-shaped chocolate cake, making creme brulee, and had prepared a trifle.
      "Ding!" the oven chimed cheerfully, and Claudia looked up in interest.
      "Cake, cake!!!" she cried out happily, running to the kitchen, Josh and Violet following fast on her heels.
     Reluctant as I was to leave my cozy, warm armchair, I pushed myself up and walked to the kitchen in time to watch as my mom pulled the cake out of the oven and transferred it to a cooling rack. "Why don't we enjoy some creme brulee before we start the cake?" my mother suggested, and so the fancy dessert was dished out.
    About a half hour later, cake was sliced for everyone, and I was so full I didn't think I could even eat another grain of rice, but somehow I managed to stuff the small slice of warm, scrumptious cake down.
     With nothing better to do, I joined Claudia, Josh and Violet in their game of Monopoly. After an hour of buying property and houses, paying outrageous rent prices, mortgaging properties, and being sent to a fake jail by a police officer head, we cleaned up the board game and went outside to set off small fountain fireworks, because Claudia, Josh, and Violet weren't allowed to stay up any later than 10:30 PM.
      Everyone crowded outside, chatting and laughing as the adults took turns using the lighter to set off colorful fountains of fireworks, some of which shrieked and whistled, and others popped, snapped and exploded a few feet into the air.
     While everyone was preoccupied, I grabbed a pouch of exploding snaps, which were little raisin size pellets that made a sharp snap and lit up for a second when you threw them onto the ground. Filling both hands with as many exploding snaps as possible, I snuck around in the shadows as everyone else was ooing and aahing at a fountain. The second the fountain sputtered out, I threw both handfuls of exploding snaps onto the ground, and they all popped.
     Claudia gave a shriek of laughter, and soon everyone, including the adults, had grabbed some exploding snaps and we were running around, throwing them at each other.
      The next half hour was pure joy and happiness; filled with exploding snap tag and miniature firework fountains. Soon, Claudia, Josh, and Violet were ushered to bed; my cousins sleeping in the guest bedroom of our house.
       I retook my position on the armchair by the roaring fireplace and stared into the flickering flames, which reminded me of the summer camp campfires I had sat around in the summer. The summer camp reminded me of school, which reminded me of friends, school dances, parties...like a living memory book, the events of the year flashed in my head. Faces smiled and hands waved, airplanes took off and hoildays were celebrates.
      Before I realized it, the big mantle clock bonged loudly, announcing the arrival of 11:30 PM. Sitting up, I turned the television on and smiled at the sight of people crowded in Times Square, waiting excitedly for the big ball to drop down and announce the arrival of the new year.
      Famous singers performed on the stage, a few of which I recognized. A blonde woman in a red business suit smiled and announced in an overly cheerful voice, "It's almost time to celebrate the beginning of a new year! And...one more minute left!"
      The camera turned to reveal the glowing ball hanging atop Times Square. 44...43...42...the Jumbotron flashed.
     All of the adults paused their card game and hurried into the living room. "Ten! Nine Eight!" We cheered along with all the other people on television in New York City.
     "Three...two...one!!! Happy New Year!!!" We shouted, clapping and whistling.



Yes, lame, I know...my friend Vanessa (the one who guest posted) gave me this idea: 2013 Book Review Blog Challenge. So basically for the whole year, you blog a review about every single book you've read, even textbooks if you want. You can do it for any amount of time--one month, two months, half year, one year...I'm going to try to keep it up for the whole year, but...whether I'll succeed is a whole 'nother story XP. They don't have to be long reviews--you can just do a short review, like "Captivating, with suspense around every corner" or something like that. Now, since it's the New Year, I thought I'd post my New Year's Resolutions:
1. Blog a lot. Obviously. I'm going to try for at least once a week, but...well, once a week is doable, I think.
2. Get straight-A's. My grades are pretty average, A's and B's, but it's not too often that I get straight-A's, so I want to try for that =)
3. Edit my NaNoWriMo story. Those 52447 words aren't going to revise themselves. (ah, but if only they could....)

There are more, but none important enough to post. Have a happy and prosperous 2013!

--Audrey