TSS: Quite a Week

This week has been a big one for me. Friday, in particular, actually. I feel like each of these deserve a post of their own, but they all happened on the same day, and thus deserve to be mentioned together.

Most relevant to this blog, Friday was my four year blogiversary; I initially started blogging about books before I knew any book bloggers, so it was slow going until summer 2009, when I started to meet other book bloggers through LibraryThing (it’s hard to believe just how many ways LT has enhanced my reading life) and get really into the community. It’s so much easier to get motivated when you know you have people out there looking for you! I love book blogging and while these days it may be a challenge to write a review for every book I read, especially with so much other craziness happening in my life, I am grateful to have my little outlet and a community I can always rely on for a lot more than just book recommendations. In the last four years, I have attained my BA, my MA, my first real job, moved countries, moved around three (soon to be four) times, got married, and experienced countless other smaller achievements and setbacks.

Then, yesterday, we went to see the final Harry Potter film. I’ve been in on the craziness for nearly 12 years and, for me like many others, Harry Potter has been an epic journey that I just didn’t really want to end. I still remember reading the first book for the first time; back then, I was 13 and it was eighth grade, and before the TBR pile I had nothing else new in the house to read for a school assignment. I had already seen other kids reading Harry Potter but I wasn’t particularly interested, and in fact my mom had bought the book because she’d seen it on TV. It was her paperback copy that I proceeded to nearly destroy (we have a hardcover now) as I read it not once, but numerous times over the years as I kept coming back to the series. I remember the excitement of reading it all for the first time and the immediate need I had to keep reading; my parents got me the next two for Christmas and I gobbled them up quickly, too.

Like many others, I went to midnight releases for the next books, notably in the UK for Order of the Phoenix and spectacularly in New York City with two of my close friends for The Deathly Hallows. That was an amazing night, full of other Harry Potter fans in an experience none of us will really have again.

Kindly ignore my red eyes - I promise they're blue in real life.

I proceeded to read the entire book the next day; I’d already reread the previous books in anticipation.

The Harry Potter phenomenon has been such an experience, and while there are aspects of the final film that I wish they hadn’t changed, seeing it on the big screen gives it a new feel for me, and I thought it worked well as a film. I am so glad I took that first step and read the first Harry Potter book all those years ago. Though I’ve been slightly older than Harry and his friends as they grew up, in a sense I experienced many difficult years alongside them. I’m far from the same person I was twelve years ago, and I could never have imagined the directions my life has taken, but Harry and his friends have been right there throughout everything. Now, all I want to do is read the books again. There won’t be any more, but that doesn’t mean I can’t savor the seven that I have, as many times as I wish.

Finally, I left my first job on Friday, and I begin my second on Monday. That first job has offered me so many opportunities and I have grown vastly over my time there, taking on tasks I didn’t even know existed before I started. I’m looking forward to new challenges ahead, moving back to York (yay!), and continuing to see where life takes me.

Thanks for coming along on the ride.