Nostalgia

Today was the HPA's Helping Haiti Heal campaign, in which in just under six hours Harry Potter fans raised over $32,000 for Haiti. I am now in this very difficult-to-explain mood. I was on facebook and randomly came across some HP bumper stickers, and for whatever reason I was immediately brought back into this wave of... Harry Potter? It is difficult to explain, but what people don't realize is that HP is a default setting for me, and I really have been out of the series for months now. It has been a while since I have felt the connection with the series I used have, but today I had this random relapse into it, causing much nostalgia. This led me to looking through my old "Harry Potter" folder on my computer (created in 2005, 183 files of who knows what, and I have added one document to it in the past two years). I came across a document titled "jkr reading" which was a descriptive recount of "An Evening of Harry, Carrie, and Garp" which I attended in August of 2006. I believe the whole thing was actually an email I wrote to Cat Do (do any of you know her? She knows everyone at TJ...) for whatever reason, I think she asked me how it was and I had to write the whole thing in a word document because it was so long. I will post it here, and please excuse my chat speak, because I was apparently too cool of a 13 year old to write out "to" and "be."

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS LIKE THE AWESOMEST THING EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK. Calm down. *takes deep breath*

I shall start @ the beginning. We were in Manhattan all day (went 2 a museum. freezing cold inside, burning hot outside). Then we went 2 a restaurant where we saw this guy with an ID badge thing that said "An Evening w/Harry Carry and Garp" (the name of the actual reading, in case u didn’t know). My mom went up 2 him and was like "I couldn’t help but notice your id badge thing" and she talked 2 him and he was like, "yeah I already met her today and she’s great and it’s gonna b great 2nite." OMG this guy actually MET JKR!!!!!!!! So then we went back 2 the parking garage where we parked our car 2 get our binoculars. My dad and Isaac got 'em and then they went into this music store and took 4EVER. So I was like freaking out cuz I was afraid we would b l8, and my mom was getting really pissed @ me, but eventually they came. We went 2 radio city, and waited in line 4 not 2 long. I felt so badly dressed, cuz I wasn’t wearing anything hp, and there were a bunch of people wearing hp shirts. Oh well. we got in and I heard this group of girls talking and 1 of them was like "OMG I just meant Jamie!" and that means she just met Jamie from mugglenet/mugglecast, and I was SOOOO jealous, but w/e. there was this big lobby with a bunch of people (some were dressed up like hp!). I was hoping I would get 2 meet some1 from MuggleNet, but I didn’t. Then we went upstairs, cuz u know our seats were @ the very top. We found our seats and I was SOOOO flippen out cuz u know, JKR was in the same building as me!!!! There was some music playing from the themes of the movies [from the books of the three authors that would b reading 2nite]. So an hp song would play, then some song from another movie, and so on. (The other 2 guys were Stephan King and John Irving, in case u didn’t know) then there were a couple announcements, and then the place went dark! I was COMPLETELY flipping out @ this point. Then WHOOPI GOLDBERG came on stage! That was awesome! She introduced the three authors and talked 4 a while. After that, they showed this video clip with clips of the authors and the movies from their books. Really cool! Then this woman came on and she introduced Stephan King (talked about him, she was funny!). 1 thing that was really cool was that whenever these people would talk, they would b standing @ this podium that looked as though it were made up of 3 books, each with 1 of the authors name on it. So then they showed a video of Stephan King, with him and his movies and his books and other boring stuff. While the movie was paying, this kinda mini platform thing was moving on the dark stage and stopped @ 1 end of the stage. When the video ended, the lights on the stage came on and he walked on. On the mini platform thing, there was obviously some scene from 1 of his books, so I didn’t really get it cuz of course; I haven’t read any of them. There was a chair and a table next 2 it with a water bottle. He read a really weird part of 1 of his books 4 like 40 min, and then they did the same thing 4 the other guy, John Irving. Finally it was Jo's turn. This guy from some show introduced her and then they showed the video clip. I seriously started 2 tear up and get emotional when I saw it, but u know, that’s me! it showed some short clips of her, some footage from midnight book releases, showed clips from hp (the part from movie 1 when they were on the train and Hermione fixed his glasses; and after the chess game when Hermione said “your a great wizard, u really r"; and I don’t remember the rest). Then, omgomgomgomg, she came on!!!! I was like screaming and freaking out cuz JO ROWLING WAS STANDING ON DA STAGE IN FRONT OF ME!!!!! Well, maybe I was in the back, back row, so I was kinda far away, but still!!!! (@ this point, I quickly text messaged Hannah McFarland cuz she was my only hp fan friend who's cell phone # was on my phone and it was like "OMG JKR is on the stage right this second in front of me!!!) She sat down in her 3rd mini platform thing, which had a throne thing 4 a chair and a table with a glass of water. she started 2 read from the Half Blood Prince part which I will not tell you about right now, because I want u 2 read the book yourself!. Then she was done, and she took a couple of questions from the freakishly lucky people who got the front seats. the first Q was "what would Hermione see if she looked in2 the mirror of Erised?" and her answer was something along the lines of (I don’t remember exactly) "she would see herself with Harry and Ron and they would all b safe and unscathed and Voldemort would b gone." and then she added "and she would also probably see herself closely entwined with another person...." (Guess who?) She took a couple other questions like "can a muggles brew potions," which was "no, magic will eventually b involved", some boring question like "will Snape or Draco ever redeem himself" or something like that, and there was no real solid answer ("maybe, they might..."). Next was another boring question ("why did Ollivander chose the wand cores he did?" answer:" I had a whole list and those r my favorites"), and the last 1's were also boring, u can look them up on the internet. The other 2 authors came on stage and answered a few more questions and then it was over. I wanted 2 wait outside the door 2 get an autograph, but my mom wouldn’t let me cuz we would b leaving 2 come home the next morning @ 5 and I didn’t know how long she would b there 4, and Isaac was tired. So yeah. AWESOME!!!!!!