These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Blogger ate my actual post, so here are some pretty pictures instead:

Credit goes to selene231 on DeviantArt; go to her page there if you can't see the picture well.

Credit goes to HP fanartist Heather Campbell

Credit goes to HP fanartist Marta Tieves

Various and Sundry

This week's miscellany:

• Lauren made a delicious pink lemonade pie for her and Alex's cookout on Saturday, and I liked it so much I looked up a recipe and threw it together last night. As it turns out, there was leftover filling, so I made another one tonight for Fourth of July weekend.
• Going to the grocery store easily adds another two hours or so to my daily routine, however, so I decided not to trek all the way out to Barracks for pre-made pie crust. Instead, I bought some graham crackers at CVS and mixed up my own.
• Unfortunately, I could not get the graham crackers to "sand consistency" no matter how many times I hit them with a hammer (they were in a Ziploc bag). My crust is therefore very lumpy and takes up way more of the pie pan than with the store-bought kind.
• I also made mint chocolate chip pie because I had cheap ice cream in my freezer (it was 2 boxes for $5 at Harris Teeter, so I bought French vanilla for the pink lemonade pie and mint chocolate chip because it's my favorite). Betty Crocker recommended a chocolate crust, so I went ahead and made an Oreo crust. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it tastes all right.
• I now have an insane number of dishes to wash. Ugh.
• It costs the same amount of money to laundry here as it does in the dorms, and there's no conveniently-located quarter machine nearby. I've been meaning to do my laundry for three days now, and I can finally get to it after going to the Corner to get change.
• There is a possibility that I might have two houseguests this weekend. Exciting!
• Virginia mosquitoes are vicious. I can't remember the last time I had this many bites.
• I may or may not have watched the Brave trailer (see yesterday's post) five times today.
• The button on my umbrella broke off and I'm not sure how to fix it, or if I even can. Of course this happened today, when it was pouring rain outside. At least the buses run on Tuesdays.
• The next West Wing episode on the list is "Celestial Navigation." YES.
• I like that I can roundly verbally abuse Antonin Scalia at work and not get in trouble for it.
• My brother is in Chicago right now. He was accepted to a summer program, which means he'll actually get to figure out his way around campus before the other freshmen do and not look completely lost for the first few weeks of the quarter. Haha. I'm kind of miffed UVa never offered me anything like this, though.
• I rescued The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from the $5 bin at Bed, Bath, and Beyond yesterday. I'm so glad to finally have my own copy, since my family cruelly denied me the one at home.
• No work on Saturday! I haven't had a day off in over a week now!

Uber-Geek Time!

BRAVE TRAILER BRAVE TRAILER BRAVE TRAILER:


Nothing more to add. I cannot wait to see this amazing movie.

How I Ended Up Spending My Sunday Afternoon Talking About the Death Penalty

One of my absolute favorite West Wing episodes is the first season's "Take This Sabbath Day." It works well as a standalone (notice there aren't any previouslies before the title card), treats religious faith respectfully, and provides a thought-provoking commentary on a complicated topic, in this case the death penalty. My own views on the death penalty have evolved since I started watching this show at age fifteen, but I'd like to think West Wing played some small part in changing them. Life issues are not easy for me. For example, I support a woman's right to have an abortion because I think she should be able to decide what she does with her own body. No one should be forced to go through a pregnancy, and if the woman in question does decide to terminate one, she should be able to do it safely. However, I completely understand and respect the pro-life position, and I think we can all work together on preventing unplanned pregnancies (which is why easy access to birth control and family planning is so important, but that's another conversation for another day). Suffice to say that I don't believe any of these issues can be reduced to soundbyte status without drastic oversimplification.

I am opposed to the death penalty. I understand why its supporters feel it is necessary, I really do. The people being executed have committed heinous crimes (most of the time), and many of them should never be allowed to see the light of day again. But I don't think that the state has the right to kill anyone. At risk of moving into straw man territory, I see the death penalty as state-sanctioned murder. Nor do I believe that the "eye for an eye" mentality is particularly valid. I know the reasoning behind it, but I just think the state should be above it. According to my own Christian beliefs, vengeance is neither productive nor healthy, and while perhaps in our eyes those on death row don't deserve it, everyone is capable of final grace and redemption. Obviously these are loaded words to be throwing around, and they are definitely concepts I'd like to explore further, in religious (i.e. a Wesley forum) and nonreligious (i.e. one of my politics classes) contexts alike. Basically, I just think that killing someone for committing a crime brings the state down to the level of the criminal. That, and there's always a possibility, especially among those jailed before the advent of DNA testing, that someone on death row has been wrongfully convicted. Why not nullify the risk that you are putting to death an innocent person?

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because it is the episode Pooja and I watched today. One of The West Wing's greatest strengths is its ability to generate discussions like this (which is basically what Pooja and I talked about after the episode). It takes the time to delve into complicated issues, explore the arguments on both sides, and leave the audiences at home space to draw their own conclusions (even if, as is the case in this episode, the characters' consensus skews one way or another). I've said before that this show is like crack to a government major, and this post should tell you exactly why. Also, they used this little anecdote to talk about the way God works:

You know, you remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town. And that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, 'I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.'

The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted, 'Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.' But the man shouted back, 'I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.'

A helicopter was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, 'Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I'll take you to safety.' But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety.

Well... the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God. 'Lord,' he said, 'I'm a religious man, I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?'

God said, 'I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?


Of course it's been used in other places (I can think of The Pursuit of Happyness off the top of my head), but I still love it. Oh West Wing. It's like you were made with me in mind or something.

¿Que está pasando?

Today was a typical Charlottesville summer Saturday. I got up, went to the Farmer's Market, bought crepes for breakfast (strawberry-cinnamon-white chocolate = A+), worked at Mira's, and had fun at Lauren and Alex's get-together. Unfortunately, I'm still recovering from my adventures in babysitting yesterday, so all you're getting is a perfunctory drive-by post again tonight. I think some iPod Monopoly and/or Sims 2 playing is in order. Until tomorrow!

So Tired

Yet so happy! I got to look after adorable children all day. I think this qualifies as a win.

Jo Rowling, The Things You Do to Me

Technically I am an adult, but I'm still not sure it's a good idea to foist me and my decision-making skills upon the world. Maybe this is why I still have at least two years of college to go. Case in point? Last night, I was seriously considering not sleeping at all, despite the fact that I live on the East Coast, so I could have had plenty of rest if I had gone to bed at my usual time, and I have to look after small children at work today, so it's probably a good idea to have had a decent amount of sleep. Instead? I Skyped with one of my best friends for about three hours and finally decided I was tired enough to try to sleep just before four in the morning. Responsibility, I has it.

My Potter obsession being what it is, I was still up well before my 6:45 alarm, but thankfully the half an hour before the announcement seemed to fly by. The countdown ticked away, reminding me of book-release days and entire stores full of people eagerly chanting with the last ten seconds. I waited for the video to load (the Internet in my apartment makes YouTube work like molasses), took a deep breath, and hit play.

I have to admit, at first blush I was a little underwhelmed. Jo (who is my hero forever and always, don't get me wrong) was incredibly vague, and the second she said the word "October" I headdesked (or headpillowed, as the case may be). I'm still not sure it was worth all the buildup of the past week. BUT, once I resigned myself to the fact that I'm not getting Pottermore until the fall, and got over the impression I had that the site seems geared toward a younger audience than my generation, I really did start to feel excited. I don't really care about getting Sorted and going to Diagon Alley, to be perfectly honest, but I am so thrilled that we're getting new backstory. Jo is now saying a physical encyclopedia may not happen, which leads me to believe she'll be putting much of that material on Pottermore. In which case, be still my heart. In particular, apparently we're going to hear about young McGonagall, which is incredibly exciting to me for reasons I don't quite understand. Then again, McGonagall is one of my favorite characters, especially among the adults, so perhaps it's not that surprising that I'd love to find out where her awesome came from.

Anyway, here, I think, are the takeaways from this morning's experience. 1) Aida, seriously, stop losing your mind over J. K. Rowling announcements. 1A) Except they're J. K. Rowling announcements. That's asking rather a lot. 1B) Okay, but sleep is important, too. Even if you don't have to be at work until one. 1C) Sleep or Harry Potter? Come on, we all know the answer to that one. 1D) Harry Potter, OBVS. But next time, go to sleep before three in the morning, yeah? 1E) Yeah, I'm basically going to be a zombie today. No big. OMNOMNOM BRAINS. 2) Expectations versus reality. Expectations versus reality. Expectations versus reality. 3) Think of the children! Don't forget that, as much as it drives you crazy when anyone dismisses HP as a series of "kids' books," you were a kid when you fell in love with them. There are worse things than Pottermore being skewed to a slightly younger audience. 4) Wow, this entire paragraph is full of stream-of-consciousness rambling. Oops.

Okay, time to either try to go back to bed or wake myself up with a shower.