Always: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE MOVIE YET, DO NOT READ FURTHER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

As all of you already know, I went to the midnight premiere of the 8th movie last night with Shayne and Josh (Harry Potter has always been a family thing for us, seems like). 


I had about three hours of sleep last night because we got home around 3:30am. At the premiere, I represented Sssssssslytherin (SLYTHERIN!!!!), of course, and I also donned a Dark Mark (courtesy of my brother, Josh). But today, I'm sporting a Gryffindor shirt and, of course, proudly displaying "I must not tell lies" on my left hand. 


Overall, I liked the movie. I am not wholly disappointed; I did not like the latter half of the movie but not enough to be super mad about it. It is the end after all, and I would feel terrible if I didn't have "proper closure" (in quotes because it isn't really closure--it truly never ends).


We got to the theaters at 7-ish and there were already a lot of people there (3,000-ish by midnight?). We were on the stairs, not a bad spot compared to the poor souls who were all the way across the street near midnight. We played hangman while we waited and I tried making the Deathly Hallows sign with our orange post-its on the floor, but we didn't have enough space . I saw a bunch of people, even some old friends from elementary school. Josh was having fun playing "volleyball" with the beach balls that were bouncing around. 102.7 Da Bomb was there and I think the music that the DJ was blasting was the reason for my massive pre-movie headache. The costumes were amazing but I expected more people to dress up. There were a lot of Dobbys walking around, I saw a Quirrell, several Harrys, a lot of Hedwigs and Death Eaters, a couple of Voldemorts, and a Snape-and-Lily couple, and a lot more. I cheered for someone I saw on the escalators who was dressed as Ron Weasley and was  also wearing a blue headband (Joey!) and I saw someone in line at the concession stand wearing an actual Scarf of Sexuality (I wanted to give her a high five). The lines for the bathroom were so bad that there was even a line for the men's room. One girl in line just didn't want to wait any longer so she went inside the men's room (haha).


We sat up front, maybe in the 8th-ish row, so we were pretty front-front and the screen was huge. But it wasn't bad. We thought it was gonna be uncomfortable but it wasn't. I was sitting with my legs up on the seat, my ankles tucked as far back against my butt as possible and I was hugging my knees the whole time to keep myself from shaking. 


They started the movie late, around 12:08-ish maybe. Someone dressed up as Voldemort went down in front of the screen at one point and yelled "Avada Kedavra", pointing his wand at someone dressed up as Harry in the back. People cheered. I don't know why. We also did minute by minute countdowns (which failed because the movie was late).


My thoughts in random order:
-I think the movie was incredibly fast-paced. When the words "19 YEARS LATER" showed up on the screen, I was like, "That's it? This is the end? Noooooooo!!!!"
-When Voldemort ordered Lucius to call Snape, I started to tear up (I thought Alan Rickman was amazing. I've always liked Snape but now . . . MARRY ME, SNAPE, PLEASE). I started bawling when Nagini killed Snape (They made it so graphic without really showing anything because of that screen/wall/thing) and I just couldn't stop after that. I was just crying non-stop--I'm talking tears streaming down my face, sobbing and shaking to keep quiet kind of crying--for the rest of the movie.
-My favorite chapter in the whole series is "The Prince's Tale" so I was pretty excited to see that. I was a bit disappointed to find out that they decided to keep Snape "super good"; they didn't really show him slowly turning to a Death Eater and fighting with Lily because of his "dark ways". 
-I also noticed that they did that for Dumbledore--it wasn't clear that he wasn't the perfect person, that he actually wanted power and everything when he was younger, because Aberforth didn't go too much into detail about his relationship with Dumbledore. The movie definitely downplayed their faults, not to mention the overall darkness of the book. 
-The beginning was very very very faithful to the book, which I liked--there were parts where it was almost word-for-word the same.
-OMG, FRED, LUPIN, TONKS (I am still crying inside). 
-I liked how David Yates added that short clip where Fred and George were getting ready to fight and George was like, "You all right there, Freddie?" and FRED LOOKED SO SCARED (I whimpered when I saw this).
-And I also liked how Yates had that part where, right before the war, Lupin and Tonks were reaching for each other's hands but they didn't quite make it. And then, the next time we saw them, they were dead, still reaching for each other's hands. Yates gets a nod from me for that. 
-I thought Helena Bonham Carter did well pretending to be Hermione pretending to be Bellatrix. I really felt like I was watching Hermione trying to act like Bellatrix (but I found the fact that they kept Hermione's voice a bit irritating). 
-And why was the Imperius Curse treated so lightly? It seemed amusing, not evil.
-I hated Griphook (but then again, I hated him in the book too, that bastard). 
-I fell in love with how they did the dragon--I loved its eyes, its horns, its color, its seemingly scale-lessness (it didn't have scales, right?). 
-The Hufflepuff cup, in my head when I first read the book, looked more like Chip from Beauty and the Beast, but it was more like a golden goblet in the movie. 
-I was so looking forward to seeing the reunion with Percy! But I guess because they didn't make a big deal out of it in the fifth movie, it would have been weird to do so in the last movie. The Room of Requirement bits were funny, though (especially Seamus' comment about Ginny, Ron and Harry).
-Where were the creatures?? The house-elves, the hippogriffs, the good giants (Grawp?!), the centaurs? 
-Which brings me to the "war" which didn't really feel like a war. I mean, it felt like it was just a handful of people protecting the castle (which was filled with students just running around). In my mind, I liked how the war was so busy, so BOOM (as McGonagall so eloquently put it in the movie). Rowling had people running around, dueling in every corner, throwing Mandrakes and crystal balls at the enemies. And they didn't really have that.
-The battle between Voldemort and Harry? Um, okay, what was all that? I thought it was too long, and unnecessary until the point where they actually dueled outside in the courtyard (because essentially, that was what was supposed to happen). 
-Why didn't Harry fix his old broken wand?!
-Hermione and Ron's kiss was pretty random. We all cheered for that one. But Ginny's and Harry's was awkward.
-Kendall's in the movie: when Voldemort tried hugging Draco, the whole theater was just, "Uhhh, what the--? What is going on? OMG, we already know he doesn't know how to hug because he doesn't know love!" and I also thought of Kendall. Ninth-grade Kendall, haha.
-I liked the continuation of the Malfoy family's "disintegration". If you look at the whole series overall, they went from pureblood supremacists and supporters of the Dark Lord to a family trying and struggling to stay together. In the end, when they walked away from Hogwarts once they got Draco back, it was clear that only one thing mattered to them at that point: their family.
-We cheered when Bellatrix died. Go Mrs. Weasley!
-I thought Neville was amazing. We cheered for him, too.
-The bloody Voldemort baby was horrible--but it was especially freaky to me because of my cursed fear of fetuses (Fetuses? Fetusi? What is the plural?).
-I wanted to see little Teddy!


That's it for now. Kendall and Tiffany are dressed up today: Kendall's wearing his Gryffindor robes and Tiff's in Ravenclaw garb. Tiff also went to the midnight premiere but at another theater. Kendall hasn't watched it yet, so HA.


All right, that's it for now because I have to work soon.


Oh, and HAPPY 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY, KENDALL!


Today....
I really loved...Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II.
I smiled because...of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II.
Lyrics playing in my head right now:
"I gotta always keep in mind: another great adventure waits on the other side. I'll see you on the other side..." (On the Other Side by M.O.M.)
Friend of the day: Severus Snape. Oh and Kendall, of course.
Hours of sleep last night: 3-ish (I drank this really good Butter Toffee coffee this morning to wake myself up...mmmmm...)

I Like the Word "Hooligans"

We have two big things coming up real soon, but before I dive in, let me show you my senior schedule.


Period 1: AP English (Longo)
Ehh, I was hoping maybe for Lagory but I think Ms. Longo is nice.
Period 2: AP Spanish (Melo)
Same classmates, same teacher for the past two years...
Period 3: AP Calculus AB (Park)
This made my day when my schedule came home. YES I HAVE PARK WHAATT.
Period 4: Maybe free? Or scholarship?
Period 5: AP Gov (Milks)
Yeah.
Period 6: Maybe free? Or scholarship?
FREE PERIOD PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE.
Period 7: Maybe free? Or scholarship?
Remember Cole? The one with that weird complex? Yeah, that Cole. We help make the Main Office rock more than it usually does.
Period 8: AP Bio (Shimamoto)
Biology, oh, how I have missed you!!! Kendall and I are having a competition. I am going to win.


Sadly, Kendall and I do not have any classes together. Except homeroom with Mama Hall. And, maybe, hopefully, period 6 party-slash-free period?


[Evan insert starts here]
All right, I'm super sad that I do not have my English 9 class with Dr. Won. We were the craziest, most sexually perverted class ever...and I loved every minute of it. Many of our jokes were about me...unfortunately...but I will always remember my BFFs: ZACHARIAH, SEAN MICHELLE, and DELIRIOUS.
[Evan insert ends here]


Just a side note, the only reason that the jokes were all about me in English 9 was that I was apparently "too innocent at the time" and everyone laughed whenever they thought I didn't get any of Shakespeare's dirty jokes (I understood them, I just didn't feel like it was necessary to laugh out loud or make annoying comments...except for that bench-pressing question...). Oh, and uh "flying ham"? Or was it "frying spam"?


Anyway, our two big things: Our anniversary and Harry Potter! And they're on the same day! Not really, but kind of.


First off: OUR ANNIVERSARY. So, let me tell you the story of the summer of '09, a boy named Kendall, a girl named Jen and the birth of this blog.


It all started in the summer of 2009. We were in summer school. I was taking Geometry B and, although Kendall registered late for a summer class because he only realized sometime during the last several weeks of that school year that he had nothing to do for the summer, he managed to get in one of the morning Write Right! classes (he was an idiot back when we were freshmen, he says so himself). Kendall's class finished at 10 and I usually got out of class at 12:30. I took the bus home almost every day after class and Kendall sometimes walked with me to the bus stop (Notice how he didn't "walk me" but "walked with me"? I love syntax.)


*flashback*
Jen: Walk with me to the bus stop?
Kendall: No.
Jen: What if I get raped?!
Kendall: Uhh...what if I get raped on my way back?
*flashback ends*

Maybe it was on July 12 or 13 when I showed Kendall my bucket list, a list of things that I would like to do before I die, as we walked to the bus stop. He decided to take it home for the day just to look at it (it was a long list) and he came back the next day with a paper filled with his comments about my list. He starred the things that either he also wanted to do or simply made him smile to know that I wanted to do them. But on July 14, 2009, as Kendall waited for my class to finish (he hung out in the library during those two hours like all cool people do), he created an account here on Blogger because one of the things on my bucket list was to "create a blog". As I walked toward our usual morning bench after my class, he came and met me halfway and handed me a piece of paper. He had printed out a page from the blog he had created for me. 


But something happened with that one (maybe he forgot the password, or he couldn't get in anymore or whatever) so the first try FAILed. 

So on July 15, 2009, we tried again in the computer lab during the half-hour recess before my geometry class. And our very first post was born on that day. 

I don't think we were really thinking, or planning anything special: we just wanted to create a blog because, well, because we had never done it before. I don't remember a conversation between us, agreeing that we would share this blog and that we would do all of the things on Kendall's list (his list of comments and starred items and smiley faces, a response to my bucket list) together, hopefully before we physically separated for college. There was no planning, no laying out of what we were going to do and how this was all going to work. Things just sort of happened, and we felt them happening, so we let them happen because we knew, or at least guessed, that if we hadn't, if we had tried to control things, we would not be the people we are now and we would not be the best friends we are now.


If you read our earliest posts, you can tell we were quite young and immature back then. We posted random things (even more so than our usual dose of randomness) and updated irregularly. There were long bouts of neglect and occasional  spurts of posts. The first blog didn't look like this little beauty you're looking at now either. I did a lot of the remodeling last summer when I had a lot more time in my hands. 

Kendall also helped, I think, but his biggest concern was that he didn't like the maroon color of the title header (I kept it anyway so HA!). 

We did BEDA(ugust) for the first time that year, and we updated more and more and more during our junior year to make up for our sophomore year.

And here we are. 


I think I've said this in a previous post, but I honestly cannot say when Kendall and I became best friends (probably because you can't really pinpoint a specific moment in time like that because becoming best friends isn't like turning a page in a book). But in my mind, it all started with this blog. With who(m?) else in the whole wide world would I share a blog and a bucket list? We became good friends when we were freshmen, but I didn't start thinking of him as my best friend until the summer of 2009. I had a pretty harsh sophomore year (we don't need to get into that) and he was one of the people who made it better and stayed with me. So I guess you could say that it all started with this blog. 


Maybe Kendall has a different angle to this story, but this is my angle. Maybe he'll share his with you later, if it's any different from mine (KENDALL, I'M SURE YOU DID NOT THINK OR FEEL THE SAME WAY AS I DID, SO DO IT. YOU BETTER.)


The cool thing is that, here we are, two years later. And on the same day, the final movie of something we both hold very dear to our hearts, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, comes out. And what better way to celebrate our two years of awesome bestfriendship and ten years of our lives engulfed in a magical whirlwind of spells, Hogwarts, gingers, house elfs and more than to GO TO THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE PREMIERE TOGETHER?! That would have been the coolest thing, if only we were doing exactly that, RIGHT?!?!


Kendall will explain because, you know, it's all because of him that it's not happening. And because I actually have to go work now...


Today....
I really loved...the air conditioning in the CCO.
I smiled because...I got a pretty rose from the Kapiolani Women's Center.
Lyrics playing at this very moment:
"I'll take you higher in the clouds..." (Evan...)
Friend of the day: Evan
Hours of sleep last night: 6