In conjunction with #HarryPotterBookNight, today's post is obviously about Harry Potter!
The series is a big part of my life growing up. I’ve been
hooked on the series since I watch the first movies with my cousins.
Okay so this breaks my ‘book to movie’ adaptation rule where
I watched the movies before I read the books but I was like 9 and didn’t have a
rule back than!
I did however learned a lot of things from reading the series so here are 7 things the series thought me.
Lesson 1: NEVER
READ A SERIES OUT OF PUBLICATION ORDER!I actually started the series with the Bahasa Malaysia (BM) editions as I was weak in the language (FYI it’s now my second language) in primary school and my parents thought by getting me to read it could improve my language skills.
I did eventually read the English editions though my experience with it was very ‘unusual’. Around the time The Order of the Phoenix being released in paperback, I've read the first three books in BM, skipped the Goblet of Fire and immediately read OotP.
Haha, looking back to reading OoTP, 11-year-old me was very loss and confused about what in the world of Merlins was happening as I felt like I was missing a huge chunk of a story!
Questions were racing through my mind like why does everyone hate Harry?, wth is this tournament?, who the eff is this
Doggery? AND THE LIST GOES ON!
Obviously I was missing a huge chunk because I skipped
Goblet!
Lesson 2: WAITING
GAME
Anyone who read all the Harry Potter books will tell you that waiting for the next book to come out is a waiting game of patience.
For me it was not just waiting for the Half-Blood Prince or
Deathly Hollows to be released but its also for collecting the English editions
and waiting for my exams to be over so that I can devoured them!
This is no a joke! When my major school exams was over,
most of my classmates will run out to the nearest mall/cinema while I’ll run
home (okay more of to my dad’s car who will drive me home) to read the Harry
Potter Books that have been locked away months prior to the exams.
The moment I was done with my UPSR (primary school exams)
the first thing I did was devoured Goblet of Fire and it was as satisfying as finding
the missing pieces of the puzzle.
Lesson 3: Different cover same content!!!
When Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hollows were released, I
was ‘pre-order at the bookshop’ excited and apparently my mum was too that she
ordered two copies when both books were released.
Reason why she ordered two? The Bloomsbury UK edition had
the ‘Children version’ and the ‘Adult version’ of the covers and my mum thought
it was different contents… um…
Imagine the fun I had, explaining to her that it’s the same
content but different covers. Anyways no complain as I have double copies of
each (though I have no idea where my parents boxed up the Adult edition so it’s
not in the pic)
Lesson 4: The beginning
of being a bookish fangirl nerd
Harry Potter was one of the first series I’ve read and completed
not to mention re read countless times. Its also the first fandom I associated myself with.
While I had a handful of friends to talk/fangirl about the
series (Hi Christine, Renjitha and Soraya!!!) IT WAS NOT ENOUGH!
One way or another I found sites like SnitchSeeker (this was
prior to me finding or the existence of Tumblr and Instagram) and while I was
never active with the forums and interaction, it was fun reading them and
seeing all the gifs and pics.
Lesson 5: RAVENCRAW
FOR LIFE!
Its funny how my whole family thinks that my favourite house
is Gryffindor (don’t get me wrong I still love that house) but over the years
of reading the series I’ve find myself associate more to Ravenclaw.
I’ve taken multiple quizzes including the pottermore quiz
and most of them I got sorted to Ravenclaw.
And NO it has nothing to do with the character Cho Chang in
fact she is probably one of my least favourite characters in the series. However it does have a bit to do with the character Luna
Lovegood.
Lesson 6: Memories
I have a lot of memories associated with reading the series, the
good, the bad and the ugly. Funny thing is that most of them take place in
secondary school maybe it’s because there where I find time to read most.
One UGLY memory was when I was reading PoA while crossing
this walkway to my class and accidentally dropped the book into the drain!
UGHHHH!!! I’m cringing at this as I was walking with my eyes glue to the book!
Anyway for some miracle the book survived and it’s still readable.
Another kinda bad memory was when a Prefect wanted to confiscate
the OotP I was reading saying it was against school rules to read Harry Potter.
Remember the Lion head on Luna Lovegood’s head? That
was what I become, the Lion not Luna.
Bahasa Malaysia 101: Rampas- Confiscate.
I kinda went 16-year-old Drama Queen
and shouted at her ‘THAT’S NOT FAIR!
TEACHER A, B AND C SAW ME READ IT SO MANY TIMES AND THEY NEVER RAMPAS THEM! HECK
I HAVE BEEN READING IT SINCE PRIMARY AND WHY NOW YOU ONLY WANT TO RAMPAS THE
BOOK AWAY FROM ME?!’\
Yah I over reacted but that’s kinda what will happen if
someone takes away the book. For the record my school does not ban Harry Potter
so I didn’t do anything wrong.
Lesson 7: Its
worth the re read and marathoning
I am one of those people who re read the series countless
times! Heck two weeks prior to the released of deathly hollow I marathon the
existing books to pump myself up for the final book and also to refresh my
memory of the series.
One thing I love about the series is its re read worthy as every
time I pick up the book I find or understand things I didn’t pick up before.
My favourite to re read is OoTP especially anything to do
with the professor McGonagall vs Umbridge moments as apparently 11-year-old me
didn’t understand the awesomeness of McGonagall sass.
So that’s all I have for this ramble post! Discover/ Re discover
the magic of Harry Potter and pick up the books!
