Heh, heh, heh...

So I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, not really at least. The last three days have been a whirlwind of finishing reading the books, trying to stay on top of my writing, cleaning my apartment, prepping for the movie, and bracing myself for the bittersweet ending of the last twelve years of my life.

Fear not, however, I have not forgotten my goal. It'll just get done in the next day or two. (Obviously Harry Potter never taught me about not procrastinating...)

But here's the sneak peak of lessons: constant vigilance, love and sacrifice, saying goodbye and taking that frightful step forward.

Cheers.

Life Lessons Day Four

Are you getting sick of these yet? Because I'm not. HA!

Lesson Five: You can learn something from everyone you meet, so pay attention!

This is just kind of a hodge-podge lesson. I believe there's something to be learned from every person who crosses your path in life (even if that lesson is you shouldn't be a jerk to people to have crappy jobs). So here are some individual mini-lessons from different Harry Potter characters.

Harry taught me how to keep fighting, even when the odds look grim.

Ron taught me that it's okay to admit you've made a mistake. You're friends will forgive you.

Hermione taught me to embrace my intelligence.

Fred and George taught me that you can make your career dreams come true if you try hard enough.

Dumbledore taught me that everyone deserves a second chance.

Lupin taught me that you can still be a good person even if crap things have happened to you.

Sirius showed me the values of loyalty and friendship.

Neville taught me that it's never too late to take a stand.

Snape taught me that love conquers all.

Bellatrix taught me how not to be a crazy psychopath.

Luna showed me how to love myself for who I am--quirks and all.

The Dursleys taught me how to not raise my future children.

Lily Potter taught me the importance of sacrifice.

There's really so much more and I could expound on everything I've written here a hundred-fold. But the long and short of this lesson is that everyone has something to offer you. I firmly believe that you can always learn something from the people you meet (or read about). Whether they help you or hurt you, there's a lesson there to be learned.

Life Lessons Day Three

Lesson Three: Trust your friends. You don't have to bear your burdens alone.

I have been blessed with some pretty phenomenal friends over the course of my life. If you don't believe me, ask me about them sometime. I can gush for a good 6 or 7 and not think anything of it. I'm talking really stellar people, who for one reason or another, seem to think I'm worth their time and friendship as well. And while I've always been ready and willing to drop everything for any one of those friends, I've always been hesitant to allow them to do the same for me.

I know I'm not alone in this. It's hard to ask for help. It's hard to trust people. It's hard to admit that you can't handle things on or own. It's hard to confide in someone when you know they're just going to worry and you want to spare them that.

So I've always been grateful that one of the overarching themes of the Harry Potter series is to trust the people around you. Trusting people is a scary thing. It can backfire on you with catastrophic results. Case and point: James and Lily Potter (and I guess you could Sirius as well) trusted Peter Pettigrew to be their Secret Keeper. They trusted that he was still their friend, that he still had their best interests in mind. Really, though, he was a treacherous little sneak and had already sold out to Voldemort. Because James and Lily (and Sirius) trusted Peter, they lost their lives, Sirius lost his freedom, Lupin lost all of his friends in the space of about 48 hours, Harry lost his parents, etc etc.

But with the Peter Pettigrew incident aside, the Harry Potter books teach a lot about trust and learning to rely on other people and accept their help. Because Harry is a typical fantasy hero, he tries to do everything himself. He doesn't want to put other people in danger, he doesn't want other people to risk themselves for him, and he doesn't want to admit that he needs help sometime. After all, in archetypal hero always faces the foe alone. That always seemed silly to me. You know, no man is an island and all that.

But Harry hardly does anything alone. He was blessed with some remarkable friends--Ron and Hermione chief among them. He has friends who are willing to stand at his side, regardless of how moody he's being or how many people are targeting him. They care about him. They want to help him. At the beginning of Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore counsels Harry to confide in his friends, saying that Harry does them a disservice by not trusting them. He goes on to remind Harry that Sirius, who has recently fallen in battle, would not want Harry to shut himself off.

There are plenty of times when Harry tries to shut himself off from his friends. When he thinks that Voldemort's possessing him in Order of the Phoenix or when he realizes that he's going to have to go on a country wide search for Horcruxes at the end of Half-Blood Prince. In both instances, his friends refuse to let him retreat. Ron assures him that "we're with you whatever happens." I think it's safe to say that Harry wouldn't have gotten through the things he did without their assistance. Where would he be without Hermione's hard work and intelligence? Where would he be without Ron's heart and humor?

Six feet under, would be the appropriate answer.

Harry's ability to trust and love his friends is one of his defining features--and it's definitely one of his qualities that set him apart from Voldemort. Despite all he's been through, despite the abuse he's suffered at his aunt and uncle's hands, despite the number of times he's seen Hogwarts faculty break faith with the school (ie Quirell, Lockhart, Moody, and (supposedly) Snape), despite the number of times when Ron let petty jealousy or moodiness get in the way of their friendship, Harry continues to trust them. While Harry's reliance on his friends may have caused more problems for them (and by "may have," I mean "definitely"), he couldn't have done what he did without them. Had their situations been reversed, I don't doubt that Harry wouldn't have done the same for his friends. He always comes to Ron's defense when Malfoy starts on Ron's family. He still hands by Hermione, even though she can be an overbearing know-it-all at times.

The true nature of friendship is selflessness and trust. You help your friends because you want to, because you care about them and want the best for them, and you trust them to do the same for you. I don't think I can count the number of times when my friends have pulled through for me even (and perhaps especially) when I'm feeling wretched and unloveable. Being able to confide in your friends isn't a sign of weakness. It's not a sign that you can't handle things or that you're weak. In fact (and I think Professor Dumbledore would agree with me), I would say it's a sign of great strength. At the end of the day, it takes more strength, more faith, to trust someone than to not.

Life Lessons Day Two

Welcome to Day Two of Life Lessons from the Magical World of Harry Potter.

Lesson Two: "The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve." Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I started reading the Harry Potter books at the tender age of nine, so I think I can safely say that I've grown up with dear Fred and George and I've developed that same "anything's possible" mentality as Ginny.

The books are filled with wonder and magic, but magic isn't the cure-all solution that one would assume it is. The characters in these books still struggle through their problems--from the mundane problems of homework, finicky teachers, and school relationships to the overwhelming problems of being hunted down by a psycho-serial killer--as though there were nothing magical about them. To them, the fantastic elements of their world are as mundane as the electrical elements of our world. And in the end, they have to sort out their problems the same way we do--with a lot hard work, diligence, and perseverance.

Because Gryffindor is the house of the brave and the daring, it shouldn't be surprising that so many of those characters have "got enough nerve" to chase after their dreams and solve their problems. But for someone as shy as I am (and I know, to some of you who know me, you're thinking: "Sarah? Shy? Hardly!"), sometimes summoning that nerve is hard, so I've always been grateful for such stellar examples of what you can achieve when you put your mind to it. Fred and George opened a joke shop. The marauders became animagi at the age of 15. Ron finally got the girl. And Harry defeated Voldemort how many times?

Within the Church, we're taught that, with God, anything is possible. But were also taught that our faith is nothing without good works. There are times when it feels like God isn't giving you the help you want or think you need and you end up working harder than you ever thought you could to achieve something you want. In truth, God was there the whole time, but he's so much more aware of our strength and capabilities than we are, and he knew what we could do without his direct influence. I believe wholeheartedly that God is at our side at all times, but I also believe (with equal fervor) that we never know what we are capable of until we do it.

The Harry Potter books didn't teach me about finding quick ways to solve my problems or how to take short cuts in achieving my goals. They taught me about diligence and perseverance and enduring to the end. They taught me to summon my nerve and commit myself to the tasks laid out before me. Magic is more than wand waving and silly incantations. Real magic happens when you discover the potential inside yourself and learn how much you can really do.

I'd like to close with the words of another author of my childhood, Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the MUSTN'Ts, child,

Listen to the DON'Ts,

Listen to the SHOULDN'Ts,

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'Ts,

Listen to the NEVER HAVES,

Then listen to me close--

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.

Life Lessons Day One

In case you've been woefully ignorant of my life for the last twelve years, I am obsessed with Harry Potter. It's a healthy kind of obsession, not an "I want to marry Dan Radcliffe and have his children" kind of obsession. You see, I grew up with Harry. I started reading the books when I was nine, just after the third one had come out. And I think it's probably pretty safe to say that, outside of my parents/family and outside of church/religion-y things, Harry Potter has probably been the most influential thing in my life to date.

And because the last movie is about to come out (and because I'm feeling nostalgic) I thought I'd share with you all some of the lessons I've learned from Harry Potter. So you get one life lesson a day from now until the release of the movie. I hope you enjoy :)

Lesson One: It's okay to be a strong and intelligent woman.

The rise of Harry Potter happened at the tail-end of the nineties--a time where female role models for young girls primarly consisted of Britney Spears and the Spice Girls. With the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling supplied my generation with an onslaught of strong, intelligent women. Here are some of my favorite examples:

Hermione Granger: She's probably the first character to come to mind when people think of intelligent female book characters. I love Hermione. She's gotten a lot of flack over the years about being the stereotypical "smart but ugly girl" over the years. I would know. I once wrote a paper on how the people who thought that were just stupid. Here's the thing about Hermione: yes, she's brilliant, and yes, she can be a bit of a stickler sometimes, but she never (ever) backs down from what she believes in. Remember SPEW? But more than that, she's completely dedicated to Harry. In the seventh book, when Ron deserts the horcrux quest, Hermione stays behind. She doesn't chose to run off with the man she loves. She stays behind with Harry and lives in a tent in the middle of winter and helps the fruitless hunt for horcruxes. And this wasn't even the first time that Hermione stuck by Harry when Ron didn't. (Think Goblet of Fire.) Hermione, for me, was the embodiment of a young woman who never tried to hide her intelligence, never tried to change herself for the approval of others, and never backed down when the path she'd chosen turned difficult.

Nymphadora Tonks: On the surface, I think Tonks comes across as a bit . . . airheaded, perhaps. I attribute that to her choice in colors and her clumsiness. But she's a fully trained auror, and that takes quite a bit of work. Think of it like this: In order for a Hogwarts grad to be considered for Auror training, they have to take NEWT level potions. Tonks would have been one of Snape's students, and he doesn't take anyone into his NEWT class unless they achieved the highest score on their OWL. And I don't think anyone would deny that doing that well in Snape's class is anything less than brains and a good deal of hard work. So here are the things I especially love about Tonks: she's a smart woman who doesn't fall into the "fun-sucking, rule-stickler" stereotype and she's willing to fight for the man she loves. This is probably just the romantic in me speaking, but Tonks knew that she loved Lupin and she knew that Lupin loved her (but was just being a bit daft) and she wasn't going to give up on him. Seeing as how the power of love is one of the overarching themes of the novels, Tonks's love for Lupin and her willingness to stand by him regardless of the difficulties is an important part of the series.

Molly Weasley: What I love most about Molly is that she's a stay-at-home-mom, but everyone (the exception to that everyone being Malfoy, who's opinion doesn't really count right now) respects her for it. After all, Fred and George would toe the line after Hermione threatened to write to Molly about their various misdeeds--these boys weren't afraid of detention or losing points, they were afraid of their mother's strength. She's a strong woman--she has to be, raising six sons and a very headstrong daughter. And she's happy and willing to stay at home and take care of the children and be the kind of mother they need. She's not worried about having this grand career. She's not worried about making lots of money. She's worried about helping her children become the best people they can be. She's a compassionate woman. After all, she always treated Harry like one of her own, despite the fact that money was tight in the Weasley home. She's the mother Harry never knew, and she's willing to fight to the death for any of her children. After all, can you forget how she took down Bellatrix at the end of Deathly Hallows? I thought not.

Minerva McGonagall: I can only think of one way to put this. McGonagall is BA. Hands down. You don't believe me? Please consult Order of the Phoenix, the Career Advice chapter, and Deathly Hallows, basically any scene after Harry shows back up at Hogwarts. She's a smart woman and she knows when to stand her ground. She's a Gryffindor, through and through, no doubt about it. And while she seems a little strict at times, there's a lot of heart there, too. (Don't believe me? Go back to when Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup in book 3. She's seen jumping up and down and crying in joy.)

This is only a glance at the many women in Harry Potter. There are plenty of other strong and courageous women (and especially strong and courageous mothers, namely Lily Potter and Narcissa Malfoy). At the same time, they are balanced with women who lie and sneak and abuse power and do evil things. Rowling paints a picture of women that doesn't hide blemishes. She treats women as real people, just like she treats the men. And at the end of the day, she has provided young girls in generations to come an example of women who don't deny that they're smart and who don't dumb themselves down to get the attention of a boy. These are role models who will last--not just for me, but for future generations of Potter readers as well.