The process of being sorted

J. K. Rowling says the sorting is an irreversible process. Once sorted into your house, you cannot change loyalties (though I can't imagine why one would want to). So I tried on the sorting hat and here are the questions I received.

First I do have to share the sorting hat's song with you. Remember Harry's sorting in the book?

The honor pledge again.

1. Which potion would I rather invent - Power, Wisdom, Glory, Love?

Power.

2. Upon entering an enchanted forest, which would I examine first - silver-leafed tree bearing golden apples, the fat red toadstools that appear to be talking to each other, the bubbling pool, in the depths of which something luminous is swirling. the statue of an old wizard with a strangely twinkling eye?

I say the wizard's statue as I feel like it could be dumbledore (in theory) and because the photograph looks like it could be, of all people, Gandalf.

3. What would I rather be - Envied, Imitated, Trusted, Praised, Liked, Feared?

Trusted of course!

4. Which would I rather study - Centaurs, Goblins, Merpeople, Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves, Trolls?

Centaurs, because I've always liked Firenze and his way of teaching.

5. So someone has cheated and Prof. Flitwick is asking me about it. Here are my choices - lie and say you don't know (but hope that somebody else tells Professor Flitwick the truth), tell Professor Flitwick that he ought to ask your classmate (and resolve to tell your classmate that if he doesn't tell the truth, you will), tell Professor Flitwick the truth, if your classmate is prepared to win by cheating, he deserves to be found out. Also, as you are both in the same house, any points he loses will be regained by you, for coming first in his place, and you would not wait to be asked to tell Professor Flitwick the truth. If you knew that somebody was using a forbidden quill, you would tell the teacher before the exam started.

I don't fancy being a sneak, so I choose to let Prof. F conduct his own inquiry and speak to the friend in question in private and urge him/her to report the truth.

7. To make up for the abnormally lengthy Q prior, I am asked to choose between a forest and a river.

I figure the river has a cool and soothing presence (long walks on beach *cough cough*).

8. And of course, the staple for so many sortings - heads or tails?

Heads, since I am kind of headstrong.

Now...you know what my sorting Qs were and my responses to them. Can you guess which house I was sorted into?

Letting my wand choose me.

I've skipped over chronicling my initial progress through Potterverse in favor of sharing the really exciting stuff. One pretty much has to visit each scene in each chapter in order when visiting the site for the first time. This is just so all the initial instructions regarding different features available are properly disseminated to the user. After visiting the chapters once we can go back in any order we choose at any point of time.

We get to look at Privet Drive, the Dursley's home, the Zoo, the Hut on the Sea and then finally Diagon Alley. In the Alley, we find our school shopping list and buy all the required items in any order but it is mandated that we buy the wand last of all. So here's how I got my wand.

The shop in the middle/center of the picture is Ollivanders.

I am told that I need to answer all questions honestly. So what do you think I was asked?

1. My height relative to my age

2. My eye color

3. Odd or even birth-date

4. What characteristic do I pride myself on?

Determination, Imagination, Resilience, Intelligence, Originality, Optimism, Kindness.

I, of course, proudly answer, "Resilience!"

5. Which road would I travel on?

Toward the sea!

6. What do I fear most?

Darkness, Fire, heights, Small spaces, Isolation.

I am rather unfortunately a tad claustrophobic. So, small spaces it is.

7. Which magical item would I choose?

Dusty bottle, Old black glove, Golden key, Ornate mirror, Silver dagger, Glittering jewel, Bound-up scroll.

I choose the dagger immediately. Interesting afterthought - I've always been apprehensive around sharp objects such as paper and tend to get very excited around pretty jewelry. Anyways, I already made my choice so I am sticking to it.

And here's my reward.

Larch with Dragon (heartstring) core, twelve and a half inches, supple.

So what? Is my wand special? I sniff around for information and here's what I found.

Yippeee! I looooove my wand or rather the wand loves me! Next, I am off to be sorted and will post pics of my rendezvous with Mr. Sorting Hat.

Until then, 

Truly,

Mischief managed!

After much waiting...

I fiiiiinally got my welcome email and started to create my account in Potterverse. Here's a first look into my journey.

Initiation:

Naming:

Confirmation:

Owl post:

First look!

the Potter-wait

     As soon as J. K. Rowling announced that she had something special planned (which unfortunately wasn't a sequel), I began to wait with bated breath for whatever was in store. I dutifully followed the youtube videos and  ogled at the owls several times a week to see if anything extra had come up in addition to the annoyingly vague 'something special will be announced.' Finally the day came when Pottermore was announced - I was so excited when I heard Rowling say, “come back on 31st July to find out how you can get the chance to enter Pottermore early.”  Woo! A new website with more Potter content to read and explore! It was as if my dream had come true. 

     And then of course, the madness of finding the magical quill began (early access granted to 1 million people for Beta testing). I missed the Day 1 quill because I saw the announcement video too late. Day 2 was lost because I was asleep at the time the quill was out and about. Day 3 found me determined to find out everything I could about the challenge and I looked up the previous quill posting time, what other people across the world were saying etc and missed the quill because I was too busy reading all that other stuff (yeah yeah, I am stupid, I know). On Day 4, I found the quill but found the site too overwhelmed due to demand and the challenge closed before I could get in. I stayed up all night and by mid-morning was refreshing my browser every five minutes to get to the quill challenge and finally the Day 5 question appeared. I solved the clue and got to the scholastic website....and couldn't find the quill. I played all the Potter games that showed up on the page in the vain hope that one of them would lead me to the quill (of particular note is the dementor game that scared the b-jesus out of me when it popped up on my browser the first time). Sad, confused, angry and frustrated, I turned to the only option I had left - Google. This led me to Expecto Patronum! which instructed me to find the quill on top of the page in the ad banner and voila! I got into Pottermore and created my account in record time (I think the quill challenge was up for only about an 40-60 minutes and I got my a/c before it ended). Considerably cheered up, I focused my energies toward getting one of my friends excited about the quill challenge and into the site. We missed Day 5, so I spent the rest of my 'free' time that day reading 'Expecto Patronum!'. I kept an eye out for the Day 6 clue, solved it and IM'd my friend with the link to find the quill (it was just the excitement - I am not obsessive. Really!...ish). So my friend was in and the next day I solved the Day 7 clue just for fun. Life was good...until I realized that I hadn't received my welcome email yet.

     Anxious, I started keeping my email open 24x7 and refreshing the page every 10 minutes (see, I am not obsessive at all - it's totally normal to wait like that for an email). On Aug 12th, I finally got an email from Pottermore, only it turned out to be a 'you're selected for early entry' email which advised me to keep checking my inbox for the welcome email that could arrive anytime between mid-August and the end of September. WTH?!? Needless to say, more anxious waiting ensued. It was made a wee bit more interesting by http://expatronum.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/waiting-for-pottermore-a-top-10-list/. By Sept 23 however, I was so sad that I decided to delete my a/c in protest if, after all the trouble I went to & sleep I lost, I got access a day before the site opened to the public. The result of course was that I got my welcome email the very next day. I was so happy and emotionally exhausted that I went to sleep instead of logging in to the site at once (after all the waiting I did - shame on me!). The next day, fortuitously was a Sunday and I spent a good two hours exploring the site to my content (see newer posts for details). 

     It turns out that at the time I got my email less than half of the Beta testers had gotten their welcome emails. According to http://insider.pottermore.com/, the remaining testers have all received their emails as of earlier today. Now of course, the issue is that the site is not accessible 'due to overwhelming demand'. It will take a while to get the site ready to handle a large # of users so, my guess is that until they are sure that the site is equipped to handle at least the 1 million beta folks they won’t open the site to the public (so maybe they'll open October 31st instead of October 1st). Hopefully they can pull it off by Halloween without flashing the ‘site overwhelmed due to demand’ stuff. 

   

     Waiting for the welcome owl has been an awful experience for me; if the poor people who've been waiting for the site to open to all finally hear its open but can’t create an a/c because the site is down it will be a worse experience for them. With team Pottermore's performance so far, I fully expect that will happen. In support of fans who are waiting like I did, I am not going to log in to Pottermore until its is open to all and let the newbies have a better chance to explore the site. 

     At first glance though, my personal opinion is that Pottermore in its awesome entirety is geared toward increasing people's 'unproductivity index' exponentially and is far more addictive than facebook will ever be. 

just Potter-Ring around

I am absolutely in love with LotR (Lord of the Rings) and other brilliant Tolkien works. I also adore J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series. Both according to me are incomparable works of creative genius. They are two different genres of books addressing (and enticing) two different types of readers. Both are rich in detail and both paint vivid pictures of fantasy-fiction in the readers' minds. After reading (and reading and re-reading) both the series, about a zillion times, I am forced to admit to some similarities between the two.

1) Hogwarts is Harry's 'Shire'

2) Attention to detail: the Weasley/Black family tree vs the shire-folks' family trees
3) Who is more powerful: Dumbledore or Gandalf?
4) Who is darker: Sauron or Voldemort?
5) Aragorn-Legolas-Gimli team vs. Harry-Hermoine-Ron team.
6) Gandalf is to Frodo what Dumbledore is to Harry
7) Moria vs. the Cave on the rocks.
8) Eowyn-Aragorn vs. Hermoine-Krum
9) Aragorn's mom vs. Harry's mom.
10) Boromir vs. Marietta.
11) Fellowship of the Ring vs. Dumbledore's Army/Order of the Phoenix.
12) The Old Forest/Fangorn Forest vs. The Forbidden Forest.
13) Brego was to Aragorn what Buckbeak was to Sirius
14) flying Nazgul vs. flying Voldemort & Death eaters
15) Eagles in LoTR/Hobbit vs. Thestrals/Hippogrifs in Potter books - both helpful in battle/emergency transport.
16) Was the One Ring Sauron's Horcrux?
17) Phoenix-core wand is to Harry what Sting is to Frodo.
18) Grindelwald preceeds Voldemort as dark wizard in the potter books; Morgoth preceeds Sauron in Tolkien books - all 4 appeared to be good & turned bad later.
19) Shelob vs. Aragog.
20) Gandalf's dragon vs. Fred's & George's dragon (fireworks)?
21) 'Lights' in the Dead Marshes vs. Inferi in the Cave.
22) Pranksters: Merry & Pippin vs. Weasley Twins.

23) Round-faced & fearful: Fatty Bolger vs. Neville Longbottom.

24) Gay-couple: Legolas-Gimli vs. Dumbledore-Grindelwald.

25) Teams: Bilbo + 13 Dwarves with 3 Trolls (The Hobbit) vs. Harry + Hermoine + Ron with 1 Troll.

26) Pathetic position: Gollum or Winky

27) Better betraying the bad guy's trust: Saruman or Regulus

28) Final Battles: Before the Black Gate vs. Battle of Hogwarts

29) Prophecies: Malbeth the seer vs. the 2 Trelawney women.

30) Forced to consort with the bad guys: Wormtail Wormtongue vs. Draco.

More questions will undoubtedly occur to me - I will post them on my blog as they arise...

I have to say this though, Tolkien came up with the tale of one Horcrux being destroyed & Rowling came up with a story of seven such things being destroyed and I am glad to have had the pleasure of reading both.

my potential blog-roll

Predictably, I will be blogging about my favorite books, movies & tv shows. So here's a list of the stuff I like &(potentially) what you'll be reading about here.

Books
Read recently:
Michael Scott - The Alchemyst, The Magician, The Soceress, The Necromancer, The Warlock (The Enchantress; to be published in 2012)
Alison Croggon - The Naming, The Riddle, The Crow, The Singing (series complete)
Stephanie Meyer - Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn (series complete)

Old favorites:
Louisa May Alcot - Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom
JK Rowling - Harry Potter series
JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales of Numenor, Middle Earth collection
Anne Rice - The Vampire Collection (Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Vampire Armand, Pandora)
Jules Verne - Twenty thousand leagues under the sea
Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray

TV Shows
Animation:
Avatar - the last airbender (The Avatar can 'bend' the elements air, earth, water & fire and fights the evil 'fire-lord)
Jackie Chan adventures (Jackie Chan is a evil-magic-battling archaelogist; fun to watch)
Cardcaptor Sakura (little girl captures magic cards; two movies were also made to go with the series; childish but fun)

Regular (non-anim):
Bones (wry/witty humor;crime; Season 1 episode 19 is one of my favorite episodes for it's witty one-liners)
Numb3rs (for those who love math, humor & crime)
Psych (very funny/ridiculous; crime)
Criminal Minds (very serious; crime)
NCIS (good balance between seriousness & fun;crime/mystery)
Merlin (fun; fake myth; action; romance)
Perry Mason (with Ray Burr, Will Hopper & Barbie Hale)
Agatha Christie (always awesome)
Xena (cheesy; fake myth; action; romance)
The adventures of Sinbad (with Zen Gesner...enough said.)

Movies
Recent:
Toy Story 3
Eclipse (the whole twilight series is worth watching if you can endure crappy acting; silly but fun with decent action/special effects)
Harry Potter 7.1 & 7.2
Chocolate (thai movie with Jeeja Yanin)
Ong Bak (thai movie with Tony Jaa)
Ip Man & Ip Man2 (with Donnie Yen)
Ransom (old Mel Gibson movie; decent kidnapping plot/thriller)
The lovely bones (Thriller; not exactly nail-biting but engaging)
Murder by Death (directed by Bob Moore; one of the best mystery comedies I've ever seen; very witty dialogues - definitely a must-see)
Old favorites:
Lord of the Rings triology
The Potter movies
The Twilight movies
The X-men series
The Matrix trilogy
The Transporter series
The Touch (Michelle Yeoh at her best)
Jason Bourne trilogy (Matt Damon's special 3)
Sudden Death (typical Van-Damme action movie)
Die Hard series (Bruce Willis' action movies; sort of set a new trend for action movies)
3 ninjas series (kids' martial arts movies)
Blue Streak (funny crime movie; thief acts as a cop to get his loot)
Baby Geniuses (one of the cutest movies I've ever seen; must watch)