Real Life Fairytale

Was anyone else as fascinated by the Royal Wedding as I was? I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for days! My mom has always been in to the celebrity gossip scene and I enjoy hearing about who's dating who and staying in the loop, but never like this. I will be the first to admit I'm obsessed. But I'm totally ok with it because they are just so adorable. Any human with a heart has to let out a sigh and a smile when they see a real-life prince and princess get into a horse-drawn carriage and happily wave as they head back to the palace.

Unlike a lot of people though, I woke up at 5am to watch the wedding live.Now in 20 years when the world looks back on the wedding and reminisces about this time in history I will be able to tell my kids that I experienced every second of it LIVE! Kind of a cool little tid bit of history that I was apart of. I wanted to experience it with the world: ohh when Kate exited the hotel and desperately try to see who made the dress, ahhh when William saw her for the first time at the alter, and giddily await the first kiss. And let me tell you it was worth it. Maybe it was early morning grogginess or overwatery tear ducts, but I literally sat on the couch with one hand over my heart, the other wiping away occasional tears, and my head slightly tilted with a blissful smile on my face. I really am my mother's daughter.

My favorite part of the whole thing was that the two just looked so darn in love! William couldn't stop putting that goofy smile on his face whenever he would look and Kate and she was positively glowing. She was one of the prettiest brides I have ever seen and represented a princess in every sense of the word. It was magical! So, it's safe to say that I truly am a royal nerd (I stayed up to watch the royal wedding special later that night and proceeded to watch highlights all the next day) but I'm alright with it. Those British folk are just awesome- the royals, harry potter, david beckham, love actually...doesn't get much better than that. Cheerio!

What is that strange ticking noise?

In my wonderful English class (wonderful and English class are words I never thought I would use together, but I'm a-changing from my old self), Books We Read Too Early, we are reading my favorite book of all time, Harry Potter! I had to write a little response towards the book, and I had so much fun with it I decided to share it with all of you. Enjoy!

There are not many places you can go in the world where the name Harry Potter is not recognized. The boy wizard has literally captivated the entire world with his epic life and magical world that he calls home. But why? What makes Harry so different than Alice? Than Tom Sawyer? Than even Frodo? While some may say it was sheer luck, I think it was a combination of masterful writing, the foundation of old classics, and a mass media age, that allowed Harry Potter to become the most successful book series of all time.

As a HUGE Harry Potter fan, I have always been a diehard supporter of J.K. Rowling and think she is one wise lady. To come up with a world as elaborate and wonderfully cohesive as she did, you must be intelligent, borderline genius, and possibly a little crazy. What separates J.K. (I use her first name because Rowling is much too serious for a person I grew up with) from other creative geniuses though is that the woman can write. She was seamlessly able to write to an audience that contains elementary-aged schoolchildren, college students, and retired grandmothers, while captivating the imaginations of them all. She completely takes away the hindrance of written words and allows readers to step into a story that is so unrealistically real. And while trying to keep up with a plotline that involves horcruxes, hippogriffs, and Puking Pastilles, J.K. seamlessly intertwines it all together with few, if any, loopholes and nuances that the most esteemed readers applaud. J.K. may be a critically acclaimed children’s author, but her writing is no child’s play.

While she is surely a literary genius, J.K. did get some help from earlier writers. Perhaps the most closely related story and series is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which preceded Potter by 4o years. Like the vast world of Middle Earth, the magical world of Harry Potter is indeed apart from reality (although I still secretly like to think that I am just a poor Muggle blinded to the very real wizarding world), but vast enough for it to seem real. The magical world Harry lives in involves humans that have the same bodily needs and frailties that we do, characters that feel the same emotions and deal with the same problems, and even the same broader issues of racism, bureaucracy, and corruption. Although J.K. adds wonderful creatures and enhanced abilities to the characters, readers can very much relate to the characters in the novel and buy into this fictional world. By creating a world that is more exciting and colorful than reality but still rooted in fundamental reality like Tolkien did, J.K. captured readers’ attentions and paved the way to success.

What J.K. has that Tolkien did not however, is the vast, mind blazingly fast, and global tool of the Internet. This is what separated J.K.’s series from the other amazing books that came before. While the others had excellent writing and wonderful fictional worlds, they did not have the ability to reach across the globe almost instantly with translated copies of their book for anyone who wanted to read. Not only that, they did not have the social networking available through the Internet. In the 1950s, Lord of the Ring junkies would have to call each other up to sit down and discuss the book. In today’s world, a fan can connect online instantly with fans from all over the world to discuss hidden meanings, learn new information, and share their passion for the story. There are entire fan sites, Facebook groups, blogs, and chat rooms dedicated exclusively to Harry Potter. Just now I even found a Harry Potter Wiki that helped me spell ‘puking pastille’ and contained everything you would ever want to know about the Harry Potter world.

By connecting readers and helping them to truly immerse themselves entirely in a wonderful written story, J.K. was able to find greater success than ever before seen. With the multibillion dollar movies, recent opening of a theme park, and a generation of Potter-maniacs that will surely read the series to their children, it does not look like Harry Potter is going away any time soon. The world really is bewitched by the wonderful world of Harry Potter.

Magic is a Bunch of Hocus Pocus

Last night I was flipping through the channels and nothing was really on, until I came across a magic show. Magic truely captivates me. It just makes no sense. And this guy was INCREDIBLE. If you have never seen David Blaine's Street Magic (or any of David Blaine's magic shows in general) you must. I was blown away. I know it all has to do with illusions and a whole lot of practice, but some of this stuff just blows the mind. In one of his stunts, he levitated. Yes, LEVITATED. What the?? At first I was like this is just a bunch of nonsense, but it was done just on the street in front of random people and their reactions were so so genuine that I had to believe it. Again, I don't believe this man actually levitated, but how do you fake that?!

I don't know how you can beat freaking levitation, but he just might with his card tricks. He is SUPERB. Just his shuffling amazes me. He can throw cards through the air and flip them and do basically anything with them. You MUST watch him. He flawlessly does common card tricks and adds his own flair. For one trick, he had a little girl pick a card out of the deck, sign it, and put it back in the middle of the deck. Then he shuffled it and started messing with her and asking her if different cards were her card even though he knew they weren't. Then he asked her if she took it. The little girl shook her head and started laughing, and he said: "No, you must've! Check your back pocket." The little girl looked in her back pocket and wouldn't you know it, there was her card. How the heck?! It just makes no sense to me and really confuses me. Maybe magic is real...

P.S. Check out this link to see some of his tricks...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdgKLrx_HXI&feature=related....and look at other ones while you're there!