Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling response

I just finished the Half Blood Prince. It was quite an experience,
which is what I’m going to be explaining here. For those who haven’t
read the book yet, I’m not going to put any real spoilers in here,
like who dies (I’ve had enough taunting since I read the book quite
late compared to most).

This book is all about Harry Potter’s sixth year at Hogwarts, which
you probably know about. This year will prove to be quite different
than most, but like normal, Harry leaves the dreaded Dursleys, goes
to the Weasley’s and then to Hogwarts, with a surprising start to the
wild year ahead of him.

When the Half Blood Prince came out, my friends quickly grabbed the
book, and then quickly started reading them within a short while. I
had a fairly hesitant air around it. I was too lazy to exert the
energy to start the book and get into the book’s story. This session
of “not reading” carried on all summer. Finally near the end, said
“what the hell” and just started. I think I maybe benefited from
waiting to read it, as I avoided the hype and raised expectations
that it creates. For a lot of people it was “buy, read, ‘yeah, it’s
ok’,” but for me, I let it ferment (think wine). It ended up being
more like “receive from Bev, wait, wait, (procrastinate x10),
hesitantly pick up, read, read, read, ‘WOW!’”

The characters in Half Blood Prince have been growing up over the
past few years, and it’s definitely evident in this book. The
dynamics between Harry, Ron and Hermione are thrown out of loop by a
number of relationships (involving a lot of snogging, a nice British
word which means ‘making out’). I’m sure this parallels a lot of
experiences people have had, friends growing up and their group
getting tangled up. That’s one great thing about this series, you can
relate to the characters that inhabit it. I found myself really
noticing the community Harry, Ron and Hermione have formed, it’s so
great, and overall they’re really good friends with each-other.

Dumbledore also plays a slightly larger part in this book. His main
goal for the year is to teach Harry about Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore
does this by showing memories and experiences of Tom Riddle to Harry
and discussing them afterwards. It’s great because J.K. Rowling
manages to keep this pitiful man in a light that shows there is still
some human left in him. It’s great to hear because it’s easy to
forget that even the wisest, loving people have evil in them and, on
the other hand, the most unbalanced, evil people have some good in
them. I also observed how Dumbledore is a great mentor and friend for
Harry. He is so wise and willing to take risks for Harry because he
trusts him so much.

I find that the Harry Potter series (HBP in particular) has some
great themes, added with a very rich world. The themes are things
like love, community, mentoring and loyalty. It’s so great that
Rowling can combine all this stuff together into an imaginary world.

Overall, I’m really glad that something as great as Harry Potter is
tightly woven into our culture. It unites and forms a lot of
communities, and inspires people! Rowling creates her world with such
depth that Harry Potter books are often so immersive that they take
control of your senses and create detailed imagery by stimulating the
imagination and telling your whole body (except your eyes) to stop
moving. This was my personal favourite of the series, not that I
remember the rest of them too well. I supremely recommend this book
to you. It’s amazing what the mind can conjure up.

- joel christopher penner (gratefully edited by Erik Berg)

Volunteering at Fort Whyte

For about three summers, I’d been having this new thing going. I went
to the Fort Whyte summer camp, and rather enjoyed it. It was a great
opportunity to be out in nature (which I most for sure love), play
awesome games (capture the flag, etc.) and just have a great time.
For the most part, I enjoyed it, from swimming to walking around the
interpretive center, it was a worthwhile experience.

The logical step after being a camper, was to volunteer as a
counsellor. A lot of the kids do it, resulting in overflowing
volunteers, which is so awesome, and the reason for that, is one of
the many purposes of this reflection. The base reasons were that I
was becoming increasingly aware how boring summers are without a
basic structure. My mom was a heavy influence in this because she
would probably have to deal with the boredom, a win-win situation here.

Nothing big, it’s volunteering, a lot of kids do it some may think.
But I found something special in it. I found it challenging the whole
way through, which is usually the first sign that something is worth
doing. One of the first things I talked about to keep me going was
the idea that I’m serving these kids. To elaborate, I’m saying that
to volunteer like this is showing that you’re not so selfish that you
can’t live for somebody else for a while. It’s a very challenging
thing to do, but I liked the unselfish thought of serving other
people. This is also related to how I learned to deal with my
emotions a bit more during the summer, realizing that they’re not a
terribly interesting thing to pay attention to. They’re related with
the thought that serving others is paying attention to the people
around you, not drowning in your own filth. So in a way, the summer
carried the theme of living through my emotions.

Another great thing about it, was that it occupied the inhumanly long
summer. Sure it’s great to have a break, but for most people it
leaves a long area of space with no structure, and a lot of people
have trouble with that. So volunteering was definitely the highlight
of my summer, considering I was operating partly of the motive of
service. It was a real opportunity to think about all of this stuff,
testing the areas of me which probably needed testing and seeing
myself in a new light, since I’d never done anything like this,
volunteering with a conscious commitment.

An interesting thing this job brought about was dealing with the
kids. Sometimes they were annoying little talking machines (when I
was feeling a bit more selfish), or a window to a less-tethered view
on life (when I was in the better mindframe). Some examples that
touched me were, the most notable being this boy and his dreams. I’d
ask him if he had had any dreams, just for some conversation, and
he’d go on and on about his abundant dreams (and he pointed out that
he hadn’t even mentioned his daydreams). They were really interesting
and it was really great to hear the dreams, very freeing because I
was personally interested in it. At the end of the week I suggested
to his mom to enroll him in an MTYP course. After that I walked away
bursting with joy, because I’d extended myself to the future benefit
of this kid, that was definitely one of the highlights.

Things like that kept the weeks going, especially another going-on
with my last week of kids, the younger group - Rabbit Rangers. Every
day my group of kids would be asking me when we were going to do the
mission during the day. I’d respond admiring there anticipation, and
at the end of the day we’d go on an imaginary mission (find the
generator and spy around... sneaky stuff), it helped everyone get
through the week, and it was great to get them excited for something
during the day.

It was also a great thing to do with my friend Trevor. It really
helped him as-well, he really loved it, which is surprising since
he’s sort of introverted. It was so awesome seeing him talking
excitingly to the kids, and it most for sure helped our friendship,
relating in an indirect context, and being able to talk to each-other
at the end of the day about it.

I’m definitely doing it again next year, if not hopefully along with
some other volunteering jobs.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold response

The Lovely Bones focuses around Susie Salmon, and her life in her
heaven after she passes away during an ugly rape incident that
changes many lives.

I really like the way The Lovely Bones is written. It’s Susie’s view
on the earth, and her life in heaven. She watches in on everyone’s
life, and with her not being able to truly interact with her friends
and family on earth, it’s more of a reflection of her life so far. I
found that it was a open writing style, maybe because heaven is a
very open subject to begin with. For example, she observes Mr.
Harvey, her killer through his sad and lonely life. In a way, she is
still as much on earth as she was before, but the earthlings have to
fully believe in her current state to observe her, and it takes a
while until the earthlings fully believe that harsh reality.

I think that the main theme of the book is letting go. It’s a very
common concept, which is easy to find commonplace examples for. I
think The Lovely Bones finds a unique way of describing it. As
expected, when the physical entity of Susie ceases to exist, a switch
in the minds of Susie’s family turns off, creating a quick spiraling
trip downwards for them. Everyone tries to hide their deeper feelings
on the matter, thus creating a black hole sucking their souls up.
This makes them all hit rock bottom, and starts the process of
healing, and a metaphor I thought of for this was a bud.

When Susie dies, the souls of her family on earth quickly grow a bud.
This bud only opens into a full fledged flower when the healing
process is more or less complete. It takes a long time, but it does
happen. Eventually, Susie’s parents break up and more or less live
life for a few years sort of ignoring Susie’s death, with her dad
being caught up and angry about not finding the killer, and her mom
more or less ignoring it. They’re both not really thinking about
Susie, and how she can exist while physically dead, even after her
dad sees a ghostly image of her.

One of the main turning points in the healing process was when
Susie’s dad has a heart attack. Physical tradgedies like this often
tend to bring people together and unite them (tsunami, etc.). This
happens with Susie’s family, and after being apart for quite a while,
her parents really grieve for Susie, and reflect on her life a bit.
So after letting the bud of healing get ready for blossoming while
being away from eachother for a while, the bud is almost ready to
bloom. The unity of the family, and the sort of community that occurs
with Susie’s mom and dad back together and Lindsey’s boyfriend, they
all are able to fully move forward, finding their meaning on earth
again. At the same time in heaven, Susie is also able to move forward
and her life shifts from the main aspect being the observation of
earth to her focus being the happenings in her heaven.

In a way, not having Mr. Harvey caught and punished brought around a
fuller healing process for the family, letting time heal the wounds
instead of the killer being brought to “justice”.

Another aspect of the book that was brought to my attention was the
suburban setting of it. I have somewhat of a prejudice towards
suburbia and it’s people, with the richness and sameness of all the
houses etc at the time of finishing the book. I was also volunteering
with a summer camp at Fort Whyte, which mostly deals with suburban
children at the time of finishing the book. I’ve come to not liking
this prejudice that I have, with my mom saying that they’re still as
human as us urbanites are, and I think the prejudice is becoming less
prominent in my mind, maybe because of this book showing how human
they are (Susie lived in suburbia). The prejudice is towards the
people that I don’t really know, just like I wouldn’t have known
Susie’s family if I had seen them. Minds play silly tricks on us
anyways.

One final reflection on the book I’d like to share is how it made me
feel. You’d think it’d be kinda freaky, a girl in heaven reflecting
on her lonely family. I was scared at the beginning with her murder,
but then it just kind of got to a normal feeling. I felt interested
in it, and it didn’t really provoke any real strong emotions, maybe
because Susie was observing everything, you weren’t seeing everything
first hand.

The Lovely Bones opened my mind up a bit, are people really watching
us from heaven? It’d be neat to find out how Alice Sebold came up
with this idea. It’s a really interesting concept. Overall, I’d
really recommend this book, it has a slower pace to it, but
completely worthwhile.