I want a puppy!

I'm not an animal person. At all. When we got those guinea pigs a year and a half ago, I was completely uninterested in them, not to mention so upset that we got them that I ended up creating this blog to cheer myself up. (OK, that was weird.) I refused to touch them, and I fed them once within the year that we had to. (I don't remember why, but I think I had to.) I thought it was a bit cool when they had babies, but that's the extent of it. I had nothing to do with the babies either. Oh, and I did rather enjoy naming them.
The fact remains, however, that three days ago, my family finally got satellite TV, and my brothers like Animal Planet. I watched some of it with them, and, AAARGH! Puppies are so cute!!! I want one. Yet somehow, I'm still not an animal person. Sad.
On an unrelated note, it was finally announced that by 2010, Universal Studios in Orlando will have a Harry Potter section. I don't know what the chances are that I'll get over there, but it still looks pretty cool.
Can someone give me a puppy? *sad puppy face*

I never thought the day would come...

...where I would tell my brothers, "Stop talking about Harry Potter and go to sleep!" But it has. I should be ashamed of myself, not to mention, that's so hypocritical. But my brothers are obsessive about things, and they talk a lot in bed. They're three chapters into the first HP book (and of course, I keep requesting to be the one who puts them to bed, so I can read to them), and now Noam keeps running back to my room to ask things like "Is the part where Uncle Vernon sleeps in a sleeping bag in the movie?" and to ask me just how scary the movies are. I don't know why the movie is so important to them, but then, I'm not as much a fan of the movies as I am of the books. So maybe I'm not that much of a hypocrite...

Oh yeah.

I don't know how I forgot this in both of the posts I made today, but I preordered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today. 2 copies, one for me and one for my cool HP-obsessed cousin who'll be here by July 21st. :-)
Oh, and my new thing is Beauty and the Geek. Geeks are so cute...

Guess what I did?

I just read my first John Grisham book. My parents were raving about The Testament, having both read it, saying they couldn't put it down. It sounded good, and I've been into lawyer stuff (wow, that sounded blonde...) since I started reading Jodi Picoult's books, so I decided to read it.
The book was... OK. It did suck me in a little bit, and the plot is definitely interesting- it covers the will of a man worth $11 billion which he left entirely to his illegitimate daughter nobody ever heard of instead of his idiotic kids, just before jumping out the window. It doesn't help much that this daughter is a missionary living in a jungle in Brazil.
That's the story, basically. It was kinda a cool book, but I don't know how many more of his I'll read.

*squee* I'm so happy!

My little brother, Natani (age 7), decided today that he wants to read Harry Potter. I was so happy, I hugged him something like a million times. Poor kid. But yeah, that made me so thrilled, and that was after a bad day. So welcome to the club, Natani!

Know how I love things that make you feel good?

That said, I watched such an awesome movie tonight! Elizabethtown. It just, like, makes you feel happy. Except for the little parts that make fun of death (wow, that was really pessimistic.) and the occasional weirdness, it just has such a great feeling.
In short, the movie is about Drew (Orlando Bloom), who's just lost his job after a massive failiure, and feels completely lost. Then his father dies, and Drew is sent to meet his father's family in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The combination of the small-town charm, all the things he learns about his father, and the influence of Claire (Kirsten Dunst), one of those really optimistic people, brought him back to finding himself. Actually, it sounds a bit like Cars when I put it like that, just it's not animated.
So this movie had a lot of the small town/road trip across America stuff that I love. You take that and put it with great background music, and it's not at all surprising that I loved this movie. Not to mention, Orlando Bloom is so cute...
To change the subject, I kinda feel like my father and I are in surgery. We're trying to fix my computer- or rather, he's trying, and I'm the worried relative he reports back to. Nothing life-threatening, I don't need him to tell me that, but it's just been slow (and it's not even four years old, *sniff*) and some of the changes he did yesterday actually had some negative consequences, which just means we need more work. Oh, well. At least I'm back in the XP look.
Shabbat Shalom!

Yom Yerushalayim has come and gone...

Today was the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. That's not something to look down upon, considering the young age of our country. For us, 40 years is a long time.
Over the past week, I thought a bit about what I'd write here today. I didn't come up with anything, either because inspiration just didn't strike, or because I'm somewhat preoccupied with school. But I thought I should mention it anyway.
In other news, it rained again today. I'm starting to think summer just isn't going to come...
So I'm out of school now- I'm there a couple times a week for tests and such. At home, I'm studying full time, and then I'm usually tired and ready for bed by 7ish. Not good. My mother is out of the country, which means a little extra work at home, (BTW: Noam lost his first 2 teeth! My baby brother is growing up...) and my computer is giving me issues that need to be fixed.
This is the benefit of having a father in high-tech, because I have no idea what he's doing. The one thing I do understand is that he changed the look of my computer from Windows XP look to Windows classic, because that will save memory or something like that. I don't like it, and since I have XP the old Windows 98 look clashes with everything on the computer... LOL I'm such a snob and I still have no idea what I'm talking about...
Anyway, I should stop rambling and go to sleep...

OK, this is funny.

I found this link in the show notes for an old PotterCast, and it cracked me up. I didn't really get why this guy did this, but he put up a list of "The Top 100 Things I'd DoIf I Ever Became An Evil Overlord". He's basically making fun of all the bad guys, and it's just so funny because it's so true. I especially loved this right now, because I'm working on a fairy tale at the moment (in between school...) and I'm having trouble with my own evil overlord.
Anyway, the list includes things like this:
#20: Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
#76: If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
Enjoy!

Welcome to America

It doesn't rain here in May. Ever. But this has been a really weird year anyway. Winter showed up really late, and then it just didn't leave. And now it's raining. But my window's open, and it smells good. (Though the open window lets in the sounds of the workers next door, and sometimes blocks out the PotterCast.)

Potter fans are so cool.

For a few months now, I've been re-listening to old PotterCasts and MuggleCasts. Actually, I've been listening to all of them in order, which is turning out to take years...
Anyway, I'm now up to the episodes from last summer, with all those events going on in Vegas and the beautiful Jo Rowling coming to New York. (HA! And we thought last summer was jam-packed and really cool.) Everything that happened involved hordes of people like me (except not me, even though I was in the country). It was just so cool. Potter people, when they get together, whether it's to support some cause, or to shriek like crazy at the sight of Emerson Spartz, or just to have fun, they just really show their strength. What other fandom is that huge?
And then you have Melissa Anelli and the book she's writing on this whole thing. That definitely couldn't happen anywhere else.
I just had to vent.
EDIT: PotterCast #50 just made me tear up. Wow.
Yeah, episode 50 is actually pretty great. Dobby is freeee, and what made me tear up was actually Melissa telling John and Sue that they're going to the NYC premiere of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. That was so sweet...

I have NO MORE SCHOOL!

Today was my last day of classes for something like a year or two! But this isn't too exciting, because I still have Bagruyot and stuff like that, and I'll probably have some kind of classes some time in the future anyway. Oh well.

Squeee! and my summer

Summer is THIS close, or at least that's how it feels. Maybe that's just me, just because I have 1 day of school left- and then I have a month of studying for Bagruyot. Actually, I can probably say it's summer already, at least in this country, because it's HOT.
Can anyone tell I'm in a good mood? I think I can attribute that to... PotterCast. What else is new?
So, yeah. On this week's wonderful Episode #88, the awesome PotterCasters announced that they're going on TOUR!
Let me clarify. I don't live in America, I hope that's obvious. I'm not even going to be there this summer. But I'm so so so so excited that the PotterCasters are going on tour, doing 23 live shows across America, and will be posting tons of podcasts, videos and pictures for unfortunate people like me who can't be there. So... just one more thing to make my summer more fun- and more packed.
So, my summer is going to be insanely busy. My almost-last Bagrut (chemistry) is on June 5th, which is very early. I graduate, as does Mira :-(, on June 17th. I'm going to see the international tour version of Mamma Mia! on the 18th in Tel Aviv. After this became the reason Mira and I are graduating on the same day (long story, don't ask), I really hope it's good!
On July 4th, I start the preparatory course for my psychometric test (which Israelis need to take in order to get into university). That means a lot of work over the summer, but I had to do it at some point. I'll also be studying for a very late Bagrut, to improve my math grade, on July 16th. And all this with massive amounts of PotterCast to entertain me while I study. And when I'm not studying, hopefully I'll be writing. And doing all that other stuff I've been meaning to do forever, like improving this blog.
On July 10th, I'll be at the airport early in the morning to watch my mother's entire side of the family making Aliyah on Nefesh B'Nefesh. We are all so psyched about this! And then most of them will be living with us for a couple of weeks, so that should be fun.
July 21st! Drumroll... As soon as Shabbat is over, I get in the car/on the bus and go to the mall to pick up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And then I read it, and read it, and read it. And then it will be OVER. (BTW, I only realized a few days ago that Harry and I are graduating the same year. How weird is that?)
Then it's back to more studying. At some point, during the summer, we'll be going up north, and at another point I have a pre-sherut seminar.
And at the very end of the summer, I start my Sherut Leumi. Wow, I'm old. I've been in school for 12 years. That's a really really long time. (That was the very short reflective portion of this post. Now it's over.)
Anyway, I just hope it's an awesome summer. For everyone!
BTW, check this out. LOL.

My life... is changing drastically.

I am a woman of many obsessions. I see/read/watch something, I like it, I Google it and I get hooked on it. This is my thing- I'm a fan of just about everything. And, ironically, at the same time when my school life is ending, a lot of these obsessions of mine are ending too:

• Harry Potter. I've been posting about this on here for 3 months now, ever since we found out that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 7th and final HP book, will be released on July 21st, 2007. Needless to say, this makes me sad, especially since HP has been a huge part of my life longer than any of the other things on this list...
• For Better or For Worse. I've been reading this comic strip since sometime around 2002/3, and reading it daily online since 2005, maybe? I've never posted about it on here, but I feel like the Pattersons, the family it follows, are like my friends. Basically, the strip has been following Elly and John Patterson and their kids, Michael, Elizabeth and April, since 1979. Unlike most comic strips, these people grow up, and they actually have a life, not to mention a storyline. Consider that Mike was 3 when the strip started, and now he's married with 2 kids... Anyway, after almost 27 years, author Lynn Johnston is ending the strip this fall. The thing is, because there is actually a story, it feels like this is a TV show finale. Actually, I've noticed the plot has been getting more intense lately, like we're building up towards a season finale... and I can't wait to see what happens at the end! But it's still sad, I'm going to miss the Pattersons...
• Gilmore Girls. I don't really want to say this, but it's being considered to end the show after the 7th and current season. This may not really count, because nothing's decided yet, but the fact is, it may be over. (Of course, I haven't seen any of Season 7 yet, because it's not on DVD, but it doesn't stop it from being over.) BTW, if you're interested in getting involved, the GG fansite www.gilmoregirls.org is campaigning for an 8th season. If you want a Season 8, check it out here.
• High school. Yes, life as I know it is over. I'm going out into the world (*sniff*) and will be working for a change, not to mention not living at home!

So, yeah. My life is really changing. The good news is, maybe now that all this stuff is ending, I'll have more time! Or, maybe not.