Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I just watched the latest installment in the Harry Potter film series, and it was kinda good. The movie came out before Deathly Hallows, the final book, but I think it enhanced my movie experience having read the book before. Just a few things that made me smile, or things that looked vaguely like foreshadowing, or the one time where I'm listening to a certain character talk, and suddenly I say to myself, "Oh, I forgot. He died." And that wasn't a minor character either.
I just have to say, Evanna Lynch, who joined the cast for this movie as Luna Lovegood (who I really love!) was awesome. I've thought Evanna was really cool for months, because she's been a huge HP fan for years. She's actually written to Jo and recieved a reply, and Jo had expressed an opinion that she just is Luna. Luna is basically really weird, totally blunt, (in an endearing sort of way) and believes in everything she hears. Evanna has said in an interview that as long as there's no proof that something doesn't exist, it can exist. Anyway, Evanna was just the perfect Luna.
Right now I'm listening to the first post-DH episode of PotterCast, and the intro was done by Rupert Grint, who plays Ron. And then I realized that he actually did a great job in this movie. The fact is, most of the cast did, beacuse my complaints with the movie were content-related. But for the first four movies, Ron was this little wimp who always looked like he was going to throw up. Now, he just kind of felt stronger. It was pretty cool.
Speaking of that episode of PotterCast, they're really confusing me. I'm thinking of the movie, but they're talking about the book...
In other HP news, Jo just keeps talking, and now she gave some new info on the futures of some of the survivors of DH. I'm really waiting for that encyclopedia now. :-)

Deathly Hallows epilogue

I am by no means done venting about the book, some of that venting may show up on here at some point, but right now I need to share a beautiful blog post I just read. I saw the link to this post on PotterCast.com, and the blogger in question is (Hotttttt) Cheryl Klein, who works for Arthur Levine, Jo Rowling's editor at Scholastic. Cheryl is a huge HP fan herself, and she's read the book something like six months ago. Now she's posted her opinion on it, and the best part is it explained the beauty of the epilogue that I hadn't seen. I'd just been thinking the epilogue was way to cheesy for my liking, even though it was the end of Potter and all. Now I realize why she did it, and I love Cheryl for clarifying that to me. It even made me teary... The link to the post is here, but I have to say that if you haven't read the book and have any remote desire to do so, don't read Cheryl's post! Seriously, DON'T! SPOILER WARNING!
On a similiar subject, Jo has announced that she's going to write that encyclopedia we've been speculating about. She's been writing notes about her characters, that didn't make it into the books, for as long as she's been writing HP. So we're going to be getting 17 years worth of backstory, random details, and, most importantly, info on the futures of more of the characters who survived DH!

There will be no more Harry Potter books.

I'm not interested in spoiling anything, but I LOVE JO ROWLING. Least of all because it was dedicated to me, among millions of others. (I knew she would do that.)
Also because this story was just told so so so well. I'm already starting to realize that there are a lot of questions that are still open, but everything that's important was closed. A lot of people died, some good and some who really had it coming to them.
I was thinking, the beauty of Harry Potter is that you can be so wrong in speculating about certain things, but still love it so much. Every serious Potter fan has theories, and I had my own, and some of them were very wrong. (Some weren't. But never mind...) I love the dawning revelation, when I find out that a theory I had been arguing against for 2 years is true. And on the other hand, I love Harry realizing something we fans realized years ago.
I just have to say, there are a lot of characters in the HP books. But never has a book changed my opinion about so many people. I can't count how many times I fell in love with various characters in this book. And that epilogue! Just the word "Epilogue" in the contents creeped me out. It could have been a bit longer, to find out about more people, but we got what we needed.
The book was really scary, I have to say. I caught quite a few references to the Holocaust and Nazism, which I guess made me identify with the book that much more. Kinda like the end of the Shadow Children series (not to compare them to HP) where each one gets darker and scarier and you feel like the whole thing is controlled by Nazis.
And now, it's all over. Kids like my brother Natani are the first in a generation who will never have to wait for a HP book. Wow.
Right now, I'm listening to MuggleCast's post-release episode and I'm already realizing how much we just found out in this book. All those things Jo has said in interviews and the previous books are starting to come together, and it's just so cool...
There are probably more things I wanted to say but I forgot... so I may be back later.
Oh! I remembered something. Something really important:
Thank you, Jo! For everything. For all the books, and the extra info, and for the fandom, and for opening up to us fans. I'm probably still not done, but I just had to say that.

The world is coming to an end tomorrow. (Almost.)

Seriously, Jo Rowling opened the door on her website for what is probably the last time ever, and instead of some kind of challenging way to navigate it, all there was was a letter of acknowlegements. It wasn't anything particularly special, but it made me cry. In all of my years of being an avid Harry Potter fan, nothing written by Jo Rowling has ever made me cry. Until today. I wonder what I'll be like tomorrow...

This is the part where I freak out...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is coming out in 2 days.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Two little things...

First, here's a public service announcement from PotterCast courtesy of Harry and the Potters:


Second, today was really my last Bagrut!!! For ever and ever and ever, I don't need to take another Bagrut! :-)

I don't want to start another post with "Hey, how's it going?"

... So I won't.
That said, I had a great time on Shabbat yesterday. I was in Ariel, with the girls I'll be working with next year and the girls who were there this past year. It looks like a nice group, even though I don't know which ones of them I'll be living with. Basically, the way it works is that the 14 Bnot Sherut in Ariel form something called a "gar'in" which works with the small group of religious families in Ariel to spread religion and just generally improve the situation in the city. There's a lot to do, so I'm hoping for a great year. The families who live there are all really nice, and the city is so small and cute. I liked it. :-)
I'm taking my really last Bagrut tomorrow. It's not overly important at this point, because it's only to improve a grade that can't get me more than 5 points, and as it is I haven't studied much, but I'm taking it anyway beacuse I can't lose anything over it.
My new Israeli cousins aren't living with us anymore, even though my new Israeli Savta still is. We're still seeing them a lot, and they'll be here this Shabbat.
Speaking of this Shabbat, it's July 21st. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 'Nuff said.
(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is coming out on July 21st. Just in case you didn't know.)
Speaking of Harry Potter, the fans are getting together and trying to stop the Genocide in Sudan. PotterCast just released a special episode to raise awareness, and to connect the messages in HP to the situation in Darfur. There is an organization called the Harry Potter Alliance, whose purpose has always been to use the messages in HP to promote different causes in our world, and now they've teamed up with the Wizard Rockers and HP fansites such as The Leaky Cauldron to stop the violence in Darfur. Personally, I hadn't really thought much about this issue until now. But this is real genocide, the same thing that happened to my own people 60 years ago. Nobody did anything about it then, and we lost 6 million people. In Sudan, 2 million people are at risk, and now is the time to act. So let's all check out these links, and do what we can.
PotterCast's Darfur page: http://pottercast.the-leaky-cauldron.org/page/darfur (There are a lot of links on this page to various things we can do.)
Wizards and Muggles Rock For Social Justice! CD in support of the HP Alliance can be bought here: http://www.myspace.com/cheaprent
See what the situation in Darfur looks like here: http://www.eyesondarfur.org/

Woohoo!

Today was the day where my life changed forever. In that I now have all of my immediate relatives on my mother's side living within 45 minutes (worst case scenario) of my house. Actually, at the moment, they're all living in my house, but never mind that.
So yeah. Today, the first Nefesh B'Nefesh flight of the summer landed in Tel Aviv, and my grandmother, my uncle and his family were on it. Now they're all Israeli!
So I got up at 5:30. Mira even came home from camp for this. We got in the car around 6:10 and somehow, being in the car seemed to be bad luck. We got caught in a massive traffic jam that involved just not moving and being yelled at by some jerks. My mother was afraid we would miss the flight coming in, and we were all pretty annoyed. And on the way back, there was more traffic because of a bad car accident. Plus other little things, like having no gas in the tank.
We didn't miss the flight. We stood around for awhile and talked to other people who came to welcome my cousins and other people who were there. Then it was announced that the flight had landed, so we all went outside (regretting that we couldn't see it land like we could in previous years when NBN was smaller). Mira and I moved around looking for a good place to stand with the sign I made and stood there for some more time waiting for the people to show up. We ran around a bit, because the shuttles with the Olim came to different places in front of us, and just waited because all of my family was on the 3rd shuttle. But they finally did come, and gave everyone a million breathless hugs, and then we went inside to calm down. The sign thing didn't really work well, but that was OK. And then we just talked to them and hung out, realizing that they're really here and not going home this time... because they are home! LOL. And then there were speeches, which I didn't listen to so much, except when they said something that required applause or cheering, which I did excitedly. I was in something of a good mood. Then we left and went home, and they came home an hour-ish later.
So now everybody's here. They're all staying with us now, but my cousins are moving in with a friend in Neve Daniel in a few days and into their house there when it's ready. Savta is moving to her apartment in Yerushalayim in August. And we're all still getting over the euphoria.

I hate this guy.

At least as much as it's possible to hate someone without feeling guilty about it.
A couple months ago, Joel Stein wrote an article that was put in the Jerusalem Post. I read it, and hated it. The jist of it was this: I don't care about your baby. I'm not interested in seeing pictures of him. All babies look the same.
That bothered me, so I cut out the article and put it up on the fridge as a weird form of venting. My mother took it down.
The other day, his name popped into my head again, and I don't know why. But I googled him and found his site. It wasn't much better. Especially because there was an article on there that said something along the lines of: Harry Potter is stupid and a waste of time for anyone over 13. Shut up, Joel. Go hang out with Laura Mallory. (Poor Laura Mallory has been turned into the definition of evil within the HP fandom.) And there was another one that said, don't call me when you're driving, not because it's dangerous but because you'll bore me. I kinda wanted to hit him.

Randomness

I'm so happy! Know how For Better or For Worse is ending soon, so the plots are working towards something resembling a season finale? First of all, I'm not sure it's actually ending. But that's completely besides the point. The point is, there is something I've been waiting for, to happen to a certain Elizabeth Patterson (who is a member of the Patterson family which FBorFW is focused on) and IT REALLY HAPPENED!!! I always knew it was going to happen, but I just wanted it to come already! Thank you, Lynn Johnston! :-) Now, whoever reads this, if you're a FBorFW fan, I hope you've read today's strip (5 July) already, and are as happy as I am, and if you're not a fan, go check out today's strip anyway, and you'll understand why I'm so happy...
Wow. That was weird. On the other hand, if this is how I reacted to that, I can't wait to see my own reaction (and everyone else's) when Voldemort dies and Harry and Ginny get married and have 12 babies... LOL.
Now is the part where my summer really starts. I've been saying that for awhile, but now I've really started studying for all the things I have to study for... and that Psychometric stuff is really boring!
Oh, and I have a cold of some sort. My nose is snuffy. (Noam said that once.) I feel gross.

Blue Sox vs. Pioneers

Last week, Israel got its very own professional baseball league. And tonight, I went to my first Israel Baseball League game. It was the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox vs. the Petach Tikva Pioneers. (IMHO, whoever made up the names of the six teams in the league did a pretty lousy job.) When I got to the field, which is in the middle of a corn field in Kibbutz Gezer (each field is the home of two teams) the first thing I thought was that this was more similar to my cousins' Little League games I went to last summer than any other professional game I've ever been to. It was very cute, thought at first I was thinking more along the lines of pathetic.
The fact is, the game was very different from most professional games. For one thing, it was only 7 innings. I don't know whose idea that was, but it was pretty weird. And the whole stadium, and the huge screens, and the massive amounts of fans. Here it was two bleachers, a bunch of chairs, mostly full, and a few girls from some birthright-like program who got really into the cheering and a little bit annoying. On the plus side, there was Burger's Bar.
As it happens, this game was a bit historic. Petach Tikva scored four runs in the first few innings, and Bet Shemesh didn't get anything. Then in the 5th inning, Bet Shemesh got two runs, and in the 7th got two runs simultaneously. This called for a tiebreaker in the form of a home run derby, which is where each team sends three players, each player gets six swings pitched by one of their teammates, and the team with the most home runs wins. And then that was also tied... So they had to have a meeting to figure out what to do next. They ended up repeating the concept with one player each, and Bet Shemesh won.
Wow. I highly doubt I've ever written that much about a baseball game. Goodness knows I probably got the terms all wrong.
And speaking of the terms, baseball terms don't exist in Hebrew. They were all kinda transliterated, which was somewhat amusing.
So since the whole league is kind of small, it makes it that much cuter. The players are into talking to the fans, and this one Blue Sox player kept throwing balls over the fence while he practiced. When the Blue Sox won, they were all jumping around, they were so cute!
The thing with the IBL is that it really appeals mostly to Americans. I am somewhat American, and I didn't particuarly mind that the game brought out the American in me, but the fact is that most of Israelis don't like baseball much. It's just not an Israeli thing. Not to mention that a lot of the website and the commentary at the game is in English. So there's a chance that it won't survive. Sad.
But the bottom line is, it was a really cool game (not that I know anything about baseball, but I think it was) and a lot of fun! Except that the league is tiny.