Thank You Harry Potter Marathon For Making A Rainy Day Productive

The weather worked in my favor yesterday, as I knew I needed to spend it inside working on syllabi for the semester. It poured from 6 a.m. until 4 p.m. so I was locked to my chair, organizing, planning, rearranging, and crafting. We are moving towards edTPA, so I needed to rethink the use of language in the work I assign graduate students (not teaching to the portfolio assessment, as we did everything edTPA requires, but adjusting vocabulary to use their terms).

At 10 a.m., I put on one of those channels that have a lot of commercials, but run marathons and decided to let Harry Potter guide my day. Yes, I'm a fan, but I've only read the books once and only viewed each film once...I'm not fanatic. Yesterday, though, I decided to put the films on as background noise, recording the last so I could watch it the last two hours of the night. As I watched, I couldn't help but place myself back at the Brown School in Kentucky when the books came pouring forth and the movies soon followed. It made for very exciting times, especially as we made metaphors from the story of Slytherins, Deatheaters, Umbridges, and Wormtails. My favorite characters have always been Dumbledore, Trelawney and Luna Lovegood. I know. I know. It says a lot about me.

It made me think about where we are right now, however, especially in relation to the hate that has made itself known again across the nation (perhaps it was never gone, just not covered by national news). Maybe it was the hoods and cloaks of Voldemort's followers that made me think, "Well, the adventure continues."

My intent is not to get political, but just to think about how awesome that series was: magical, inspiring, moving, fun, and adventurous. I miss the energy that came with those days of getting the next book and anticipating the next film. I always said that I am a lucky son of a Butch to have lived as Rowling wrote (and Peter Jackson released the Lord of the Rings films). It makes for a wonderful life and something to think about as I labor forth on this labor day.