Cecilia’s Diary

Olive and Fleur put up a neat little questionnaire on their magiblogs, and I thought I’d follow suit, since it’s such a neat one:

1. Butterbeer or pumpkin juice? Butterbeer, I think… which reminds me, I have the makin’s.  Pumpkin juice sounds nice, and I do love me some mango juice if it’s made right, but butterbeer – oh YUMMY.
2. What House are you in? The bestest house of all – Ravenclaw!

3. If you were an animagus, what animal would you turn into. I’d likely be a frog, as that seems to be the animal I resonate with the most.  If not a frog, then a monkey.
4. Who do you empathize with, or resemble best out of Harry, Hermione or Ron? Considering most HP fans call me Hermione a good lot… yep, Hermione.

5. What position do you play at Quidditch?  Keeper.  I played sweeper in Muggle soccer before finding out I was a witch, and keeper is the closest to that.
6. Which teacher is your favorite? Professor Flitwick!  I wish I could have been around for some of the others, but right now Charms is my favorite class and Professor Flitwick sure has taught me a lot.

7. Favorite Quidditch team?  The Kenmare Kestrels
8. What was the best flavor of Bertie’s Every Flavor Beans you have ever had? And the worst? My favorites are buttered popcorn and toasted marshmallow – and most of the “bad” flavors are so horrible I can’t even smell them let alone eat them!
9. What kind of wand do you have? Holly with Gryffon Feather
10. Have you ever been down Knockturn Alley? No, but my father said he’d take me if I pass all my OWLs in a few years as part of the learning process.  He says it’s easier to know what’s wrong if you observe it safely first.

Dear Diary,

I’m awfully tired today.  I haven’t been feeling particularly well the last few days, but it hasn’t been bad enough that I couldn’t go to classes.  This morning, though, I’m feeling completely wiped out.

I have a lot of homework to get done this weekend, so I’ll need lots of luck to find time to do any crafting.  There’s a bag I haven’t touched in days staring at me right now, so that is on the top of my list, I think.  AFTER homework.  So much homework and so little time!  I also have an exam to study for on top of it all!  Guess I’d better quit jabbering to you, Diary, and get on with it!

Dear Diary,

As I was getting ready to do a little knitting after a pile of homework tonight, I noticed that some pixies must have gotten into my stuff!  When I opened my knitting kit, I found that all of my needles, crochet hooks, tapestry needles, and, well, everything was strewn about and in horrible disarray.  I’m missing a few things, too!!!  Those darn pixies.  I guess tomorrow I’ll have to try to finish resorting it all.

Once I finally did get to a little bit of knitting, I found that I needed to “unknit” a few rows due to forgetting a couple of decreases in my first decrease row.  Unfortunately, I’m not a master of that yet and I seem to have flubbed it rather grandly.  I’ll have to see if someone can help me fix my error tomorrow morning between classes – there’s a lady that sells yarn in Hogsmeade and perhaps I’ll have time at lunch to run and see her if I hurry!  When I discovered the huge mistake, I immediately put the point-protecting spell on my needles to keep them from making any of the damage worse.  I’m a little perturbed, Diary, because I was looking forward to making progress tonight!  I’m so very nearly done, and I don’t want to have to frog my whole project…

I’ve been up entirely too late for too many nights, so I’m going to try to get some sleep.  I have a little homework I need to try to do tomorrow, so with luck I’ll be able to find the yarn lady and get my issue fixed quickly so I’ll have some time to work on that assignment before class so I can be armed with questions.   How frustrating!  I guess I’ll have to look at some pattern books to help me calm down before bed.

1. RWIDZTAIR UANONETRMT

Triwizard Tournament

2. NRNAGIHAU RAHNIOTL

Hungarian Horntail

3. AEEMDY ONYOME

Madeye Mooney (What the HECK??? It’s not nice to confuse a Ravenclaw!!!)

4. ARTI KEESTRE

Rita Skeeter

5. ELSAUAEPBNKS

Unspeakables

6. ULSFENFS

Snuffles

7. NEPSVEIE

Pensieve

8. RMUEIIPS

Imperius

9. TREUEEBTBR

Butterbeer

10. ROFELIBT

Firebolt

I’m not entirely sure why it’s Mooney.  Really, I’m not.  I’m sure it was done on purpose, but I really don’t like trick questions.  I had an exam today with trick questions.  Not fair.  And the one that took me forever – as in an hour and a half forever flipping through the book – was unspeakables.  Yikes.  Once I decided to just go with Mooney, at least.  I fretted over that for a good fifteen minutes.

Dear Diary,

Just as I finished up studying for a HUGE exam tomorrow, I got an owl with another quiz!  Ordinarily, I’d get right on it but I’m tired from writing so many notes (I got one full sized page handwritten on both sides to bring with me tomorrow – and I have very small handwriting!) so I think it can wait until tomorrow.

Still loving my new desk, and I’m almost done with a very special bag.  It’s very housey.

Why in the world is Muggle accounting a required course for almost every Muggle major???  I just don’t understand their mundane college system!

Dear Diary,

I am a madwoman!  Since I’m from the States, I grew up with the American version of football, and since I was four I’ve been a Packers fan.  Unfortunately, my team lost tonight in a rather impressive show of whoopsies from both sides AND the referees.  Watching the game was rather depressing.  Almost as depressing was how tight some of the stitches I was trying to knit during the game got!  Oops!  Serves me right for not giving the game my full attention, I suppose.

I have my new desk, and it’s fabulous!  It’s about twice as big as my old desk, but the storage space is significantly different.  I had to move another small cabinet to make room, and now I don’t have hardly any room to put the stuff that was in THAT cabinet.  Oops.  I guess we all have to make sacrifices sometimes.  The desk is very pretty, though, and looks very nice in my room.  I have a lot more room to spread out my homework, too!

Barring the tight stitches during horrible calls and tense moments, I got a lot of knitting done today.  Diary, I think I’ve finally found a groove with some basic stitches!  I was a little nervous, though, when I had to switch to stockinette from seed stitch while working on circulars (I’m trying nonmagical knitting right now) because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to knit all the time or purl every other row!  Since I’m brand new, I didn’t know any better!  Luckily, I picked the logical way of doing it and knit all the way around.  It looks like the picture, so I must have made the right choice!  Hooray!

Diary, I also was a little naughty and spent some of my school money on knitting supplies!  I’m expecting two separate owls sometime in the next few weeks with a couple of books (for both crochet and knitting) and also a skein of yarn that I’m hoping is the same yarn (different color) of a very small ball I received from a local witch back home.  It’s such an interesting yarn with almost perfect stitch definition, soft and still fuzzy.  Maybe I’ll magic a picture here and show my classmates later to see if they know what it might be.  I’m trying a soy wool combination, but if it’s not the right yarn I’ll definitely magic a picture here.

I’m very tired and better get to bed, since tomorrow is a long day for me.  I have a LOT of studying to do for an upcoming exam, and haven’t looked at it hardly at all this weekend!  Good thing I was productive in other areas!!!

Dear Diary,

Homework has sure been keeping me awfully busy!  My Ancient Runes professor gave us an assignment that is due tonight, Saturday, at midnight!  Yikes!  Luckily I’ve just finished it and can now spend the rest of the afternoon packing up my old desk.  Seems my desk got possessed by a boggart right after term started, and now Professor Humperdinck wants to use it for research.  Apparently he’s going to try to figure out how to determine what one REALLY looks like.   I’m excited, but it’s a lot of work cleaning out the old desk without disturbing the boggart!  Moving the new one in won’t be a breeze either.

Well, Diary, it’s time for lunch and I’m awfully hungry.  After lunch, I’ve got just a few more boxes to go and then I’ll be ready to change desks and get started on the rest of my homework that’s due next week!

Mother cast a spell that helped show me what my patronus will be!  She stopped by on her way back home (she wanted to do some shopping before heading back to the States) and I’m so excited!

The RAM, the ram is the most versatile of the patronuses using the geography of the land to its advantage. It has strong inner strength and is truly mighty. Using its horns it bashes into dementors as if it was nothing. This is one of the most useful and loyal of patronuses.

(This is the spell she used)