Logic, Love, and Lupin

In case you couldn't tell by my facebook page the last week or so, I'm really excited for Harry Potter 7 Part 2 at midnight on Thursday night. So today's post is dedicated to my favorite character (if I were forced to pick one):

Remus Lupin.

Don't get my wrong. I love Sirius. He has that bad boy streak mixed with a clear understanding of good and evil and a fierce loyalty to his friends. How can you not love Sirius?

But Lupin has always been my favorite. And here's why:

1) Lupin is the first of James's friends that Harry meets. Harry learns a lot about his parents from him, and he's Harry's first real father figure.

2) He's the only one who seems to be able to successfully reprimand Harry for anything and make him feel   bad about it. For example:

"I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them--gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks." ("Snape's Grudge," The Prisoner of Azkaban)

Don't feel so good about yourself now, do you Harry?

3) Lupin is always so level-headed and rational, but in a loving way. He doesn't let Sirius kill Pettigrew without first explaining why, therefore getting Harry on their side. He convinces Harry not to judge his dad by his 15 year-old self, because it's an unkind time to judge someone for. And he resists Tonks' advances because he a) thinks she deserves better, b) thinks he's too dangerous to live with, and c) fears passing on the curse of being a werewolf to any kids.

4) Because he's so rational, Lupin is slow to anger and easy to forgive. He neither likes nor dislikes Snape. There's too much history for them to be friends, but Lupin appreciates Snape for giving him the wolfsbane potion every month while he worked at Hogwarts.

5) Even though he's so rational, he puts his complete trust in Dumbledore. He doesn't know why Dumbledore trusts Snape, but he trusts Dumbledore enough to trust Snape. Insert religious metaphor here.

6) He's a werewolf. That's pretty legit. 2L2Q.

7) He marries Tonks. Tonks is awesome. And he lets her have the final choice on that decision.

They're like the wizarding world's equivalent of a hot indie couple.

8) His story is tragically beautiful. A great man, shunned by society for his terrible condition unwillingly inflicted upon him, makes great friends who are able to see past that. (According to JK Rowling, Lupin is representative of the disabled, interestingly enough.) Shaped by his own pain (physical, emotional, etc), he empathizes with others' and is therefore very kind. He finally finds love (*SPOILER ALERT*) and briefly experiences the joy of parenthood, but his life is taken prematurely in the fray of a fight for the ultimate triumph of good over evil, leaving his son to grow up parent-less, but in a better and safer world.

What's not to love? The guy's awesome! I aspire to one day be as cool as him. But that probably won't happen, because it might be impossible for anyone to be as cool as he is. Oh well. A girl can dream, right?

Mawwiage is what bwings us togevah today

My roommate is engaged! Or as my other roommates would say, it's "a fish!" This involves a story wherein we locked her and her then-almost-boyfriend now-fiance on the balcony to try and force them to make their relationship official, or "offish," so when we asked her if they were offish, almost-boyfriend says, "Wait, this was all about a fish?!"

I'm really excited for her. She's been busy the last couple of weeks planning the wedding. As such, I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately. I can think of 5 friends off the top of my head who got married at the end of last semester, and 7 who are engaged right now. BYU loves marriage. Sometimes I forget how weird it is that so many of us are married. I was telling a friend from home about my roommate's coming nuptials, and I realized how weird that would be to her. I think I've become successfully desensitized to Utah culture. The other day I was shocked to find out that there was not a single married person in my political science class (which could be a whole other blog post altogether...). Oh, BYU.

But fear not, friends, if you think I'm becoming marriage-hungry nut job. First off, one of my best friends refuses to let me get married until she has my masters' degree in hand. Secondly, my dreams are here to remind me what an outrageous folly it is to rush into marriage.

Earlier this week I dreamed I was getting married to a guy I was only somewhat acquainted with. After my wedding, I was wandering around our house, kind of overwhelmed with what had just happened. Luckily, new hubby was cute, and was very understanding of my stress. On the same day, I had a baby who wouldn't stop crying because he kept soiling his diaper every 5 minutes, so I kept having to change it. My baby was nice too, though. He told me after awhile that it was okay if I didn't change his diaper, since he knew I had just changed it multiple times.Thanks, talking baby.

Suffice it to say, despite the kindness of  my new dream family, my subconscious has severely rebuked me for even thinking that marriage could be fun. According to her, marriage is being forcibly stuck with someone you don't know for eternity, and babies are just tiny factories of stink and tears. Sorry to burst your bubble, BYU and my 12 married/marriage-bound friends, but we all know dreams= reality.

My life as stand-up

So I've decided that my life serves either as proof for the truthfulness of stand-up routines, or as material for one. Last weekend I went to Humor U, BYU's stand-up comedy show. One guy was joking about how girls love food more than guys. Well, this week I found out how true that is. Sunday night our ward had a fireside in the Varsity Theater. When it was over, my roommates and I were standing outside the theater (after having our own treats, mind you), and were looking at the engaged couples fireside's treats with envy. As we're staring that way, a guy in our ward walks from that same direction and thinks we're all looking at him, and gets confused. We explain to him, no, we're not looking at you, we're looking at the food behind you. The only reason I began to think about him was in creating a strategy where he could be my fake fiance so we could go take the treats. Sad, right? I mean, this is a good-looking, great guy. Poor kid, he didn't stand a chance.

As far as material goes, this sounds like one of those stories comedians pretend come from real life, but you know they totally make up, but I promise, this really happened. At BYU, all the walk signals at the crosswalks chirp like birds, supposedly so blind people know when to cross. The fact that you can't tell which road the chirping is telling you to cross makes this a really safe and efficient system. The other day I was standing at the corner, waiting for it to let me cross. While I'm staring at the red stop hand, a bird chirps in a tree nearby and I immediately begin walking. What is wrong with me?? I'm staring at the sign, yet I'm still walking! I've been classically conditioned to walk when I hear birds now, just like Pavlov's dog. But I can use this to my advantage, see. I can't be the only one who's been conditioned this way. So now I'll be looking for ways to control my roommates through bird calls.