Who I'd Like To Meet.

The Little Prince

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Fourteen.

14. I always feel that I'm bothering people when I talk to them, even my family and friends.

Why do people even want to hang out with me? I think about that a lot. Most of the time I regret what I say the moment it comes out of my mouth. I feel like I'm an embarrassment that my friends want to keep hidden away except for the three days out of the month they want someone to make them laugh. It's very rare that someone calls me just to talk, or invites me to hang out if I don't initiate it. Most of the time I'm just ignored. I've been wondering about that a lot lately. Why is it so easy to brush me off? To ignore me for a week, or weeks, at a time? A text every once in a blue moon doesn't count.
I try to listen to every one...but only a few of them return the favor. When I have a problem I can't even talk about it because it seems like no one wants to hear it. I don't get offered advice, just an acknowledgment and then we go right back to talking about the other person.
Maybe I'm just having a bad week? One where it's clear that I am always pushed to the back, until other plans are canceled? I don't want to take it any more, but I don't want to cause any problems. Stalemate.
I've decided to stop. No more initiating hangouts, texts, comments or phone calls. Let's see what happens. I hate being treated like this, yet I always am. By the same people, over and over again. Is the problem me?

Wanderlust.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to live in Paris. It seems so exotic to me, someone who has been on Staten Island for her whole entire life with the occasional trips to Disney World. I long for an apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of my independence and freedom from my not so extraordinary life. I can smell the butter on the croissants and taste their flakiness as I imagine walking next to the Seine. In my head the city is less crowded then Manhattan and no one is pushing you out of their way in a rush to go someplace unimportant. I can be an anonymous person in a street café just reading until dusk without all of the honking taxis. This is the Paris of my imagination.
One of the first things most people get to know about me is this desire I have to be in Paris and away from New York. A lot of them think I am crazy considering that the French have a reputation for not being so fond of Americans and that New York is a wonderful place to live. I feel like Paris is the place that I belong, a place that is not quite so loud and obnoxious as New York, a place where I can be content in. It seems beautiful, with cobblestone streets and old world architecture combined with so much history that America doesn’t have. I know that we are a relatively young country with history of our own but France seems like a place where I can truly be myself.
In the last few months I have begun to realize that my yearning to live in Paris is just a means to escape any problems that occur in my life. It could have been any other city that I attached myself to, but Paris is a fashion capital of the world which is probably what made it the subject of my fixation. This realization really hit home once I found myself reading this passage from Sarah Vowell’s novel The Partly Cloudy Patriot; "An astrologer once told me, 'You suffer from what's called a geographic.' A geographic is when a person walks around thinking that where he lives will make his life better. The astrologer said, 'Let me tell you, life is about an emotional connection to people and things and it doesn't matter where you are on the globe.'" That paragraph really struck a chord with me. I realized that I kept thinking that I would be happier if I lived somewhere else and that what I really needed to do was change the things that were bothering me here where I actually live. I would most likely be the same in Paris as I am everywhere else.
My bedroom is a dedication to my dream. There are Moulin Rouge posters along with at least three sculptures of the Eiffel Tower and numerous other French artifacts cluttering up space that could be put to a better use. I am not going to take them down because I still dream of going to France and wondering if my instincts were right, but now when I look at all of the Parisian memorabilia they are more of a bittersweet reminder that nothing will change by relocation. I have to take charge and change things on my own before I can truly be happy anywhere.

Thank you J.K. Rowling.

When I was eleven years old my parents gave me Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for Christmas. I was an avid reader but the book just didn’t interest me much. A month later we were taking a long car ride and Harry Potter was the only thing in our house, including cereal boxes that I had not yet read. I started the book in the car and finished the entire novel twice before we got to our destination. It was the best book I had ever read in my entire eleven years of life. It involved magic, which always interested me, but also good vs. evil, amazing characters who were my age, and just an amazing world that I still love to this day. I have cultivated my closet group of friends based on Harry Potter and my entire childhood was spent being in love with those novels. This has been the case for many others all over the world. J.K.Rowling’s napkin scribblings have become more than a fiscal wonderland; they have become an inspiration to people all over the world to pick up a novel in the age of electronics.
Through her Harry Potter novels author J.K. Rowling has inspired many reluctant readers around the globe to pick up a book. From children who never before have been interested in reading during an age of electronic entertainment to people who have never before had access to books in third world countries. Even adults have become obsessed with the stories after reluctantly picking them up.
Harry Potter books have had a positive impact, not only on a child’s attitude toward reading, but also on the quality of schoolwork. This shows that once children get interested in reading, they will keep being interested and accept other literature as well. This is an amazing accomplishment for a novel, or author to pull of. More than half of Harry Potter readers said that they hadn’t read books for fun before the series. Finding a book that can encourage a reluctant reader is not easy. Children can feel defeated by age 9 or 10 if they have not found a book they can connect with. The Harry Potter series has truly been a monumental force in encouraging children to read.
J.K. Rowling inspired many people to do something that is sadly unusual in this day and age, pick up a novel. How did she accomplish this when others could not? I for one would say sheer brilliance but that is because she is my one of my greatest idols. Others would say her literary skills are the cause of this phenomenon. Such as her use of literary tools: good and evil, humor, magic, fantasy, relationships and thrills-the stuff juvenile readers love. The books hit on major themes that children commonly like in fiction books. These include being special, going from poor to rich, and knowing more than adults. Children can also connect with these books because they are not written in an advanced language or “dumbed down”, which makes children feel as if the author is taking them seriously. J.K. Rowling accomplishes that while also writing the novels in a way that children can understand them. I started reading these novels when I was eleven and I never had any problem understanding them or the themes that Rowling was trying to bring forth. Adults also like these novels because the can see the meaning on a deeper level. They watch the three main characters deal with puberty, friendships, and the importance of loyalty. The series ended when I was 18 and many of the friendships and morals in the series have influenced my own. I liked watching the characters grow up as I did and deal with the same issues as I had. Many people can identify with Harry, a new kid in school dealing with all the insecurities, the bullies and the normal problems of life. Even the humor is a selling point for all of the readers.
On December 6th, 2008 J.K. Rowling published another book, the Tales of Beedle the Bard. It coincides with a fictional book in the Harry Potter series and she has decided to publish it and make it a reality. I bring this up because when the book was only in pre-orders it was already set to be published in 63 languages. Rowling has reached an international audience like no other ever before. There are even countries that are so desperate to publish the book they translate the novels themselves, unauthorized. I think it is amazing that Rowling has been able to essentially bring the world together, over a novel. Even people in countries as remote as Nepal are reading these novels! To me, Rowling is an amazing person, to have accomplished this much with a series of novels. Especially when novels are so easily disregarded in this day and age.
Harry Potter has changed my life. Those novels have connected me with so many people I cannot even count it. When I was a freshman in high school I felt it was uncool to have been such an avid reader as I was, and especially to be so in love and obsessed with a novel such as Harry Potter. That was before I discovered, in the beginning of the year that I was not alone. Lindsay Hansen and Alyssa Henry, two of my closest and best friends to this day were just like me. We spent hours discussing theories on the books and even reading them together. We went to every single midnight release party and based our friendships with people and even relationships on how the other person felt about these novels. Alyssa and I were just talking the other day when I said “I think the reason we became friends in the first place Lys, is because of Harry Potter.” She agreed and we just went on, but that revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. I have J.K. Rowling to thank for a large amount of people in my life whom I treasure like no others. There is even a Facebook group called “I only know you because of J.K. Rowling.” Her novels have inspired music, called “Wizard Rock Bands” which are brilliant, and websites galore. All of us Harry Potter fans feel connected to one another because of our love for these novels. Whenever I am talking to someone new and they mention that they like Harry Potter I feel relieved because I know that on some level we are already connected and understand one another.
I could never go into all the details about my life and Harry Potter because it would probably be as long as the Harry Potter novels themselves. Many people laugh at the idea of changing the world, especially with a novel, which unfortunately is an idea that is becoming more and more associated with the word antiquated. I think Rowling has accomplished that. I believe that inspiring children to read, is an amazing accomplishment all in its own. These children will now go out and read other novels because of Rowling, hoping that they will also love them as much as they did Harry Potter. The whole world has been influenced by these novels that I will treasure forever.