I’m one of those social network whores.  Like most people, I created a MySpace account back when it was still popular, although I never used the thing (I mostly just friended some celebrities here and there). One of my other accounts that went really underused was my LJ account, which I posted on maybe once or twice every couple of months. Looking  back, I realized that within the last few years I mostly used it to rant about the worst things in my life or make a sporadic “Hey, I’m finally going to use this thing!” post. I was never the type to write about my feelings, hoping that other people would read them.

Our pool’s heater broke down last week, and it rained so much that the pool’s water dipped down to 70 degrees. Since I’m not fond of feeling like an ice cube, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the internet, during which I recently discovered my old LJ account. I found out that there are some pretty nifty things that I didn’t know about on livejournal, which can be pretty fun and great time-wasters. They’re also fantastic ways to meet new people.

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Hey there all you Harry Potter fans (as I’m sure that there are quite a few of you). In case you hadn’t heard, the new Deathly Hallows trailer was released last night – not just a silly little 30 second preview, but a whole full-blown trailer.

I can’t even begin to explain how psyched I am for this movie. I have been a Harry Potter fan for nearly a decade now, and every movie that they release (in my opinion) is always better than the last. I was really excited when they decided to split Deathly Hallows into two parts, since it meant that they would be able to cover the whole book properly – I hate it when they have to cut out subplots because of time constraints – as well as adequately wrap up the whole series. Having another movie also means keeping the Harry Potter movie fandom alive for just another six months or so, which I’m more than fine with!

As much as I am excited for this movie, I’m also sad that the fandom is kind of coming to an end. I’ll always love the series, but I’m aware of how much the excitement around the fandom has decreased ever since the last book was released. We had the movies to look forward to, but now that’s going to end as well. At least we still have the theme park out there, which is a lot more than other fandoms can say they have!

Anyways, I’m really looking forward to lots and lots of scenes from this movie (I really hope they keep Mrs. Weasley’s famous line in the movie). This trailer also shows that there are a lot of shipper moments, which I’m more than excited for. There’s also the part where Bellatrix can be seen throwing a knife, a scene which I know is going to tear at my heartstrings when I see it on film. I’m planning on re-reading the book very soon, since it’s been nearly three years since I last read it.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie?

Now that summer is in full swing, I’ve been working hard at getting back into the online world. My first goal is to finally get my fanlisting collective at close-to-heart.org up and running again. I’m working on getting a layout together right now, but since I haven’t had photoshop for so long I’m a little out of practice, so it might take me awhile to actually make something decent.

As a big fan of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, I am really looking forward to the new movie coming out this winter, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, whose trailer was released around a week ago. I read all seven books years ago when the first movie was about to come out, and I absolutely love any book that has the Pevensies in it. I’m also curious about the actor that they’ve picked to play Eustace, since he’ll be the star of the next movie if they decide to continue the series and make The Silver Pole (Jill is actually one of my favorite characters, so I really hope they do).

Like most Narnia fans, I liked the first movie much more than the second one, but I still can’t wait to see this new movie. The only bad part of the Dawn Treader is that we get to see so much less of Susan and Peter. Although, in the trailer, it appears that they’re including them a lot more in the movie than in the book, which I’m really glad about. As much as I love William and Anna, my favorite actor in the whole movie series is Skandar Keynes, so I’m glad that this movie will give him a a chance to show off his talent more. Georgie Henley also looks really grown up – she’s already 15, when did that happen?

All in all, the new Narnia movie is definitely one that I am looking forward to over the next few months. Even though I doubt that it has the chance to be as good as the first one, I love being drawn back into that world of innocence and magic everytime I watch one of those films, which reminds me very much of watching a Harry Potter movie.

Is anyone else planning on watching this movie when it comes out? Are there any other fans of the series, and what are your expectations/thoughts on how it’s going to turn out?

I recently received an e-mail from Fanfiction.Net, informing me that one of my favorite stories had been recently updated. I have not been an active reader at this website for a little over a year now, and decided to take a look at the story that had been updated.

It was a Charmed fanfic  – it was actually one of my favorite stories that I had read on the website. I looked at the date on which it was last published, and saw that the author had not posted for over two years.

This made me instantly think of my own story – you see, from the ages 12-15, I was completely obsessed with fanfiction. I’d spend hours reading Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Charmed, Friends, Lost and other fanfics. Sometimes, I would read a story and think “that’s what the authors/writers” should have done.

Having become so obsessed with this phenomenon, I naturally began writing my own stories. Most of them were never finished, or never got published, but there was one multi-chapter story that I had written for the A Series of Unfortunate Events fandom that I quite enjoyed. I had written eleven chapters, and had half of the twelfth chapter saved on my computer. I had over 150 reviews.

Out of being too busy and just sheer laziness, I stopped updating almost three years ago. When I got this e-mail in my inbox, I thought about how irritating it had been for me to read fanfics that were uncompleted, or which had ended on cliffhangers like mine had done.

The next day, I pulled up my old file and began creating an outline for the last three chapters (I had planned for there to be thirteen chapters and an epilogue). I have finished chapter twelve, although I haven’t posted it, and am three quarters of the way done through chapter thirteen.

I can’t believe that I actually let myself abandon my story for so long, but I’m a little proud of myself for finally finishing this story that I’ve been writing on and off since I was twelve. It’s strange to read over the first couple of chapters, knowing that when I was writing them I was still in seventh grade. I’m hoping to have the story finished by the end of this weekend.

The nice thing about having gotten back into this story is that I can find myself catching the fanfic bug; I’m remembering old story ideas that I had bouncing around in my head, and have taken to reading some more fanfiction during my down time, although nowhere close to how much I used to read when I was younger.

Do you read/write fanfiction? If so, what are you favorite fandom, and pairings? What are your favorite fanfiction sites?

Last week in my Modern Philosophy class, I was sitting behind a friend of mine who was browsing through this website that was full of pictures of all these tasty foods. I asked her after class which website she was looking through, and she turned me in the direction of this website.

On Saturday I posted a bunch of pictures of tasty pancakes in preparation for my visit to a sugar shack, so if you enjoyed those photos you can head over to the mouth-watering Tastespotting.com. The only bad thing about this site is if you’re on a diet, since it instantly makes you hungry.

Here are some examples of what you can find on the website:

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