Anticipating the last Harry Potter book

I can't believe that it's almost here, the last book of the Harry Potter series!

Like I said, I hope I'll be able to go and pick up my reserved copy from the bookstore during this weekend. But as I'm coming down with a bad cough, I don't know now if that is a sure thing. Perhaps I can just go (about an hour by car) and then come right back. Anyway, I don't think I'll be up to anymore shopping after that (although I'd like to shop for textbooks for my classes). (By the way, I've already reserved a piece of plastic bookwrapping material--imported from Singapore!--just for this last book.)

As for when I finally get hold of the book...gosh, I'm not really sure how I'll react or feel at that moment. While I certainly look forward to reading it, I also dread finally reading the last chapter because I know it will be the last book, that no more will come after that.

It will be fun though to see if many of the theories and predictions, particularly about the final confrontation, about Snape and the horcruxes, will turn out to be true. The people over at MuggleNet have recently posted their predictions. My favorite Mugglenet columnist, Lady Lupin, has written extensively about her own predictions in Spinner's End.

Rowling herself has stated that a re-reading of the first six books should reveal at least one horcrux that Voldermort created. Having re-read the first two books, scanned the third, read a smattering of the fourth and the fifth in the past few weeks, there is only one thing that struck me as a likely candidate for the missing horcrux: Tom Riddle's special award. After all, didn't he relate to Harry via his diary that "They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble..."? What's more is that received the trophy after successfully killing someone, albeit through the basilisk. And didn't Dumbledore tell Harry that "Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies"? Just my two cents...

I also read somewhere about this theory that Dumbledore had willingly and deliberately sacrificed himself to protect Harry, and, in doing so, re-established the charm that provided Harry with a protection as an infant. It is said that since Voldemort now believes that that charm no longer exists because Harry's blood was used to restore him his body, he will think he will be capable of killing Harry with the Avada Kedavra curse. But what he won't expect is that it will once more rebound on him--just as it did the first time he tried to kill Harry when he was a baby--and ultimately kill him, assuming of course that Harry will have had destroyed all horcruxes then.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. But I have my own modified version: it was never Dumbledore's intention to sacrifice himself when he was killed by Snape in Book 6. Instead, the final confrontation between Voldemort and Harry will be essentially a replay of what happened the first time Voldemort tried to kill Harry. In the end somebody will stand in Voldemort's way and try to protect Harry but will be killed by Voldemort. It is that sacrifice that will re-establish the charm that will protect Harry once again. Who that somebody will be can be anybody's guess. It has to be somebody who loves Harry deeply naturally. Hagrid perhaps? Ron? Ginny (who was made to resemble Lily Potter with her read hair)? Even Mrs. Weasley who loves Harry as her own son (another case of mother's love protecting Harry there). I really don't know.

But I know that I find out only when I've read the last book.

Remembering the first Harry Potter books

With the release of the last book just a few days away, I thought I'd reminisce here how I first came to read the Harry Potter books and how I acquired my copies of the first six books.

I believe I first read about the Harry Potter books on the CNN website. That was in the late 1990s and only the first three books I think had been released then. Articles there had mentioned that it was a hit among children and adults alike but I wasn't interested in reading a book meant for kids. But then a friend of mine started using "Hedwig Hoot" as his Yahoo! ID which I found rather curious because I knew Hedwig was a girl's name. Since it's my habit to search for more information (in the Internet) about something that catches my fancy, I started Googling (Google was just starting out then) the word "Hedwig". I knew that I found what I was looking for when I found out that it was the name of an owl in the famed Harry Potter series. So when I asked my friend if he had read the Harry Potter books, he admitted that he had read all four books (the ones available then in 2000) and liked them a lot. Now that got me curious as well because my friend and I have similar tastes. So I ended up buying the US paperback editions of the first two books, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (they were on sale at the bookstore) one April weekend in 2000.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I got sick the Monday after I bought the books and that gave me a good excuse to stay home, stay in bed and read. Ha-ha. I began and finished reading the first book that Monday (I think I stayed up until 2am) and finished the second book over the next two days. I was hooked! I wanted to buy the next two books but all that was available then were the hardbound editions which were way over my budget. So I was forced to wait.

I didn't get a copy of the third book until it was given to me as a birthday gift in 2002 by my very good friends in Singapore. It was definitely one of the most unexpected but most welcome of gifts. (Thanks gang!) I managed to read Prisoner of Azkaban (UK paperback edition) through a hectic study schedule; I remember having to resist the temptation to begin reading it since I had upcoming exams at that time. Anyway, by the time I was done reading it in a week or so, it quickly became my favorite in the series.

Now Goblet of Fire I think I downloaded (shhh!) a copy from somebody's computer. (File-sharing was rampant then before the university finally put its foot down.) That Rowling sure knows how to keep her readers glued: I read the entire fourth book off the screen of my laptop. It was that good. Yet I'm of the older generation who are much more comfortable reading something on paper. I eventually bought myself a copy of Goblet of Fire (UK paperback edition) a few months after that so that I could reread it while more relaxed sitting back or lying down in bed.

My US hardbound copy of Order of the Phoenix was sent to me (ordered through Amazon.com) by the very friend who got me started on Harry Potter. Yes, considering the cost of the book plus shipping and handling, it was a rather expensive gift that I should have refused. But when I wrote to my friend that I was given book Prisoner of Azkaban as a gift he seemed miffed because I said no when he offered to buy me hardbound copies of the first two books. So to appease him, I accepted his offer this time around to buy me this fifth book. Anyway, he should be happy to hear that I was absolutely thrilled when the book was delivered some two weeks after the 23 June 2003 release to the flat I shared with my friends in Singapore. I think it took a few weeks to finish reading that because I still had my hectic class schedule then.

Then last was the Half-Blood Prince which I pre-ordered through a bookstore here. (My sister and I bought my friend a copy in exchange for the Order of the Phoenix that he got for me.) I picked that up on 17 July 2005, a day after it was released and finished reading it within three days. I typed out the following on my laptop when I was done reading:

It is 19 July 2005 and I've just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Sigh! I began reading about 8pm last Sunday, 17 July, which was soon after getting home from doing some shopping at the [mall]. I had gone there that afternoon with my father to pick up my reserved copy of the book at [bookstore]. I managed to read until the end of Chapter 12 that evening before dropping off to sleep a little past 2:30am. And then I read one more chapter the next morning before leaving for work. In the evening, I believe I read on until page 437 when I fell asleep again, probably fatigued from work. I'm not even sure what time it was then. And now, I'm done having resumed just before 8pm. A few hours earlier, my hands were sweating and I was near tears. I didn't even want to read on at one point because I was dreading to read about what I knew would be happening. But I forced myself to continue reading. And so the clock on the Windows desktop of my laptop read 11:28 when I looked up after reading the last page.

In a way, I was in a hurry to read it to avoid getting the ending spoiled for me by reactions and reviews appearing on the Internet and other media. For me, it was just as good as Prisoner of Azkaban but definitely much sadder.

And so, I hope I'll be able to go to the bookstore this weekend to pick up my reserved copy of Deathly Hallows then spend most of the following week trying to snatch some time to read it.

Robbery on the information superhighway

Okay. I'd hate to do this but I just had to get this off my chest. So here I go with another complaint:

Our Internet connection here has been positively crawling nowadays. And I'm very frustrated that there can't seem to anything I can do about it.

I've been subscribing to this ISP for more than two years now and have been generally satisfied with the service provided thus far. Being very particular about bandwidth, I've been periodically checking the speed of our Internet connection using bandwidth speedtests available online. (The one I find most appealing is the speedtest at SpeakEasy while the one that is most informative is the MySpeed test by VisualWare.) In the good ol' days so to speak, our download speed would usually clock around 220kbps while "quality of service", as measured at MySpeed, would often be a respectable 50%. Overall, this isn't really too bad considering the usually poor standards of service here in our country. Of course, as expected, the connection would slightly slow down during peak hours (early evening).

But in the past month or so, it's been really very very very bad. Despite the fact that the Internet connection provided is supposed to be "faster than dial-up", I've been finding that our connection has dropped to an atrocious 20-30kbps with a quality of service of just 10-20%. So now, it takes forever to load nearly every webpage. Or else, most webpages nearly never get fully loaded. Even worse, the browser sometimes ends up displaying that page with the "Page failed to load" or "Server not found" message. And this is not just during peak hours mind you. I've been noticing that connection would return to normal (that is, around 220kbps) only for a couple of hours in the early morning nowadays. (I know this because I'm still having problems with my sleeping habits and end up surfing the net during the wee hours of the morning when I'm most wide awake.) Yet, connection speed used to be pretty good starting around 10pm and continuing for most of the day.

I've already complained about it at the main office when I went to pay my bill last time but all I got was apologies and the poor excuse that their subscriber base has grown so large that their existing network resources can't keep up with the demand. I bet many other customers have been complaining as well because soon after that they sent everyone flyers apologizing about the situation. The sad thing is, there isn't anything more that we can do about it. (Such is the sad state here in this country in similar situations.) One can keep on complaining or even go as far as to threaten not to pay the monthly fee but the company can always conveniently hide behind the fact that they have promised to simply provide its customers an Internet connection with a maximum speed of 310kbps or 512kbps (depending on which plan you subscribe to). Nothing in the contract specifies that connection speed is guaranteed not to fall below a given minimum. (Nothing, that is, except for their posters and banners which advertise "faster than dial-up" connections.)

While nothing much can be done, I must say that it's totally unfair for the company to continue accepting new cable Internet subscribers when they can't guarantee quality service to everyone. Imagine, they're collecting monthly fees from everyone and no one is getting the Internet connection they paid for. It's practically highway robbery!

Good news before bad news

My boss has a knack for delivering the good news before bad news, often with comedic results:

Popcorn, anyone?
One day, several of us at the office were helping out at a campus activity. As our boss is rather fond of food (her figure is evidence of that!), she often provides us with snacks when it comes to group activities like these. So on this particular day, she showed up at work with a huge plastic tub of popcorn, the kind that you buy sealed at the supermarket. Sometime mid-afternoon (snack time), she brought it to where everyone was working and opened it for us to eat. Naturally, everyone there was starving by then from having worked since morning and promptly dug in.

While all were eagerly partaking of this free snack, our boss stood there examining the cover of the tub before getting a handful of popcorn herself. After eating a few puffed kernels, she remarked as she glanced once more at the label on the tub's cover, "Hmmm... okay 'to. Masarap pa rin kahit nag-expire na siya." (Hmmm... not bad. It still tastes good even if it expired already.)

This extraordinary pronouncement of course electrified everybody there. All mouths stood frozen open with hands poised in mid-air about to pop in another few kernels. Needless to say, there were lots of leftovers.

Cheap housing
Housing outside campus is as usual more expensive than housing within campus meant for teaching faculty and administrative staff. As there are a limited number of units of the latter, only a handful become available for rent at the beginning of each academic year and applicants often have to compete for one. We had a few young faculty already sharing a single apartment outside campus in order to cut down on monthly expenses but struggled to pay the rent nevertheless. And my boss who always watches over the welfare of our younger staff was aware of the situation. This June being start of the academic year 2007-2008, our office eagerly awaited the list of units that would be available for rent starting this year from the administration office in-charge of these things.

In anticipation of this list, my boss encouraged one of our younger staff members to apply for a unit together with other younger staff saying, "Ba't ayaw niyong mag-apply para sa housing? Php___ lang per month yung rent." (Why don't you guys apply for a unit? The monthly rent is just PhP___.)

The younger staff member who apparently was not aware of the on-campus housing rates was amazed, "Talaga?! Php____ lang? Sige, kakausapin ko sina R___, L___, at J___. Baka sakaling interesado din sila." (Oh, really?! Just PhP___? Sige, I'll talk to R___, L___ and J___. They might be interested in applying for one as well.)

My boss happily urged them further. "Malaki ang chance niyong makakuha ng unit. Kaunti lang nga daw ang nag-apply. Dahil sabi daw, palaging nag-brobrownout, tumutuklap daw yung pintura ng ibang kuwarto at maraming lumalabas na ahas sa likod 'pag tag-ulan." (You should have a pretty good chance of getting a unit. After all, not too many apply for the units meant for singles. That's because they say that brownouts are frequent, the paint in some rooms are peeling off ... and there are lots of snakes that come out in the backyard during the rainy season.)

Now you can bet if our younger staff went on with their housing application!

P.S. to miracle recovery

Sadly, we found our little pigeon dead in its cage early this morning. I suppose it had not really truly recovered and might have been suffering from a relapse of sorts, probably due to the unusually cold and damp weather we have been experiencing these past few days. It's quite a pity because the poor thing really did look so much stronger in the middle of last week. Ah well. At least it's no longer suffering.

Federer's fifth, bak kwa, a miracle recovery and TAA reminiscences

My favorite memories of the past week:

1. Federer winning his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title. Enough said.
2. My boss was given some good ol' bak kwa by an old friend visiting from Singapore. She shared some with me when I went to her office to discuss certain administrative matters with her. Yum yum! Haven't had bak kwa for ages (even if I've eaten some just once or twice in the past)!
3. Our little refugee pigeon who apparently came down with salmonellosis is somehow recovering. It looked terrible for several days, refusing to eat (thankfully it at least managed to take a sip of water a few times a day), producing green faeces, its neck twisting in odd angles (neck torsion) and staggering/rolling around due to wing/leg paralysis. The poor thing. But last Sunday I noticed that the neck torsion ceased. Then Monday, it looked more alert; was looking around, as if for food; and managed to stand up again. It even flew up to the top of its house the other day. And as of today, it was walking around the floor of its cage (though it was still slightly limping), eating a bit of crushed pigeon pellets and beating its wings whenever it would see or hear me greet it. It was truly some minor miracle. I'm praying it makes a full recovery.
   
4. I visited an old friend's weblog yesterday and laughed when that I saw that his latest post was a "reprint" of some TAA notices and reports my friends and I used to write and send one another (coincidentally almost exactly four years ago to this day). We often arranged to meet at the tennis courts in campus to "play" tennis every Sunday back then and even got together to watch tennis on tv as well. I thought it was funny how we were "obsessed" with tennis just then and christened our group the TAA, for Tennis Addicts Anonymous. The emails we sent each other served as some kind of a newsletter of our group. Such were the good ol' days of (our) tennis.
   

Wimbledon withdrawal symptoms

If the fortnight of 25 June to 08 July was spent watching Wimbledon on tv, this past week was mostly about looking for something else to do now that there's no tennis and no Federer to watch on tv. He-he. This is crazy!

I recall that for at least the first couple of days I whiled away the time reading online reports and articles about Federer's triumphant win at the finals for a fifth straight title and clipping the good ones to save in my Wimbledon 2007 folder of my Google Notebook. (My, my! Those accolades sure keep pouring in for Federer. We fans are so proud of him.) I had to do that straight away--as I usually do in the aftermath of a match or tournament--before the articles get lost forever when the links stop working.

After that, it was mainly channel surfing in a vain attempt to find something else to watch. I guess I got so used to the euphoria of watching tennis that I now find typical tv fare rather boring in comparison.

And then there was the short period of searching for and watching video clips of the finals match on YouTube. Can't get enough of that brilliant break of serve at 3-2 in the fifth set plus championship point of course.

Hmmm. I wonder if my friends over at the Tennis Addicts Anonymous (TAA) are going through the same "ordeal". Hey, JNU, MCFM, MCPA, HBI, JCSY and ERST!! How are you guys doing?