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Friday, July 20, 2007

The Deathly Anticipation [PART TWO]

Three days ago, I was wondering if I could go crazier than I had been. Now I know. I'm not crazy after all... I'm just overexcited, overanxious, overnervous, overterrified, and overdosed of expectations. But AM I REALLY NOT CRAZY?

OH YOUR GOD IT'S ONLY SIXTEEN HOURS LEFT UNTIL I HAVE THAT BLOODY BOOK ON MY HANDS!!!

Ahh.... It's nice to get it all out.. again... which I will have to do again in several minutes...

Ok... Before I tell you about my plan for tomorrow... (TOMORROW!!! OH SHiT! It's Tomorrow!) ; (Well, yeah. You'll get a lot of that in this post... The excitement hits me every few damn seconds I remember that... and the problem is... I can't get it out of my head.) ...

What I was saying... Before I tell you anything... I want to share a story of how I was first introduced to the Harry Potter Series.

It was year 2000, I was in high school and lots of my friends were reading an unknown book called Harry Potter. Out of curiosity, I borrowed the damn book (It was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Indonesian version) and when I read it, I didn't get the plot of the story. That's because I didn't read the first one. But then I didn't drop the book. Something about this book was so entertaining... and I was just sucked into it. The next thing I knew, I already finished the two-hundred-page book and I was craving to read the first book : Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Several months later, I began to collect the whole series. I bought the first book, the second, the third, and the fourth. And by then, I was one of the greatest fans in my class. The other one was probably someone called Herlina. We discussed much about Harry Potter. But now she's gone to UK and actually has met JK Rowling. I was so jealous of her.

When the fifth book came out (three years later... on June 23 2003), I was in Jakarta, and I lavishly spent lots of my saved money to buy that, the first english version of that series I've ever read. My dad was furious to know me spending a lot of money on books.. you know.. novels... hahaha...

First, I was having some difficulties reading in english. Only then I realized my english still sucked hard. Lolz. But time made me used to it. Somehow, Harry Potter taught me english, and I had been addicted to Harry at that time... even more than before.

When the Indonesian version surfaced six months later.. on January 11, 2004, I was gleeful to see the whole town was celebrating the thing I'd celebrated six months earlier. But I bought the Indonesian version too, so my little sister could read it.

When the sixth one came out, I was already back in Medan. July 16, 2005. I was the first one to buy the book, went to the book store first thing in the morning and grabbed my First Edition of Half-Blood Prince. I then spent 3 whole days reading at home. It was perfect.

Now, for the seventh book, and the finale one... I've pre-ordered the book three months before.. on April 22, 2007... and I'm the ninth person in Medan to do that... ( I wished I was the first but whatever... hahaha) ... and the excitement about this book topples the last one... it has quadruplicated... quintuplicated... I am so nervous to see how it ends.

Scared to death, I am watching closely as the whole world is also celebrating about the final release. The worst thing of it was the leak and the spoilers. They are everywhere and I have to be very very careful to open a website, even yahoo and wikipedia... as they constantly put major plot spoilers that leaked several days before. It's like war... whenever I'm going to online.

Even NY Times spoiled millions of Harry Potter fans in US by reviewing leaked-books and putting the ultimate spoilers on the NEWSPAPERS, some place we'd never thought we could be spoiled. Even JK Rowling is angry about that. Fansites like Mugglenet and TLC shared their disappointments to NY Times, and I heard a lot of people cried because their ten years waiting had been ruined instantly.

I have to be careful this time... I won't have my friends sending me text messages just to spoil me. I won't be spoiled! If I do somehow.. I would kill myself.... (or kill him/her most likely).

So... with all this going on in the world, and I'm a part of it... AM I STILL CRAZY?

Let's see a tiny number of my Harry Potter collections at home. I have lots and lots of Harry Potter magazines. This below is the latest one from Cinemags. I got postcards, bookmarks, posters, and even wands.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I WANT THE BOOK!!!!

and this below is my Harry Potter book. Welcome to my world :

Those are Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix. My proudest book.

..... and what will happen to Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes? Can Harry find them and destroy them all... seeing Dumbledore was almost die just to destroy ONE of the Horcruxes. He actually died when trying to destroy the second one...

... about Snape... which side is he really on? The Order? Or Voldemort?

I will find out later tomorrow...

OH WTF, It's TOMORROW!!! ARRRGHH.... Please JUST GIMME THAT BOOK!

NOW!

Oh yeah.. I also own a Harry Potter's wand and Voldemort's. I couldn't get the chance to photographize my Harry Potter's wand. Here's the compensation.

and peculiarly, I saw the exact same wand on the internet.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Sometimes, when I have nothing to do.. I just wave my wand and see if it will work.
Now, do you still think I'm crazy?

Last night, I went down to a shop and bought all this "preparation" sorts. This is what I will have when I am reading the last book on the big day tomorrow.

Do people usually make this kind of preparations?

OH SHIT! IT'S TOMORROW! Tomorrow, MAN! I can't wait for this day to be over!

Bought TARO, because that is my favourite Snack.

MIX MAX and NU GREEN TEA, because I may wanna be drunk but not drunk too much to stop me reading... and NU... I may need to drink something fresh... hehehe

Actually I don't really like beans, but this comes with the MIX MAX so whatevs.

And AT LAST for the sake of my awakeness...
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TA DAH!

Hahaha.. I need this very much because I won't be sleeping tomorrow night.

DOING WHAT, U ASK?

DUH! READING! WHAT DO YOU THINK!

Well, I hope the coffee's enough.

Hah!

Actually, I bought so many more stuffs but I can't take all the pictures one by one and post them here, can I? Hahaha...

What about now? Do you still think I'm not crazy?

I AM NOT CRAZY LAR!!!!
JUST VERY MUCH OBSESSED ABOUT HARRY POTTER!

by the way... who the hell is that person who's always answering my questions?

This is where I stop.

In a few hours, I will be knowing everything about Harry Potter's greatest mysteries... and soon...

I will have no reason to live no more...

and probably kill myself...

for I have no other reason to live...

hahaha...

This is my last post before the book comes out. Note that I won't post anything here because I will be busy reading... so I'll see you (whoever you are) after I finish the book...

... that... if I don't .. you know... die.

Here we go, Harry. Bring it on!

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Ordered For the Phoenix

After a long time waiting... After a long moment of wondering... After a very long excitement trapped inside of me, it has finally come to a climax, the big premiere of one of the biggest events this year, and the beginning of the END OF HARRY POTTER.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, premiered yesterday, at July 11th 2007.

And this, is the review. Not a review, but the detailed review by one of the biggest fans, "ehm ehm" [impersonating the toadlike Umbridge], ---me.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT for people who haven't seen it yet!!!

Seconds before the movie started, I was already goosebumps-ed, and when the Warner Bros. WB logo appeared followed by a rather slow Hedwig's Theme music, and then when the title emerged, I swore I had a heart attack, overexcited, and may have died.

The movie began with a cool camera-view of Privet Drive and we saw Harry sitting in a park, and then Dudley arrived and started mocking Harry, talking about "scared of pillows, 'dun-kill-Cedric-who's-Cedric-your-boyfriend' shit, and then he was talking --out of nowhere-- about Harry's mum, and then the next thing we knew was the sky turned grey and the Dementors showed up. I mean, WTH?! It was all so fast. So I tried to keep up, though I didn't have any trouble doing that, given I've already memorized the whole book and plot anyway, but I pitied people who haven't. They wouldn't know what's going on. Where's Mundungus Fletcher?

Yes, there's a lot of sub-plots that have been left off, unmentioned and purely abandoned. We didn't see the stag clearly, We didn't see the Dursley were furious about what had happened to their son, We didn't see the peck of owls and we couldn't really tell how bad Harry was feeling when he found out he was expelled.

The Department of Mysteries scene

Out of the blue, the advance guard had arrived, but WHERE WAS LUPIN? WHERE"S MY LUPIN? WHY DIDN'T HE COME? I spent a lot of times wondering in the cinema... Tonks' Metamorphmagus wasn't explained and Harry didn't Disillusioned while flying.

The scene when Grimmauld Place appeared out of the thin air was quite interesting though. As Harry entered the building, I was hoping that Sirius's first appearance was memorable, like in the book, but it wasn't at all. In fact, despite how cool slash cheesy their hugging scene was, I'dve liked the yelling-at-the-portrait scene better. Too bad it's not included.

The Prophecy Hall Scene

The Ministry of Magic

The scene when Harry was supposed to be yelling at Ron and Hermione was also cut short by Fred and George's intrusion. The Crookshanks eating the Extendable Ears was hillarious. There was no cleaning the house - fighting the Doxys scene. Kreacher was only showed as if he's a crazy servant, just that. It seemed clear that they included Kreacher only because JK Rowling had said he'd play a significant part in book 7.

We didn't meet Luna Lovegood on the train, we met her on the Thestrals' carriage. One of the best thing in this film is Luna Lovegood and how good she portrayed her role. No wonder JK Rowling said she was perfect. I really like her, and she brought my imagination on Luna perfectly in to life.

Lucius Malfoy

Luna Lovegood

The odd thing though, it's not Hagrid who explained to Harry about the Thestrals. Luna did it. It's kind of absurd since Luna's only a year younger than Harry. Where the hell did she get all these knowledge about thestrals?

Speaking of absurd things, there were lots of them. It has seemed that David Yates changed alot. It's not the same as let off stuffs. He changed them and that made me very uneasy. These are several significant things they changed :

1. It's Cho Chang who betrayed the DA, not Marietta! WTF! Cho would never do that! But then we learned that Umbridge used Veritaserum against her. Well, I still was furious.

2. It's Dobby who told Harry about the Room of Requirement, not Neville!

3. Dumbledore should have arrived inside the Department of Mysteries, not bursting out of the fire in the Atrium.

4. It's Moody who showed Harry the original Order of the Phoenix photograph, not Sirius.

5. Harry's occlumency lesson wasn't supposed to be held right after Mr Weasley got attacked.

6. Harry wasn't supposed to see Snape's worst memory from his head directly.

7. The propechy wasn't supposed to "ring" when harry touched it.

8. And the one which made me extremely furious is that Sirius was hit with Avada Kedavra curse in the movie. IT WAS HELL NOT! He was hit by an unknown color hex! IT WAS NOT CERTAIN THAT IT'S THE AVADA! SIRIUS IS NOT DEAD!!!! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE!!!! Hahaha.. that scene did make me very angry! I saw it as an attempt to convince me that Sirius was indeed dead, which I doubted. NO!!!!!!!!!!!

Kreacher

Dumbledore

There are many many many many many scene got cut out from the book. I guess I have expected this to happen, but still I was very annoyed. These were a few of them, as far as I can remember.

1. There was no Mundungus, no prefect badges, no Mrs Weasley's boggarts, no Doxys.
2. No Christmast in the close ward scene. No Lockhart and Neville's parents scene. Not even St Mungo's.
3. No Quiddicth match. No flashback about Hagrid's tale.
4. No Hagrid and McGonagall getting sacked scene.
5. No Snape and Sirius almost-duel-in-the-Grimmauld-kitchen scene. I wouldve love that.
6. No Weasley's big chaos and surely no Peeves at all.
7. No Brain scene, in DoM. I wouldve loved that "Accio Brain!" line so much!
8. No scene with shield and gong during Voldemort and Dumbledore's duel.
9. No checking out Sirius Black before rushing to DoM.
10. No LILY POTTER! I HATE that.
11. No Ministry's Fountain Statue come into life part. I was waiting resultlessly.
12. No Neville being Crucio'ed scene.

About the acting, all of them pretty much great. Harry's was spectacular. Luna's far than Great. She was amazingly brilliant. Ron's was OK. Hermione's was starting to become dreadful. Michael Gambon's Dumbledore was hopeless. There was improvements in his acting, but it was still lame... I wonder why.. hm... why huh.... em.. i don't know... maybe because.... HE'S NOT EVEN READ THE BOOK! He couldn't portray Dumbledore as how he supposed to be. Calm, Wisdomful, Funny, and Intelligent. Instead, Gambon made him comical, strict, hateful, and IT'S JUST NOT RIGHT!!!

Moody and Tonks

"Harry is possessed" scene. Great scene!

What I've been waiting for is the VEIL Scene. I was thunderously amazed by the actual Veil description. All this time I couldn't picture it in my head, but now... the VEIL is so damn great. When Sirius fell through the veil, Harry's sorrow and yellings should have lasted longer. I was sad, but it was so short. The whole movie was so JUMPY. But the movie is one of the best, because it concentrated on the characters' emotions, especially Harry. I could see the other character has grown too, Neville and Arthur for example. Both Umbridge and Bellatrix were great. It's a 9 out of 10. I know I've critized a lot, but I have high expectations when it comes to Harry Potter movies.

You MUST watch it! It's good. I wish to watch it again. Hahaha...

PS : OH SHIT! Only one week before Deathly Hallows. My life is worthless after Harry Potter ends. Hahaha...

Monday, July 09, 2007

Back To School

It's been four years since I graduated from my high school Sutomo 1 Medan and kissed them goodbye. And I haven't been back there since then. Well, two years previously, I paid a very short visit there to get my High School Memorial Album, but I guess it didn't count because I was only there for several minutes, not even enough to see how that old school was doing.

But yesterday, I went back there only to see what's been going on, to clarify many rumours I've heard about the school, and to take lots and lots of pictures. Well... as you can see below.. I will start from the buildings.

I found this on the ground, in front of Building B, or A, I don't really get the naming of the buildings now. There are a lot of changes here I can only gasp and wow.

Below are the views of the building taken in different angles. Quite fascinated, right? I found it luxurious, hotel-like, and artistically eye-popping. LOLz

From the roof of Building A (I guess)

From the balcony of formerly English Lab.

From very end of some corridor...

Well, I didn't come there by my self though. Initially, a good old friend of mine invited me to. He said he wanted to revisit our school, and I thought it would be a wonderful thing to do than just sitting around and watching movies.

He's one of the brightest students there in my year. He was in the Olympiade of Chemistry Tournament.. (I guess) hahaha

With no more bullshit, let me introduce you all...

please welcome...

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Mr. Riki Lidian aka Kiri Dilian...

Sorry dude, hehe.

OK. Back to the school. Everytime I entered and saw new developments made to the school, I was just wowed and wowed, mouth opened, and just surprised how pretentious my old school has become.

There are even new skycrosses between the buildings.

This is taken from the back of the building. Near the back entrance from Jalan Bulan. Sure things have changed.

This is the security from the main gate. Oh yeah.. now they have two main gates from Jalan Bintang.

This is one of few things that haven't changed, the old back gate. I remembered I used to pass it to escape to Medan Mall with my friends after classes.

This is the new teacher's office. Quite large, huh? Neat too. And it's not the only one. I guess there are now 4 or 5 teacher's offices in the school. How many teachers are there?

Oh yeah, if you wonder how we were able to take these pictures of rooms and stuffs, we took liberties to enter every room possible to enter, climb every roof possible to climb. We raped the whole buildings. Hehehe... It's just lucky these rooms weren't locked up, though some of them were.

There were some large rooms we didn't know what for. They were not used as classes, offices or anything. So we got in and started camwhoring here and there. Lol.

When I asked Riki why he didn't take the view from the window, he said that the blue curtain and the light contrasted my yellow shirt. Whatever, dude. Hahaha...

move on... it's not a good picture to linger on for seceral minutes... ;D

Nah, this's the new toilet. I felt like going to a prison cell rather than a safe toilet. What if when we are "doo-doo-ing, poo-poo-ing, or pee-pee-ing" and the door suddenly closed and we are locked in a narrow space with odourful scent everywhere? Thank your God I am no longer schooling here... :P

This is the look of the new class. Everything looked so neat and tidy. I bet one month after it was occupied, the tables were no longer green. Hohoho... Oh yeah, the class stank of the mixture of paint and pesticide.

This is the new library, and it's inside a building now. As you can see, it's closed so we couldn't go in there. But we managed to capture a picture of glimpse of what's inside.

This.

And now the canteens. There were 3 of them, as fas as I can remember.

I remembered to have learned dancing here before... at the very last year of my time there. The dance was for the farewell party. But of course it had no chairs and tables yet. What a distant but good memories.

The main Canteen.

Later, we visited our old classrooms. Riki, as you can see below, was trying to get inside his old IPA-1 D'Royal O'Hana classroom. His old class hasn't changed very much.

But when I tried to find where my IPA 4 Never Winter Class was, ....
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I couldn't.

Turned out my old class had been torn and rebuilt. It's totally a different class now, and I couldn't recognize it anymore even when I was standing in front of it. Hikz.. That's Riki pointing at my new old-class. So much for Never Winter.

This is only a tiny bit of the whole "Mading" wall. It hasn't changed much. They still have E=mc2 and Pekan Prestasi, though I couldn't find HKS3 and Moshi-Moshi anywhere.

This is the gorgeous park right outside the canteen. Notice there's a small fountain. I saw a lot of new fountains in this school. Why, huh?

And then we went to the "Gedung Lama" section, and we found a lot of abandoned buildings from my time. Whatever happened to my old library? Lets find out...

Tada!

Oh.. I'm so sad. This separated building had always had a unique memory to me. I couldn't think of why they had to (almost) tear it down.

Sometimes, when I was in there, I just wanted to yell outloud how nice it was to be back to my old school, though it has been different. I wondered how would that make me feel...

Well, I probably won't have to wonder.

Most parts of "Gedung Lama" have been transformed into silly parks and places for their students to make out. It's quite a romantic place for young couples too. I guess the students-couples nowadays have their puppy loves stories happened and told under these trees

But as jealous as I may seem (having never got the chance to experience a love drama here...), I would NEVER ruin their chances by scaring them with my gruesome face and sudden appearances...

"DONG!"

See the fountain behind me? No! Not the yellow one. Behind it! I said stop looking... why are you keep looking at me...? I said behind me! BEHIND ME!

See how I meant by silly parks?

They even have a mango tree, for crying out loud.

And then Riki wanted to see what happened to our old Chemistry Lab. What we found, may have struck him to death.

The building have been eaten by termites, if not by human-termite...

... or become a parking lot...

... or become a nest for mosquitoes and frogs....

... or become a parking lot.

Well, you decide.

We went to the roof and received some great wind blowing us, probably trying to throw us off the building. I wondered why they make a roof there and nothing's there. Perhaps they were preparing for a place for students to commit suicide later... you know.. students with behaviour like mine. Lolz.

Relax, I still wanted to live. So I just hung out by the stairs...

Riki, on the other hand, thought differently.

I gave him the best support I could give.

but we ended up taking pictures and somehow forget about his suicide plan.

The view of "Gedung Lama" from up here.

Maybe the beautiful views has somehow blinded Riki, for his eyes were narrowed sharply all the way back.

I, meanwhile, has been addicted to camwhoring and become more narcisstic than ever.

Perhaps you wonder about the famous tower, the symbol of the school, the-one-thing-they-can't-tear-down-because-I-would-kick-their-asses-if-they-dare-to tower. Well, of course I have it captured....

For Zeus's sake, pose better, Riki!

Sigh.. nah.. see the expert!

I think I became too happy about the tower that I decided to make love with the pillar.

Well, I guess this is the time the journey [should] end.

But one more thing, we encountered Mr. Rudiharjon too, he was and is the Diciplinarian Member known as "BP"... (Badan Penyiksa)

Well, in the end... it's good to be back!

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My Favourite Posts, Pick One :

Friday, July 20, 2007

The Deathly Anticipation [PART TWO]

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Deathly Anticipation [PART ONE]

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Ordered For the Phoenix

Monday, July 09, 2007

Back To School

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Friday, July 20, 2007

The Deathly Anticipation [PART TWO]

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Deathly Anticipation [PART ONE]

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Ordered For the Phoenix

Monday, July 09, 2007

Back To School

My Recent Readings

Recent Comments

Leave Me Messages

Entertainment

About Me

My Twitter

My Twitter

My Facebook

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Search This Blog

My Favourite Posts

Blog Archive

Categories

My Personal Sites

The Roll of Honor

Most Visited Webpages

My Old Chatango

The Site Statistics

I'm Blogged