Don't Turn Around.

        

I am endlessly fascinated by things that terrify me.  I am not sure what this says about me psychologically, but I am drawn to movies that ensure that I will not be able to sleep for days afterwards.  I believe this started when I was younger and I would watch the X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer obsessively even though they scared me.  I used to refuse to watch scary movies until I saw The Ring and I was simultaneously horrified and curious.  Then I started watching every scary movie that I could get my hands on.  I guess it’s the thrill that I get, that shot of adrenaline that shoots through your system during a particularly good scare; scary movies are my roller coaster rides.

Halloween is the one horror movie that I have not been desensitized to.  Every time I watch it, it scares me again and again.  The mask that Michael Myers wears has haunted many of my nightmares and kept me awake during many nights.  Now, as I’ve grown older, I respect the movie for the role it played in essentially creating the slasher film genre.  Without Halloween there would be no Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street or Scream.  There have been endless sequels and remakes but more than a decade later, the original film has stood the test of time and is the greatest and scariest of them all.

One of my photos from Paris, January/February 2010.

Wanderlust.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

 - Ernest Hemingway

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to live in Paris. It seemed so exotic to me, someone who has been on Staten Island for her whole entire life with the occasional trips to Disney World. I longed for an apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of my independence and freedom from my not so extraordinary life. I could smell the butter on the croissants and taste their flakiness as I imagined walking next to the Seine. In my head Paris was less crowded than Manhattan and no one pushed 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.

Around two years ago I went to France to study film with St. John's.  The Paris that I experienced was exactly what I had imagined and more.  The beautiful, cobblestone streets and old world architecture combined with so much history that America doesn’t have really struck me.  I know that we are a relatively young country with history of our own but there is absolutely no comparison.  Every building is beautifully designed, with curved angles, balconies, and shuttered windows.  Every street has a history and a story that the oldest buildings in New York could not compare to.  I can just imagine the people who have walked the streets that I now have, Marie Antoinette, Benjamin Franklin, Jacqueline Kennedy and countless others who have enjoyed and loved this city as much as I have.

Our class was studying film and food and we went to Antony to spend a day with a chef.  I was a little apprehensive to spend all day cooking with him.  I am quite a picky eater and a terrible cook, but once we stepped into the French market and I saw all of the meats and brightly colored vegetables I started to become excited about the day ahead of me.  We cooked Onion Tart, Potatoes Gratin, Lamb, Ratatouille, Apple Tart, Chocolate Cake and Flan from scratch.  Chef Phillipe, a stranger to all of us in the beginning of the day, opened his home to us to share his passion for cooking and by the end of the night a great meal and its preparation had brought everyone together as friends.

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. Every meal, and experience, that I had in Paris was delicious.  To be able to go to the Eiffel Tower and then sit down and have an amazing cup of hot chocolate was truly a treasure.  Finding cafes that are hidden, but turn out to have the freshest whipped cream and pasta that you have ever tasted is an experience that really brought the group and the trip together.  
          My bedroom is a dedication to Paris. 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 have finally achieved my dream.  Instead of being a reminder of where I want to go, they remind me of where I have been, the movies I have seen, the friends I have made and the food that changed my life.

Thank you J.K. Rowling.

 

       I was eleven years old when 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 read yet. 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 an amazing world that I still love to this day. I have cultivated my closest group of friends based on Harry Potter and my entire childhood was spent being in love with those novels. 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.  From children who never before have been interested in reading 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.
       On December 6th, 2008 J.K. Rowling published 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! Rowling has accomplished this much with a series of books during a time when novels are so easily disregarded.
       Harry Potter has changed my life. When I was a freshman in high school I felt it was uncool to love reading, 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.  I met others 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. I was talking to a friend the other day when I said “I think the reason we became friends in the first place, 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. 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.
       Many people laugh at the idea of changing the world, especially with a novel, which unfortunately is a medium that seems to be becoming more and more antiquated. I think Rowling has accomplished it. I believe that inspiring children to read is an amazing accomplishment all on 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 and I feel indebted to Rowling for giving me something that has truly shaped who I am and changed my life for the better.