Georgia Doyle

You know, the stuff in the slambook about killing people -- everyone else saw that too, right? It was creepy enough without a student being attacked in the night, whatever the reason for that attack was. I can't really blame her for being angry if she thinks she knows what happened, but truthfully she's rather creepy too. Miss Llewellyn doesn't seem to realize that she'll be held to a higher standard of behavior because of what happened to her this summer.

Just saying.

Also, if I'm ever murdered in the night, I leave my books to Arwen and my broom to Claire Molly. You can auction off the rest for the benefit of Ravenclaw Quidditch.


Speaking of, and to jump from the general to the specific, namely me, I always knew I had a lot to learn about Quidditch, but now I'm starting to know just how much. I have never been so sore as I am after practice, which I suppose means I never practiced nearly enough. But by Merlin, I'm learning something! Reserves are good for something after all.

Even so, all this practice and no actual games, I may have to join one of the intramural teams. But I just don't know if that's wise, OWL year. I wish I didn't have to decide so soon.


Obligatory statement about hugs: I'm in favour, so long as it's done politely.

( private )

[private to Clare and Charlotte]

Claire Molly told me she told you, so I'm not telling any secrets I shouldn't tell. You already know. I've been thinking about it for weeks, ever since she told me, and I can't
I mean, I don't know what to do.

She said she doesn't like boys like that. You know. Like that. I just don't get it. You're not supposed to admit Everyone knows it's I told her it was great because that's what she wanted me to say, and I want her to be happy, she really deserves to be happy after everything that's happened. I don't want to make things worse, but it's really not great. Loads of people don't like people who...I mean, it's just
I don't even know how to talk about it.

So if you know, but I bet you don't, but if you do, just tell me. What am I supposed to do?

[/private]



If this is your toad, it's sitting on a table in the Ravenclaw common room and it hasn't moved for at least fifteen minutes. It looks a bit peaky, if toads can look peaky. I gave it some water, but I'm pretty sure it needs something else.

So if it's yours, please come pick it up.

I've been thinking about how to play beater with finesse ever since someone said something to me about beaters last week.

The thing is, a lot of beaters just hit those bludgers at the other team, and hit them away from their own team. Crash. Bang. All force. All reaction. You even see it in the pros. But clearly that's not all there is to it, and you can also see a few players who don't do it that way at all.

Oh, you need some of that crash bang, but you don't have to get it with mass. You can get it with speed too. And if you're fast, you can get there first, before those typical massive but not so maneuverable beaters.

Plus there's the interesting fact that bludgers go after people. And beaters are people.

So here's what I think:

1) If you can control the bludgers, you control the shape of the game based on where you might hit them. That is, no matter how much you trust your beaters, no one but a fool is going to deliberately fly into a position where a bludger is going to be. It's basically the same as having your rook on a file in chess -- if you control that file, in general no one is going to move their queen there. It's just a metaphor, no need to tell me about deliberate sacrifices.
2) Bludgers are wild, they're the jokers of Quidditch. They're not meant to be controllable.
3) However, they don't teleport, and everything they do is continuous, so you can predict them to some degree. Plus, as I said before, they go after people, and they don't stray too far from the pitch. More predictability.
4) The faster you are, the more likely you can get to where the bludger is going to be before your opponent.
5) The closer you can match the bludger's trajectory, the less danger you're in from the bludger yourself.
6) I wanted to work in a reference to Patrick O'Brien and Napoleonic naval warfare -- the importance of having the weather gage! -- but I don't have time to get it to work. But all the same, I haven't forgotten the importance of having the weather gage, the amount of leeway you make, and the dangers of a lee shore as well!

It's not exactly a strategy, but it's very suggestive.

So that's why I'm trying out for beater too, tonight. Plus we need two of them, and I really want to make the team this year.

It looks like all those rumours were true after all!

I can't help but wonder what the muggles are going to think of Hogwarts, since they're not going to be eleven years old and expected to do magic when they get here. Does that make it more intimidating, or less? I can't decide.

And they won't be able to bring their phones.

Private to CM
CM! I just heard you broke up with Parker. I know, I've been out of touch. But why? I thought you would be so good together. I was so happy for you! Are you going to try to get back together? You should!

Seriously. You should!

If anyone wants to compare me to whoever fell off something on The Muggle Life, please do it elsewhere. I'm not the least like Sarah or Ada. I can state this with confidence despite never having seen the show.

But don't laugh, I did fall off a horse. I wasn't even doing tricks, that I got through with complete aplomb except for the bit at the end when I stuck out my tongue at the prissiest instructor. Don't tell me, I shouldn't have done that. It wasn't aplomb.

The point is, I fell off while jumping, and it was awful. First, it hurt, but second and more importantly, I was at a muggle camp, so they took me to a muggle hospital and I got a muggle cast. And I had to get it signed by everyone at the camp, and wear the bulky cast on the train, and mum was upset.

It was so embarrassing.

Of course I went to the healers and got my arm fixed and the cast off the next day. Mum looked really thoughtful when I came back.

I promised to write everyone at the camp when I got the cast off. They were all so nice; Jenny gave me her lucky acorn charm that her brother gave her. That was so nice! I truly didn't expect it. I'll have to remember how long it ought to take and write them all then.

1. Clover. Clover is a compact little mare, bay with black points, and her nickname ought to be brat. She has a lot of energy but she's hard to control, plus she rushes her jumps. And she bites if you don't watch out! Not my dream horse.

2. Guillaume is the most beautiful horse I have ever seen. Perfect proportions, long mane and tail, and he's such a light grey you'd call him white. He also has the most jarring canter I have ever felt. Unfortunately, not my dream horse, though I do think we look good together.

3. If I was going to try to do tricks after all, I'd do them on Bartholomew. He's not the most attentive horse, nor the most subtle, but he has the smoothest gaits imaginable. It's amazing. Plus a big broad back, so there'd be plenty of room for it.

And there's still time, I could gather my courage tomorrow or the next day. Probably the next day, so I don't have to live with the disapproval for long. All the same, he's lazy, therefore: not my dream horse.

4. Leaving the best for last. Trixie is a sweet piebald mare who is game for anything, and still a good jumper though she can't manage anything too high any more. I rode her bareback the day we rode down to the pond (and into the pond, I'd never done that before and it wasn't quite as fun as I thought it would be, but it was an experience, and a nice break from the heat). But -- I feel bad for saying this, but it's true -- she's too old. By the time I could theoretically buy my dream horse, I'm afraid she'd be dead.

I'd tell you about the other campers too, but I promise you, it would be much more boring. I was right, they are the together since first form type. I can't even keep track of who's who. Isn't that terrible?

In any case, I'm still on the lookout for my dream horse, just in case.

My mum's off to Hong Kong on a business trip, and surprise! I'm off to riding camp. Just an ordinary horse-mad girl with a wand in her luggage and a black velvet hard hat on her head. Well, where else am I going to pack it? I mean the hat, I suppose I should leave the wand at home since I can't use it, but guess what? I'm enough of a witch to want my wand within 500 miles of me.

I got Mum to give me the trial version of her latest masterpiece to give out to everyone at camp. That's the virtual tagging overlay through the 3D interface, for those of you who know what I'm talking about.

But the camp. I've never been to this one before, I hope it's not too insular. Sometimes, especially with a semi-local camp like this, it's just people who've been riding together since they were five. I hate that. But I adore horses, so it can't be that bad.

Which reminds me, why aren't there Quidditch camps? Mum'd be over that like a shot, she's always looking for good camps, and you'd think there'd be demand. Not that I want to give up my week and a bit with large friendly animals who do what you ask them to and then eat carrots from your hand. No, not even for Quidditch. Did I mention I adore horses?

I don't get it. I just can't figure it out.

'It' being the whole pureblood thing, and I don't mean as a mindset, I mean mathematically. We did binary trees in the computer class mum got me to take this summer, and of course a family tree starting with a single person and including all their ancestors is a binary tree. Everyone has a mum and a dad, and every mum and dad is a person, so they have a mum and dad, ad infinitum. And if you have a family tree with all a person's ancestors on it, branching out backwards, you ought to be able to figure out how pure their blood is. Right?

That was the theory, anyway.

It seems like it ought to be based on the number of witches or wizards at any level compared to the number of muggles. So if you had three magic grandparents and one muggle, you'd have 75% pure blood. But really, if one of those magic grandparents had 50% magic blood, you ought to be penalized by 0.5 * 0.25 = 0.125 or 12.5% (0.5 for 50%, and 0.25 because it's one out of four grandparents). So really you'd have 62.5% pure blood.

You'd get the same result if you go back another generation -- in this case you'd have 5 out of 8 magic great-grandparents.

And the further back you go, the more accurate you'd be.

BUT.

Say you have no muggle ancestors at all going back five generations. Sounds pretty pure, right? And then say all your fifth generation ancestors were all -- every single one of them -- muggleborn. That means that on the sixth level all the ancestors are muggles. So 64 out of 64 sixth level ancestors are muggles, which means that 100% of this theoretical and fairly unlikely individual's genes ultimately came from muggles (give or take a random mutation). So they have 0% pure blood. Just like me!

Okay, so it can't work like that in the pureblood's minds. It's not consistent with what's been said. So obviously being able to do magic counts for something no matter who your ancestors were. But it can't count for everything or there wouldn't be all that A B C D rubbish stuff.

But how much does it count for, and who decided, and why?

Inquiring minds want to know.

If you could leave off the prejudiced hatefulness when replying, that would be simple politeness, but I don't have high expectations. But don't worry, I'm good at ignoring people who don't have basic manners.

Everyone else, this is important! Remember -- don't feed the trolls! (Translation for those without internet savvy: just ignore anyone who's just saying crazy things and trying to get attention.)

I was looking through all the old rubbish on my phone and guess what I found? My very favourite game from when I was ten. That's before Hogwarts, for those of you keeping track. Back when everyone I knew had a phone with them at all times. My friends and I all had the same games and we'd play them together and send scores and screenshots and all our made up stories about the games back and forth endlessly. It was fun!

My favourite game, though. It was based on Aella -- you know, the film about a boy and girl who fall in love after they manage to survive a hurricane on a tropical island called Aella. There was a whale involved somehow too, but I hope you don't want to know how. I was ten. I'm allowed to have loved something silly and forgot the details.

But the game. You play a seagull, or more than one if you like multi-tasking or if you're playing cooperatively with someone else, and you go on quests to gather supplies and scout out the ancient wreck that's been washed up on the beach and find treasure and so on. And if you do it right, you help Maree and Daniel survive and prosper.

I promise, it's not quite as silly as it sounds. But it's still pretty silly, not to mention rather blah by the standards of anything I'm interested in right now. But the thing is, I used to love it, the game, the movie, making up stories about how I saved Daniel just like Maree did, and sending them to my friends... And now I sort of love it just because I used to.

Life is like those Russian dolls, the famous ones that fit one inside the other. But life is the other way round, instead of opening it up and finding more inside, you just keep plastering new layers on top of the old layers, but if you wanted to look, everything is still there inside you. I think it's called nostalgia. Apparently, you're never to young for nostalgia.

That's my deep thought for the day. You? Any deep thoughts you want to share?

And my shallow thought for the day is this: why can't we play interactive games on these journals?

[private to 5th years]

Is anyone going to that party on Saturday?

( In fact, the difference between drama and melodrama can be boiled down to just that: consequences. --Sarah Monette )