Monday, July 10, 2017

Harry Potter Month: 20 Years of Harry Potter

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Wait—what?! It's already been twenty years since the release of the first Harry Potter book?! I guess that means I really am 40 because I was 20 back in 1997. XD

Ah, the summer of 1997. I was about to start my junior year of college at New York University and read textbooks on lovely subjects such as algorithms and the Assembly computer programming language. (In all seriousness, I did enjoy studying computer science—except for algorithms. I was completely lost in that class.) Being buried in schoolwork at the time, a boy wizard named Harry Potter was nowhere on my radar.

It would take another four years for me to finally take serious notice of this Harry Potter character, when a friend persuaded me to go see the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with her. After being completely, totally, and utterly mesmerized by the film, at last I understood why Harry Potter had become so beloved and such a worldwide phenomenon.

Although I've officially been a Potterhead for about sixteen years, it's still hard to believe that much time has flown by. One of the most eye-opening realizations for me is that my cousins were in elementary school back when they started reading the books, and now one is a newly minted college graduate, one is a college senior, and one is a college freshman. Now I feel really old, LOL.

HP has given me some very happy memories over the past sixteen years; no worries—I'm not about to bore you more than one of Professor Binns's lectures by listing all of them. Here are just a few of the highlights:

  • Reading the books for the first time
  • Attending a midnight showing of Half-Blood Prince
  • Playing the Lego HP games
  • Connecting with other fans through Harry Potter Moment of the Week and Harry Potter Month. ♥
  • Attempting to binge watch the movies with my cousins but never making it more than halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban. At least we ate lots of yummy snacks (and sometimes even full meals, hahaha!) during our attempts and had some awesome family time together.

What are some of your favorite HP-related memories?

6 comments:

  1. Lego HP games have always been my favourite, as well as binge watching ALL the HP movies! 💜

    I followed your blog, and I would sincerely appreciate it if you checked out my book reviews blog at https://elsbookreviews.blogspot.ca/ and possibly give it a follow as well! Excited to read more of your posts!

    - El

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    1. I've played quite a few different Lego games, LOL, but the HP ones are my favorite, LOL. Thank you for the follow! :)

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  2. I STILL NEED TO PLAY LEGO HP!!!
    *ahem*
    I think I only got into HP 10 years after the first book came out (if memory serves) - can you imagine?! Regardless my life was changed when I finally did enter the fandom but it blows my mind that the first book came out 20 years ago! I would have been a senior in high school and definitely thought I was too cool for a boy wizard. And then in Uni I quit reading for fun altogether because of ginormous school textbooks XD

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    1. Seriously, where have 20 years GONE?! Be warned that when you finally do play Lego HP, you are not going to want to stop. Ever. They are probably the most addictive video games I've ever played, and back in the day I was a Tetris ADDICT. XD

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  3. Oh I love this! I can hardly believe it's been 20 years too. It's crazy to me how this series has shaped my life. I've made so many friends and had so many wonderful memories from midnight book launch parties and movie releases to recreations of potter puppet pals videos. There is so much that I wouldn't have done if I hadn't pick up that book all those years ago.

    Thanks for sharing some of your memories!

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    1. I went to a midnight launch event for Cursed Child, and I really wish I'd been able to go to one for the novels. I love how the series has brought so many people together, united in their love for HP!

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