a horcrux-less gaijin right over here, lost in translation;

Oct 08, 2011 22:37

01. Name: Sara
02. How did you find out about Hogwarts Elite? A good part of the HiH community is also a member over here, so I’ve heard it mentioned quite a few times.

||MIRROR OF ERISED||

03. What do you wish to accomplish in life?
This, for me, is one of the most difficult questions I get asked quite often in real life, because I never know quite what to answer. I’m no longer young enough that I can put it off, but I don’t quite have a trajectory into the real world from which to take purpose. I can talk of short term plans (like working abroad for a few years, finding some sort of interactive, stimulating job that challenges me, etc) but it’s hard to box my life up into end goals.

That said, at this point in time, one of my major life goals is to leave a mark on the world. It is a bit vague, because I haven’t quite figured out how I want to do that yet. But when you read through history books, you read about people who changed lives, who invented tremendous things, who stood up and spoke when no one else was brave enough to do so. All of these things are incredible moments in humanity, and I would like to go through life trying to get my name into the history books, partially for the recognition, but more because I really do want to make a difference in the world, and a big one at that. The current idea is perhaps to work my way in the foreign service (I’ve started building the resume I need to get in, and I’m hoping the consulate here will let me intern or at least shadow for a day) until I reach the rank of ambassador, and have the ability to help shape policy for the better between the United States and other nations. Subject to change, of course, but every time I get more information on the Foreign Service and the diplomatic route, I become surer that it is a possibility I really want to consider and explore.

04. Describe exactly what you would see in the Mirror of Erised. (This is not the same question as #03.)
I see myself with an envelope full of plane tickets to every destination possible, because of my love to travel. I’m successful and have the financial resources to live comfortably and support my travel schedule. I’m perhaps married, or at least have some sort of companion that travels with me, but no children. Having the financial resources to be able to just up and move across the world means that I can really experience cultures and countries long term, and being tied down by a family wouldn’t be very conducive to that lifestyle. I’d also like my job to be with some international organization, so that I could do some good while I travel and at least help relations with the US, or have some purpose, since I would get bored if I didn’t have some sort of work to refocus me from time to time.

05. What makes a person deserving of your respect?
First of all, they need to be strong willed, and have a strong sense of who they are as a person. They need to be unwilling to compromise themselves in the face of others criticism or disdain, and stay true to themselves. Even I am guilty of folding sometimes to those pressures, so standing firm is truly a deed worthy of respect. They also need to be loyal to their ideals and to their friends. They need to be self-motivated and have a lot of determination to see their goals and ideas through to the end, and work as hard as they can to make sure that this does happen. To me, this person is strong, dedicated, loyal, and true to themselves, all things to which I aspire to be, which I why I would respect someone with all of these traits so much.

06. What is your biggest pet peeve?
There are a lot of pet peeves I have at the moment that come with being in a different country where they speak a different language and don’t really speak my own, but those are all results of culture shock, so we’ll ignore them for the purpose of this question. I think that overall, long term, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people have no motivation.

I’ve always been highly motivated to do well in school and achieve good grades. I don’t like to let my professors down, and I like to hand in my best work. I’m motivated to get a good job, have a good career, and I don’t just sit around and wait for things to happen to me. So I expect other people to have the same mentality. Instead, there are people who take their education for granted and don’t work hard at it. There are people who give up in their lives and don’t even really attempt to better themselves. There are people who complain and complain and complain about their situation in life, but do absolutely nothing to change it, and just keep going down the same path. And it drives me absolutely crazy! If your life sucks that much, at least try to change it! Perhaps it can’t be changed, but so many people don’t even make a real effort at it.

One anecdote from my personal life about this involved my ex-boyfriend. He didn’t do paperwork because he thought it was stupid. Well, it ended up causing him problems. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life after college, so he moped and whined to me and moaned about how he had no future. It made me so angry, because he is well educated, intelligent, and more than capable, and he was sitting there thinking that he had nothing to offer or no skills. It was one of the reasons our relationship didn’t work, because I couldn’t stand the constant self pity and lack of motivation to change anything about his life, because that just isn’t me. I have my moments, as everyone does, but once I get my rant out and cry a bit if necessary, I buck up and figure out what needs to be done, so I’m afraid I don’t always have a lot of sympathy for people who are content to be miserable.

07. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would make it easier for myself to learn languages. A lot of school subjects came easily to me in school, but languages are not one of them. I’ve found in my study of first Spanish, and then Japanese that I do well with languages to a certain extent, but then my brain must start to get overloaded, and has a hard time recalling new vocabulary, new characters (in Japanese), and new grammar. Seeing as I’m living abroad right now and working on my Japanese, and I hope to continue traveling and living abroad in the future, learning languages more easily would be wonderful. I wish I could be like those people we’ve all heard of who speak 5 languages fluently. I, on the other hand, now spout Japanese when attempting to speak Spanish, whether it’s the grammar or words I screw up. Japanese is even making it harder to speak English, so obviously my brain has trouble keeping more than one fully functional language in my head at a time. Therefore, it would be very practical and very desirable if learning languages was much easier. Or, you know, if I just knew all languages, but that would require a pretty great magic.

08. If you could do any one thing and suffer no consequences, what would it be?
I’ll admit, the first few things that popped into my mind were pretty trivial things (wear shoes inside a Japanese home, speak English all the time, etc. I’ll admit that most of them are silly, childish, or just plain petulant). But after thinking about the question for a moment, I think that I would go to North Korea. I’ve had the opportunity to study North Korea a bit (as much as you can study it), and to be able to see it and know what actually happens there would be both fascinating and most likely horrifying. But bearing witness to something like that would give me the opportunity to spread the word about what is actually happening, and perhaps start some international pressure or something of the sort to hopefully push changes. Of course, all of this would be dependent on the ‘no consequences’ extending to cover me while I’m back outside of North Korea, keeping me from experiences any sort of retribution. But this would be a very practical, useful, and emotional thing to do with my ‘no consequences’ moment.

09. What do you think are your top five positive characteristics?
01. Intelligent: I consider myself to be fairly smart. I've received academically based scholarships in the past, and am currently on a Fulbright grant, which are based off of academic grades combined with written essays, a strong research plan, and the motivation to follow through. I also graduated from a fairly prestigious (in my region, at least) college with honors. I reiterate a lot of this further into my application when I talk about Ravenclaw traits, but I do think that this is one of my strongest assets. Intelligence gets you very far in the world, and without it you’ve lost one of the biggest skills in helping you achieve more. Without it, it’s harder to learn other essential skills as well, so it’s kind of a building block to bigger and better things. Plus I enjoy intelligent conversation and thinking, so it’s an added bonus to have the capacity to pursue those kinds of activities.

02. Ambitious: Once again, another trait you’ll see further down the page under the house traits. Despite the fact that it’s a house trait, I think its one that I have wrapped up very strongly in my personality, and it underlies a lot of the decisions I make. Ambition can be both a good and bad thing, depending on the individual (lets just look at Tom Riddle for a moment to see ambition gone bad), but I think for me ambition becomes the driving force behind how I use many of my other skills and assets. For example, while I love to learn, I also viewed academics and school as an opportunity to develop skills that I will use to advance myself once I begin the job hunt in the states next year. I also have big plans for my future in terms of career and travel, as you read above. I would choose my career and my ambitions over starting a family or having kids, because they are what I value more.

03. Independent: My parents raised me to be an independent person who could make decisions on my own. From things like being okay with going to college and not talking to my parents more than once a month or so (something one of my roommates couldn’t do. She had conversations with her parents every single day, and I just couldn’t comprehend it) to moving across the world to come by myself to a university and live alone and conduct research, I don’t let the fear of being alone stop me from doing anything. I actual revel in it a lot of the time. There is nothing quite like wandering by yourself in the streets of another place, observing the people and the language and the culture and just letting yourself go where you will. Yes, I get lonely or don’t want to be as independent all the time, but I like to take care of me as much as possible and do things my own way, so I take the bad with the good. I can’t stand people telling me what to do either, which is a result of this very trait.

04. Motivated: This one may seem very closely linked with ambition if not the same, and it is related. But I view ambition as the big picture goal of where I want to go, and motivation as the vehicle by which I get there. I can have all of the grand dreams and goals I want in my life, but without the motivation to do the paperwork, apply for the job, write the essay, spend hours reading articles and developing questions in Japanese, I would never reach the goals I’ve set for myself. So for me, the motivation is a requirement of the ambition, and so far in my life the two have been working out pretty well together. You could also probably throw determination in here too, determination to get what I need done and keep working through obstacles. It’s a bit different, but I think it has the same sort of….my English fails me here, but the word that is where that word should be in my brain is kimochi. Motivation and determination, in the sense that I’m describing them, have the same sort of emotion and nuance to them, is what I think I’m trying to say. Sorry for that not being super eloquent, but my brain lapses into Japanese sometimes and I don’t always know how to get back out.

05. Adventurous: This isn’t a word that I would apply to myself normally, but upon reflection it rather fits. No, I don’t go climbing mountains, or jumping out of planes, or that kind of stuff. But one of my friends from home pointed out to me how terrified she’d be to do what I’m doing now, and it made me really think. I picked up my life, went without any friends to Japan, I’m going to live here by myself for a year, in a city where most people don’t speak English at all, and while I was a bit scared, I was more excited than anything else. And I’ve kind of come to realize that that is adventurous in itself, and it’s something that’s pretty ingrained in me at this point. And I can’t imagine doing anything else with my year, and despite all of the hard things about this experience I’m still so glad I’m doing it, so it works for me.

10. What do you think are your top five negative characteristics?
01. Selfish: A lot of times, the world does become about me for myself. Being here in Japan is doing a number on the selfishness thing, because it’s not really culturally acceptable, so I’ve been forced to be aware of it. But from things like wanting to take the last chicken lettuce wrap at PF Changs when I’ve had 2 and everyone else has had one (trivial, but still selfish) to thinking about myself first and foremost when I should be considering the feelings of others, I have a pretty strong selfish streak that peeks it’s head out from time to time. It’s strongest in areas where I have strong ambitions, and don’t want to give any ground to anyone else that might put me behind.

02. Desire for Acknowledgement: I need a sort of validation or acknowledgement sometimes in my life to give myself a feeling of accomplishment or self worth. I can tell myself that I did a great job on something, but sometimes it doesn’t really feel real until someone else has told me I did a good job. I also have a habit of occasionally trying to ‘one-up’ people in things (for those of you who know me, this may have happened if weather ever comes up. Don’t ever argue with a Minnesotan about extreme weather. We’ll try to win with our ridiculous highs and lows), which is really not a good thing to do. It discomforts people, and brings in too strong of a competitive edge.

03. Proud: Another trait I mention again below. This may seem a bit at odds with the statement above, and sometimes I can be a true contradiction in terms of this. But it’s often separate too. I have pride in what I’ve accomplished, which is the good kind of pride, and I think it’s perfectly okay. But I also have the kind of pride where I’ll stand up and cling to something simply because I’m stubborn and proud and I refuse to admit that I was wrong. Admitting I’m wrong is always a difficult thing, and sometimes I don’t do it at all even when I really should have.

04. Elitist: I know this is called Hogwarts Elite, and being elite can be both a good and a bad thing, but I think that for myself, I have an elitist edge that isn’t a good one. It’s kind of a bit related to pride above, but once again, a different nuance to it. When it comes to me, being elitist is thinking I am better than other people, and I can be very guilty of that in my own head, though thank goodness I have a pretty good self-sensor reflex that keeps me from really talking about it. But I have a bad tendency to look down on other schools (there’s one in particular in my area that I think is really not a good school, but that’s not that important now), or to kind of turn my nose up

05. Perfectionist: This can sometimes be a good thing, and it’s great to put in good work on projects and different things. However, the pursuit of perfection is often a futile one, since you can’t ever reach perfection. And unfortunately, it really bothers me when I can’t do things perfectly. One example is when I organized the nomination banners for the awards over at HiH at the end of last term. I spent hours sorting through the nominations, and had a formula for assigning banner makers that involved making sure that everyone had a balanced number of categories, total banners, etc, while also making sure they didn’t make their own. And it drove me crazy that some people had a few more, and I ended up switching categories all over the place trying to get it balanced until I finally gave up several hours later. While the banner makers seemed to appreciate my effort, a little less perfectionism would’ve led to the same result. So it does get a bit out of hand at times, let’s be honest.

||HOGWARTS, A HISTORY||

11. Who is your favorite character in the Harry Potter series?
I’ll be honest, I always hate this question, because I always feel like I pick someone different every time it is asked. There’s really never been a character that’s really stuck out to me as one I’ve loved beyond all characters. But I think right now, my favorite would have to be Fleur Delacour. Seems like a strange choice, yes, but I found her to be an interesting character to watch from a distance. She is beautiful on the outside, but she’s just as skilled as the other champions in the tasks (well, maybe not really, but the feminist streak in me doesn’t really like that, and she really was skilled even though it wasn’t on display all the time, so…), and she shows us her caring side with her sister, which really brings her to life. I liked seeing her transition in the series, because you started out kind of assuming she was cold and beautiful and that she perhaps cared about shallow things since you see her from a distance kind of through Harry’s eyes, but then you get to see the love that she has for Bill and her loyalty to him and determination to fight and keep him and his family, now her family, safe.

12. Who is your least favorite character in the Harry Potter series?
I would have to say Ron Weasley. His character is absolutely necessary to the plot and to the dynamics of the trio, but I always just found myself becoming annoyed when he was involved in the books. He might not be a character I hate, but he’s so prominent that my dislike was spread over the entire series. What always bothered me about him was that he seemed to be whiny, petulant, and immature. For example, he acts like a spoiled child after Harry’s name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, completely ignoring all reason, Harry’s explanations, and the fact that Harry could very well die in the tasks ahead. And then when he storms off in the last book, I was furious that he would just up and abandon them. He kind of personifies my pet peeve that I mentioned before, the whining and moping without a purpose, basically. And I can’t really stand people who act like he does so much of the time in real life, so why would I like it in a fictional character? His personality on its own, fine. But the way he acts throughout so much of the book, not fine.

13. What was your favorite plot or character revelation in the Harry Potter series?
I really liked the entire idea of the horcruxes, to be honest. I feel like once the horcruxes were introduced, the books suddenly had a much larger purpose than they did in the beginning, when winning the house cup or the quidditch cup were some of the emotional highs of the books. It made the end of the series much more serious, which had its good and its bad points, but I thought the concept of them was pretty brilliant, and it gave the plot line a much needed punch of energy, in my opinion. And of course, the Harry being a horcrux thing did give the story a nice opportunity to explore death a bit and the role of fear in our lives, even if it was a bit cheesy. And if I have to narrow ‘the horcruxes’ down a bit, I would say that I, in particular, enjoyed the story related to the locket, and how it was stolen away by Regulus Black, despite his previous loyalty to Voldemort, which at least gives us one of many glimpses of how redemption and change are possible.

14. Describe the canon qualities for each house that accurately reflect you.
• Gryffindor:
- Passion. This has been something I’ve grown into in the past few years, but I’ve found that I have a large passion for issues dear to my heart. For example, I took a class this past year on Human Rights in Asia, and since then have become much more involved in, concerned about, and vocal about human rights issues around the world, but in particular in the Asia region.
- Pride. It’s not really listed as an official Gryffindor trait anywhere, but if you look at many of the Gryffindors in the novels (my mind goes at the moment to the Marauders in particular) show streaks of it. It isn’t exclusive to Gryffindor in the slightest, and I expanded on it a bit more, but its pride in what I do well, as well as the pride that causes me to have a stubborn streak and not back down, whether or not I may be in the wrong.

• Slytherin:
- Ambition. Ambition is something that I have in spades. I want to go places in my life, and I’m not content with simply being part of the masses. I want to go high, be successful, and do a lot with my life. I’ve started down the path of success, and it feels good, and I want to continue it.
- Cunning. To me, cunning means being intelligent, but in a very hands on, problem solving way. I’m good at finding intelligent solutions to real life problems, and using my intelligence to navigate through the twists and turns of life, especially here in Japan.

• Ravenclaw:
- Intelligence. A fairly stereotypical one, I know, but it is something I value highly and I like to think I have. My academic records have always been good, and I’ve earned academic honors. My intelligence isn’t just book learning, it’s also the ability to formulate coherent arguments, to write persuasive essays, and to think about issues in a new light.
- Love of Learning. I’ve found that I love to learn. I’m currently doing a year of research and independent study here in Japan, something that I’m not really getting paid for (beyond living expenses) nor will I probably ever get published. But I’m doing it because I really want to know about women in politics here in Japan, and its one of those burning questions that I want to answer. I feel that way about many of my subjects in school, many related to politics, and I relished the opportunity to discuss, debate, and learn from my professors and fellow students. I realize in discussing with students who didn’t go to liberal arts colleges such as mine just how well suited the atmosphere at my college was to me.

• Hufflepuff:
- Fairness. I sometimes am beyond a stickler for fairness. Not always, but I am a strong believer in things such as equal opportunities for men and women, but not in a forced, quota system way. I don’t think it’s fair to force equality down to the letter. Instead, I think the fairest thing is to provide the same opportunity to men and women, and let them make their own choices and use their own skills to earn it. To me, that is fairness, and it is something I value dearly.
- Hard work. When it comes to things I care a lot about, I’m a very hard worker. I will put in as much time as is necessary to get the important things done, and will also work to do a good job with these tasks as well. This hard working ethic is not a full time trait, unfortunately (it would make my life a lot more organized and easier if it was), but for things I really care about, the hard work comes in when my motivation is running high.

15. Describe the canon qualities for each house that do not accurately reflect you.
• Gryffindor: Courage. To me, courage means standing up for what you believe in, no matter what. I wish I had this trait, but I really don’t think that I do. I have a hard time standing up and putting myself out there to stand against criticism and opposition. I like to debate, but even in debates if it gets a bit too personal it’s hard to stick to my side and stand against it.

• Slytherin: Ruthlessness. This isn’t exactly a canon trait for Slytherin, but it seems to be one that a lot of Slytherins display to some extent or another, and it’s something that I just don’t have. I’m willing to do almost anything to achieve my goals, and if I inconvenience others, that’s usually fine. But I wouldn’t ever deliberately cause harm to another person or drastically decrease the quality of their lives just so I could get what I wanted. My moral code of conduct may not line up with everyone else’s at all times, but I do follow my own morals strictly, and causing that kind of harm to others for my own gain just doesn’t sit right with me.

• Ravenclaw: Creativity. I think this is one of my biggest deficits. I have my moments of creativity, but I’m a pretty solid, rational person who prefers doing Sudoku and logic puzzles rather than more creative things. I can’t draw or do anything artistic, and I have a hard time really, really thinking outside of the box sometimes. Even just coming up with topics for papers can be difficult sometimes, which isn’t exactly a great stretch in creativity.

• Hufflepuff: Patience. I do not have patience for a lot of people, in case you didn’t notice in my pet peeve answer above. I do not have a lot of patience for people wasting time, for people who don’t understand, even for the language difference here sometimes. Patience is in short supply in my life.

||HOGWARTS EXPRESS||

16. Age: 22
17. Optional: Link us to where you have promoted this community in your personal journal to earn your future house five points.

term 19; sorting application

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