"Dumbledore’s man through and through, aren’t you, Potter?"

Well.  What a week.  I feel like I just posted, but an entire week has gone by.

I’m pretty tired, so this will be a short post.  I could potentially be awake for the next four hours (my APO executive board meetings have been known to go to 1 AM), but my brain has pretty much exhausted its capability for coherency.

But I wrote a blog earlier this week for a class, you can check it out here if you want.

Today was my first day interning at the ONE Campaign.  It was pretty awesome.  Derek might even support my venture into non-profitdom because this organization doesn’t take any money from its members, just encourages them to take action.  So that’s nice.

I have my own desk, phone, and computer next to my supervisor!  I think am the youngest intern; the next youngest is a junior at Georgetown, and the oldest are recent graduates from a variety of universities.  I think that’s a good sign; it could mean I’m hirable, or at least internable.  It's exciting being in a professional environment and being treated like an adult, an asset, what have you.

Stealth pic of my desk and my new water bottle!  We are also getting shirts.

We got free lunch from Potbelly’s today, and got a tour of the office, which was really cool.  I’ll be back tomorrow from 9-2 and the same on Thursday, for a total of 15 hours a week.  Plus travel time, it’s a pretty big commitment, but I’m very excited.  I can tell based on my first project that I’ll be doing important stuff, and my supervisor is super nice—plus, she used to be an intern herself.  Cool bidness.

On another note, I finished Half Blood Prince this week.  Also, tragedy struck—my “H-Ron quotes” mysteriously disappeared from my desktop.  I may have accidentally deleted them, but I downloaded two file reclaiming softwares and neither could find it.  I’ve managed to reconstruct a lot of them, but at the time I was actually really bummed.  I know they’re dumb, but they’re also time intensive and would be hard to find again.

Also, having just reread the first 6 books, I can say with certainty that J.K. Rowling set out to break our hearts by killing of Dumbledore when she did.  In HBP, many many many endearing Dumbly-Harry quotes happen, much  moreso than in the previous books.  Partly because they have private lessons, partly because Harry is growing up and Dumbledore is willing to clue him in on what’s going on, but mostly because J.K. wanted to break our hearts.  Here is a selection of the quotes that stood out to me.

57-8: [Dumbledore]: “‘I do not think you need worry about being attacked tonight.’

                [Harry]: ‘Why not, sir?’

                ‘You are with me,’ said Dumbledore simply.”

The above quote is meaningful because of the change in relationship dynamic that happens; the following quote comes full circle and is a Dumbly quote that in context makes me tear up.

578: “‘I am not worried, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. ‘I am with you.’”

348: [Scrimgeour]: “‘Dumbledore’s man through and through, aren’t you, Potter?’

                ‘Yeah, I am,’ said Harry. ‘Glad we straightened that out.’”

357-8: [Harry]: “‘He accused me of being ‘Dumbledore’s man through and through.’’

                [Dumbledore]: ‘How very rude of him.’

                ‘I told him I was.’

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again.  Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry.  To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knees.”

645: “And Harry saw very clearly as he sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about him had stood in front of him one by one, his mother, his father, his godfather, and finally Dumbledore, all determined to protect him; but now that was over.  He could not let anybody stand between him and Voldemort; he must abandon forever the illusion he ought to have lost at the age of one that the shelter of a parent’s arms meant that nothing could hurt him.  There was no waking from his nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that he was safe really, that it was all in his imagination; the last and greatest of his protectors had died, and he was more alone than he had ever been before.”

Anyway.  I think this week I’m going to document my schedule so I can show you guys next week how busy I am.  A Jasonesqe complaining streak is sure to ensue.

Keep being cool.

-Rachael