Highs and Lows of Hogwarts and Fame

So I wrote about the time I tried to be a scholar, but I've gotten a request to write about some of the happier points of my trip to the conference in Florida (Jessica, you're pretty).

After my panel, my favorite professor/mentor invited me and another student to join his family in Harry Potter World. I'm lucky his kids were as excited about Harry Potter as I was--otherwise I would have looked pretty ridiculous hopping through the theme park in a day-long adrenaline rush. As it was, I found that  middle school and high school companions are perfect for me when I'm high on Harry Potter.

I went through an identity crisis or two during my stay there, but eventually I decided against hiding in the theme park and staying in Hogsmeade forever.

After reluctantly returning to the Muggle world, I listened to one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, read from his new novel. If you've never heard that man read, go buy/rent the audiobook for Neverwhere--he narrates it with all the lilting tones of Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, and Morgan Freeman. Yeah, it's awesome.

Next day, I hopped in line to have him sign a book for me and my dad. While in line, I pulled out my cheap sketch paper and doodled some of my favorite pieces of Gaiman novels/screenplays.

Then, in a fit of confidence, I gave it to him when he signed my book.

I meekly accepted my signed books and left, too terrified to do more than hand him the slip of paper and stutter while trying, somehow, desperately, to make an impact on someone who has thousands of people tell him every week how much he has impacted them.

And then, glory of all glories, complimentary wine! The hotel provided some wine for the conference goers to enjoy for an hour-long wine social. I surprised myself and approached an author I had met before and admire (Andy Duncan, sci-fi short story writer), introduced myself to fellow scholars, and had a hoot.

But the free alcohol didn't stop there! After the social I went out to the pool and found myself in a mingled group of professors, authors, theorists, and fans. Wine, Kahlua, and beer passed liberally between us, a Finnish man shared his Gandalf-esque pipe, I made friends and got myself fairly drunk.

And at some point this happened:

I drank until 6AM, when I went back to the hotel room and packed my bags (poorly, I left some important items, like an external harddrive), caught the shuttle to the airport, and began the long slow slump back into sobriety.

It sucked.

I cradled my barf bag and gazed out the window, remembering friends made, adventures had, and magic left behind.

But then I sucked it up and remembered something very important about myself.

What Hell Is Like (Spoiler Alert)

I'm taking a hard science fiction course--which is amazing. Hard sci-fi's kinda my thing. And it is perfect--we've got an excellent line-up of top-notch books, stimulating discussion, and an engaging atmosphere. I've been giddy every class. There's only one problem.

Twenty-five students share my class (it's my only shared-with-undergrads course), and each of them is expected to read a book and present for ten minutes on it. The principle behind this makes perfect sense: get students to practice public speaking, and expose us to more literature than we could possibly read in a semester.

However, the result is a dark series of spoilers--twenty-five of them to be exact. Twenty-five novels in my favorite genre laid bare by nervous students who rush through the author's carefully structured lingual finesse to summarize a plot and tell me the who-dun-it at the end.

For the duration of each presentation, my heart retreats to a dark place where it weeps softly.

 I tried shutting out the information, thinking about things that normally distract me against my will. But to no avail.

Some of the spoilers were downright cruel.

After three months of the torment, I finally had to prepare a presentation of my own. I'd read this novel, and loved it, and had to face ruining the end for a class full of devoted readers of science fiction. Though I was fairly sure none of them particularly minded, I was not at peace with myself. 

The day of my dark deed, an undergrad presenting on Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead went before me. He described the characters, the different races, the world, and gave a very brief summary of events. But then, he did something completely unexpected.

He broke the system. He broke outside of the established pattern and stood for what he believed in. Was I so cynical, so bent on pleasing the class, that I had let go of my values? I watched the brave young undergrad accept polite applause as he resumed his seat, stomach in self-loathing knots. I couldn't revise as I went--when I created my prezi, I had laid the seeds and committed my crime.

As I waited for prezi to load, I thought about my life. What circumstances had suspended my morals to the point that I would give away the ending to a perfectly good book? What changed me? Who was I, anymore? I wasn't even sure we were expected to spoil the end for our grade. In fact, I wasn't even sure I knew myself.

Finally, the equipment warmed up and projected my transformation into something less than a human. I'd betrayed my class and myself:

_____________

(for the record, not everyone dies. The worst spoilers are in very tiny letters so I won't hurt the internet like I did my class and my self-respect)