Have you done the math yet? Do you see where this is going?
In order to be up and ready from the start, I went to bed just after 10:00pm last night, and set my alarm for 2:52am. That's right. TWO. That number just before three. For the last two nights that has been closer to the time I was going to bed. But I needed to be awake for up to 4 hours (until 7), so I figured I'd better sleep first.
Yes, I'm this crazy. It's summer. It's the biggest book series in the last 15 years. Why not get swept up in the excitement?
Only it wasn't so exciting, when it was 3:10 and I'm just hanging out on the computer, hitting refresh and reading tweets from other crazies. [I especially liked "Sleep is for Muggles."] I had to find something to do.
So I blogged. Not here, obviously, but on my teaching blog. It got long and involved, and required much linking to education articles and finding of images. But it kept me busy, and I was only checking Pottermore every 10 minutes or so.
Then, at 5:02 a.m., I hit refresh and saw this!
Now, let me pause here (I know, I'm evil) to say how much I appreciate the Pottermore site for knowing who they are. Translation: the Magical Quill Challenge is not about the Harry Potter mythology, nor the films. It's about the books! And each of the clues can only be solved by referring to the books. I hope that they will one day post all the clues online, because it is just fun to solve them. [See bottom of post for more on the clues. I really should get back to the exciting part.]
So, with my book handy, I turned to Chapter 15, The Quidditch Final. (Yes, I had already reviewed the chapter titles! Did you think I was just blogging for two hours?). I found the answer, multiplied it by the required number - I even used a calculator, which I don't usually do, but I was excited, didn't know how much time I would have to get in, and didn't want to mess it up. Then I put the resulting number at the end of the URL, and came to this page.
Then I put it in again, thinking I had done something wrong. The Guardian is a newspaper in the UK, and I didn't need more information about the site. I needed to find the Magical Quill! And if you think this is easy, try it on 4.5 hours sleep. But wait, what is that on the right? See that magenta box that says Pottermore? It's animated. It's changing! Now it says:
It is not dignified to tell you how excited a woman "of a certain age" can get in the middle of the night/early morning, but I was pretty excited. What next? the box changed again.
OK, OK, I'm wiggling my cursor around a bit, like the little finger (which moved back and forth, by the way) showed me to do. The quill would rise gently, then sink, and I'd get a message saying I hadn't levitated the quill, try again. Over and over. I'm panicking - got to get this quill to levitate! - and it still doesn't work. I wonder if it is because I have a Mac, so I run to a PC laptop that was asleep across the room and tried there. Hurry, hurry! Still no luck. Back to the Mac, and I'm desperately waiving my cursor around and it finally goes a little higher. That's it! You have to do this FAST. I waive furiously, the quill climbs higher and higher until: Congratulations! (sorry, all that waiving kept me from getting a screen shot, until the animation had already changed to this).
I clicked on the link and got back to the Pottermore site. Only this time it said that I could now register. I clicked the button, and it took me to a page with questions for registration. Not much to tell here, except that after all this, I wasn't allowed to sign in for myself! My son, who left for camp yesterday, is just discovering the books for the first time. He wanted a Pottermore entry, so I signed in for him. Then I got to see his name, written in the book of magical children, right above Harry's and Ron's. : )
The Pottermore site is very aware that children of all ages may be visiting, so they have taken the time to implement a very good internet safety policy. This requires that they, not you, will create a username. But to make it a little better, they create five, and let you choose the one you like best. All of them end in a number (so maybe they use some more than once), and usually are two words from the books or the magical world. For instance, I had to choose between CastleQuill##, ScarletSpell##, SeerHeart###, ThestralFeather##, and FlooShadow### for my son. Which would you have chosen?
Once that was done, and I proved that I was human by squinting at one of those annoying Captcha things, I pressed "Create this Account." They told me they would send an activation email to my email (if you are under a certain age, the site does not ask for your last name, and sends all emails to your parents.
Then I was supposed to wait.
But hold on! Remember that PC laptop across the room. I ran back over, levitated that quill almost off the page, and went through the whole process again. I didn't get nearly as good a choice of usernames as my son. One of them was actually StrikeSnidget! No, thanks!
Once the emails came, I clicked the activation button, and it confirmed that I had activated my account. Then it let me sign in! - but just for one more screen.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
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If you are reading this, and I'm not sure why you would be, because I've told very few people, and you want to join the early Pottermore experience, they have again tried to make it easier on you. The official blog said that tomorrow's (Wednesday's) clue will be posted between 2:00 and 6:00 pm British time. That's 8-12noon Central Time in the US. You guys have it so easy.
Better get some sleep. Good luck, y'all.
