Hogwarts Overdose
I know that scientists do not become obsessed with silly things like magical creatures and people, that it is more acceptable for them to instead become "focused" on science-y things such as the magical powers of Vitamin C. Despite this, I have a confession to make; I am a fan of Harry Potter et al. I am sure this is no surprise to those of you who actually know who Hedwig the Owl is, but at least I have managed to limit my admiration of "things magical" to Harry Potter et al. (Maybe this is why I cannot find a job in scientific research or academic science?). I also admit that I am not a witch nor do I practice witchcraft, unless you consider science to be a form of witchcraft, of course.
But I digress. I know a few of you have been waiting for me to reveal the depth and breadth of my Harry Potter fan-itude, particularly because one of my two blogonyms is "Hedwig the Owl". So today (a Sunday), after being sorely disappointed by data analysis, I turned my attention to making myself feel somewhat happy by poking around on the web in search of Harry Potter quizzes while simultaneously indulging my huge crush on Alan Rickman .. ooolala! .. do you suppose he is approximately as tall as I?
Anywho, I searched high and low on the internet to find Harry Potter quizzes .. and was stunned to find that there are approximately 840,000 hits in webland! If even one-tenth of these hits are live links, well, this serves as an excellent example of what happens when people have more spare time than than they know how to use. Without further ado, I report the most interesting HP tests and their results, either because they have nice pictures or because I was somewhat interested in the methods of the test itself.
This quiz gives you a nice photograph;
And this quiz has a cute drawing;
Which HP Kid Are You?
This quiz has an interesting twist, but alas, no picture-rewards (boo, hiss!);
Harry Potter Personality Quiz
by Pirate Monkeys Inc.Now that I have over-killed the HP character identification aspect, let's use another quiz to predict which Hogwarts School "house" I'd be sorted into by the Sorting Hat;
Be sorted at nimbo.net
Which Hogwarts Class would be your best subject? This quiz (which is in serious want of a spell checker) tells all (although I think all classes would be my "best classes", but I guess they don't have a category for that);
You excel at Care of Magical Creatures. You must have a thing for those cute furry things...or big scaley things...or scary firebreathing many teethed things...
Which Class at Hogwarts Would You Excel at?
brought to you by Quizilla
Which Hogwarts School Professor are you? This quiz also has an interesting twist and a nice picture. I psyched it out such that I ended up with a picture of Severus Snape as my reward, mrow! Although I am sure I would end up as Headmaster Dumbledore if I wasn't trying to get a picture of Alan Rickman for my blog ... but seriously, I truly admire anyone who refers to their students as "dunderheads" in class and gets away with it. 
Severus Snape, Potions.
Harry Potter Quiz: Which Hogwarts Professor Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Which Harry Potter pet are you? I was very pleased to find two quizzes to identify which Harry Potter pet character I might actually be, which was the original reason for my search .. it's nice to see that these two quizzes actually agree with each other. So now you know why I chose my other blogonym; 
YOU ARE Hedwig: Cool, calm, proud and smart, but still capable of showing affection. Sometimes you get a little offended by things, but hey, get over it - you're an owl. Even though you are sent off in any weather to deliver mail, you're more than happy to prove how a real mail-owl should behave. You're loyal and you love Harry muchly.
What Harry Potter Pet Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Wow, you're an owl. You are too smart 4 me! good job!
!!WHaT KiND oF HaRRy POtTEr CReATuRE aRE yOU????!!
brought to you by Quizilla
[By the way, if you had trouble reading that as I did, it says You are an owl. Lucky you. You are clever, smart and a great friend. You are always on top of things and you aren't always nice. You have a bit of a problem with the rules but your good deeds make up for it. Have FUN with life and live life to the fullest!!]
So, to answer the question you are all probably dying to ask now, 'how obsessed am I with Harry Potter et al.?' Well, there is even a quiz to answer that! According to this quiz, I am 74% obsessed with the Harry Potter phenomenon, which qualifies me to feel withdrawal symptoms as I await the appearance of the next HP book (but you must realize that "74% obsessed" means 26% of the population is crazier about HP than I am. Scarey. Even I don't want to meet any of them in a dark alley).
But I digress. As the quiz proclaimed, I have suffered withdrawal symptoms, and I have tried to lessen them by reading all the HP books several times .. I have read each book more than ten times, in order, and because I am seeking a challenge, I also own the complete set of first edition books in (American) English, Spanish and Indonesian. I have read the first HP book in both Spanish and Indonesian while I await publication of the next installment in the series.
By the way, if you want an adventure in book buying, try getting the Indonesian HP books without spending a fortune. Go ahead, Google it and tell me how much they cost! Needless to say, I paid nowhere near those prices: I am very clever and resourceful, just like Hermione.
© 2004, 2005, 2006 by GrrlScientist
posted by GrrlScientist at
21:57
23 Peer Reviews:
Hey!, thats a cool blog you have here. I'm also into HP and magical studff. I would gladly invite you to check out my own blog, but i write strictly in spanish, so if you're willing to remember thoose high school classes (or if you actually learned spanish at some point in your life) you are mostly welcomed. Im gonna keep comming back to check for updates.
By the way...how can I get a counter for THBP???
I only tried the first and last ones you posted, since the hamster wheel that apparently powers my computer is going a bit slow at the moment, but I got Hermione on the first one too.
I am only 26% obsessed, according to the last one. Still, it didn't have the questions, "Did you need to buy two copies of each book when they first came out, because otherwise you and your significant other would probably end up in a physical fight over who could have it first? Is the fact that you can read twice as fast as your S.O. likely to cause unjustified violence on one side, and taunts of "I know something YOU don't know" on the other side?"
Yes, and yes.
--Werewolf32
Not a Harry Potter fan, but I am an Alan Rickman fan. He is 6'1". Info can be found at:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000614/
One of my fav's with AR is Galaxy Quest.
Hola, Nebuchadneezar! Muchas gracias por leer mi blog! Visitaré su blog y (intento) entiéndalo. Será buena práctica para mí.
HA! That is so funny, WW32! I also could never share a HP book with anyone for the same reason! Besides, I'd probably read the book twice in the same time period that anyone else would take to read it once (probably the only benefit of unemployment).
Gollux; I didn't realize, until after I'd finished the pet quiz, that Fawkes was an option .. I was bummed to realize that I didn't qualify .. did they have a nice picture?
6'1"??! Ah, Peruby, you have made me a happy woman! Now I know that Alan Rickman is truly an evil man because he is perfect for making a sinner out of me!
I'm 7% obsessed, and I still think it's too much. I've read the first four books, but apart from that I refuse to have anything to do with the series. I haven't watched the movies. I think the books are poorly written and have downright bad plots and characters.
However, when I did read the books, it took me only 5 hours to finish the first one and 3 to finish the second. The third and fourth took me a while longer because they hadn't been translated into Hebrew when I read them and at the time my English wasn't that good.
You have given me some great sites for my niece and nephew. Maybe they will think I am cool! Your reward is a weekend at my new house on the water---when it get built.
Oh as an aftercomment...Bagaimana! So do you know Indonesian? I lived there for two years...took many lessons but was better at the batik lessons than the language!
Science and magic are definitely not mutually exclusive. I would say scientists do some pretty magical things. Liquid nitrogen, crystals precipitating out of solution, and the ability to cure diseases (or boredom) with a chemical compound are pretty neat tricks.
I guess I'm only moderately obsessed with Harry Potter (20% by that test), but thats certainly more than most in my grad school program. Ah well, can't wait for the next book.
aloha
psilo
So you read the HP books in Hebrew, Alon? Have you read them in english yet?
Thanks for the link, Gollux, but I was disappointed with the Fawkes picture. I think they could have done a better job with it than that!
Tabor: Saya cemburu bahwa anda tinggal di Indonesia selama dua tahun! Saya mengharapkan agar saya bisa tinggal di sana! Kebanyakan burung penelitian saya dari Indonesia, sebenarnya.
How did you get so lucky to live there? Peace Corps?
By the way, thanks for the invitation to crash at your place (after it is built). Who knows, I might actually have to take you up on that, too!
I agree with your assessment of science, Psilo .. that is part of the reason why the HP books are so compelling to me .. the journey of how one becomes a wizard feels like the journey that one takes to become a scientist. But I wonder what the un(der)employment rate is for wizards and witches?
I've read books 1, 2, and 4 in Hebrew and 3 and 4 in English. This means that I should've gotten 8% on the test because I answered that I hadn't read any of the books in more than one language as I didn't remember that then. I've also read parts of book 1 in English, and I can tell that the Hebrew translation is terrible.
Psilo, according to Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The problem is that the magic featured in Harry Potter is less like science and more like a conspiratorial secret society.
Like a lot of popular books and movies, the Harry Potter series is an interesting concept wasted on a bad series penned by a mediocre writer.
I haven't actually read the HP books, and am not a huge fan of the genre...but I can wholeheartedly recommend Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, while you're waiting for the next HP book! They're absolutely terrific books.
Also, you might check out "Charmed Life" by Diana Wynne Jones...a very unusual and rather dark take on the "instruction of child wizards" theme.
Alon .. if I was writing the "obsessed" quiz, I would have given a LOT more points to the question "have you read HP in more than one language?" It does, after all, take some effort to do (well, for me, it does!). So, by my "obsessed" standards, you'd be at least 35% obsessed!
I was not a fan of the "majik" genre AT ALL, Psilo, so I never would never have normally read any of the HP books except .. I was looking for material for my weekly rant. I borrowed the first HP book from a friend's son with the intention of writing a rant about "weak-minded sheeple who buy (into) fads". While taking with my friend in his office, I made the mistake of opening the book and glancing at the first paragraph. I was transfixed by the book. I remember that my friend said something and I stupidly said "huh?" several times before beating a hasty exist before he decided I was rude. Needless to say, that rant (which would have been a good one, by the way), never materialized. I had to find something else to write a rant about that week.
By the way, thanks for the book recommendations (more than anything else, I love to read). I'll see if I can grab a copy of each at the library.
I didn't have much choice there. The one book I have read in two languages was not much of a problem, because when I read it in English my English was fair enough for it, and later reading the last two thirds or so in Hebrew wasn't a challenge because Hebrew is my native language.
Speaking of "majik" books, have you read any magical realism? I'm currently reading One Hundred Years of Solitude (in English) and finding it very good.
I have read One Hundred Years of Solitude and loved it. I have not read it in Spanish but I think it would be even better than in English because the Spanish language has a warm, dreamy quality (in my opinion) that accentuates the "feel" of books in this genre. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has other titles that you also might enjoy, too, as I am sure you know.
I got Of Love and Other Demons and The General in His Labyrinth along with One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I'll only read them after I finish One Hundred Years. At the same time I also got Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, whose back cover description suggests that it's a promising magical realism novel.
Hi Alon .. I didn't know you'd replied. Apparently blogger is taking a vacation from notifying us when someone comments on our blog. Stupid blogger.
Suprisingly (to me, at least), I have never read anything by Salman Rushdie .. I'd certainly like to do so. You'll have to let me know what you think of that book when you finish it.
No problem, but it may take a while because reading period starts tomorrow and there's one particular class I have to do tons of cramming for if I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror after I get the exam results.
Okay, that's fine. I can wait. I might get lucky and find a copy of the book on a street vendor's book table. If so, I'll buy it and maybe I'll be telling you about it first!
Good luck on exams.
I've just finished One Hundred Years, and it's resplendent.
If you manage to get The Satanic Verses, then please tell me whether it's good. It'll take some time before I can lay my hands on it; I'm not sure whether it's just Singapore sweeping anything politically incorrect under the carpet or bookstores in general not wanting to upset Muslims.
"resplendent" .. like a quetzal?
If I manage to get my hands on a copy of the Satanic Verses for a reasonable price (because that is the only price I can afford), I will mail it to you (after I finish reading it first).
No, more like in the synonym for "splendid" that I reserve for truly special occasions.
You don't have to mail me the book; I'll probably just get it on Amazon in a batch along with several other books and DVDs.
Ok, a friend of mine just turned me on to this and I immediately thought of posting it here:
Harry Potter Spell, or Psychotropic Drug?
aloha
psilo
Hi Psilo .. I have checked out that blog half a dozen times now and I LOVE IT! Thanks so much for sharing it with me.
GrrlScientist
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