User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4141102-20110712234658

I don't think words could ever have the ability to make someone understand what Harry Potter means to me. It was the very first book I picked up when I was in second grade. I remember refusing to read any other series until I was in 5th grade because I didn't believe there could ever be another book as amazing as the Harry Potter books. I attended every midnight book release I could get my mom to take me to (not many since I was young but I've done maybe 3 or 4). I've also been blessed enough to attend 4 midnight movie premieres. The many amazing characters in the series helped me grow up and become the person I am today. Throughout my life my father was this gapping absence. He was around the house and all but he had no interest in me and my sister. None of my friends knew what that was like but I had Harry to relate to and Sirius, Remus, Albus, and Mr. Weasley to look to. I didn't have their physical presence but I did have them. My imagination is an incredible thing to me... honestly an amazing gift in my opinion. When I would read the Harry Potter books they would always be played like a movie when I first began to read but as the book progress I would find myself standing there with them and seeing everything Harry saw and feeling everything he felt and fighting right beside him. Luna was truly an amazing gift to me. She entered the books when I had begun to find myself and who I truly was. I'm not the type of girl to follow the crowd and I do a lot of odd things sometimes. I'm a theatrical arts freak to many people. I love the theatre and liberal arts and music and dance and have gone to a conservatory school most of my life. I've always been more on the eccentric side and I got a lot of... bad mouthing for that. When I read how Luna was so different and how she was treated I began to loose the need to hide my thoughts... I think I learned to be akwardly blunt from her ><. Out of all the characters... I identify my personality the most with Ginny. When I first read about her briefly in the first book she intrigued my right off the bat. She is the ONLY girl in a family of seven brothers! I thought that was the coolest thing ever. There was someone in this book who knew what it felt like to have to be tough and strong even when you didn't think you could be because if you cried like a baby then you would get teased mercilessly. I grew up with mostly older male cousins and it's exactly how I felt. Ginny knows what it's like to get left behind because you aren't old enough. During the Chamber of Secrets and after I looked up to her so much. It takes such an amazingly strong person to go through something like being controlled by someone else and to come out of that ok. She didn't have Harry to lean on even though he was the one who saved her. She pulled through on her own. I learned to be a much stronger person and to speak my mind when I think I need to. She has always been my favorite female character because of her strength and with the many dreadful thing life has thrown at my these past few years I've turned to that character on so many occasions. Every single one of the characters in the Harry Potter Series has taught me something important that has helped shape me into who I am today. I've sacrificed a lot to be able to continue being an active member of the Harry Potter fandom. I was blessed enough to make the cut to travel to NYC to perform at a festival and was lucky enough to have an amazing conductor who let me trick him into going to the Harry Potter Exhibition (lol). I lucked out and sold and babysat and was blessed with amazing friends who helped me ever step of the way for months to obtain over $300 to be able to pay for my Leakycon registration. Even though I'm cutting it close on a tight budget and really putting strain on my mom I believe I will be attending. I've gone through great lengths for this series because it is my ENTIRE childhood. It is on my mind 99.9% of the time. It has helped me become who I am today and I owe who I am to JK Rowling and her massive imagination and ability to be selfless enough to share this amazing world with everyone. Harry Potter is worth everything to me and I plan to read the books and their extensions to my children someday and to my nieces and nephews (I've already kind of started on the latter ><).