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Aysmptotes
Toucan
Joined: May 11, 2007
Posts: 286
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 Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:57 am Post subject: Harry Potter... wasn't so good. |
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Alright, by Harry Potter I don't mean the last book or the series in its entirety so you HP fans can rest easy. Today was the release of the last Potter book and bookstores all across the country are filled with celebration anticipation and excitement. I work in a bookstore and to see so much buzz around everywhere made me want to be excited about it.
Honestly, last book that came out, I still haven't read it and I wasn't all that excited about it. I still am not that excited about the book itself, yet. But seeing everyone else so happy and excited made me want to join, it seemed like a good idea to try to join, but in theory.
At my bookstore I work at, if you have reserved a copy at starting five oclock you could recieve a gold paper wristband that determined you a place in line to purchase harry potter at the stroke of midnight. I got mine on like wensday and I got a place in like the first fifty. And today I was in town like thirty minutes away from my house and I realized I left my wristband at home so I even went back home to get it before I went to work. So that I still could buy it. Honestly I just wanted the book to complete the set, but also to be apart of this big thing you know? I want to be part of something, but tonight I don't know.
I saw so many people I haven't worked with in a long time and they it was like a reunion for them all. They were all so happy to see eachother and they were chatting and joking and laughing even though they had to work an eight hour shift till four in the morning. And I was just there. I just watch them and what the dynamics confused and frusterated that I couldn't understand why I couldn't do what they do or why I couldn't be apart of it all and why I had to cringe at the closeness of it all. All the noise, so much noise everywhere and they just wanted louder noise.
For eight hours I worked until midnight, when I got off of work and I could get my harry potter book. And I stood in line and I don't know what happened. I had to clock off before I went in line so I was a little late so I ended up at the back of the second group. I talked to one lead, and two managers about my place in line and twice I suggested that I just leave and come back, but they were like "Oh its alright the line is quick and you will get it in no time." And the line really was quick. But then I just got so hot and I don't know and I was ten people from the front of the line. But then I was at the bend in the line and the tangent of the bend headed straight for the door and that is where I went. I saw the door and I just left.
As I walked out I saw people running out giddy with their harry potter books in hand chattering amongst themselves and jumping in their vechicles, and then I just drove home.
I guess it is stupid to give all of this symbolic meaning to this last harry potter book as being part of this big thing with other people, and that I feel that I totally failed at that, which is the reason I didn't get the book or something. Just times like these make me think that if I were different, then I would have enjoyed it, been happier, not have the problems that I have.
So there it is. My Harry Potter night. Now I have to slep because they schedualed me to work about eight hours after this late shift, but yeah. I just wanted to tell someone. Night. |
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rachel46
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: May 07, 2007
Posts: 185
Location: Midwest US
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:51 am Post subject: |
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I thought your post was so interesting. You are wondering why you can't get into created hype, fun, hysteria? whatever the Harry Potter thing is?! Because it is a fleeting, not really authentic experience IMHO. I think human beings are always tyring to find something that will make them feel connected to all the other billions of people on the planet. They think standing in line for hours to get a book that WILL be available the next day is bonding or somehow a meaningful experience. I have nothing against Harry Potter - My 10 year old AS son loves it- I wouldn't stand in line for a book though - I will most likely order it for him after the hype dies down. It's just a book and in the end I think some of these people who got so hyped up feel a let down after getting so overwrought with excitement.
I have never talked to my son about it but I believe he feels the same way about the noise, merriment, excitement and hysteria of some public events like you observed all night and didn't really feel a part of. I know he is bewildered by but not interested in being a part of it. Did you ever think that all those people who wasted hours and hours standing in line for a book are the ones who "don't get it" but maybe you do? |
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mommy_mimi
Butterfly
Joined: Jul 12, 2007
Posts: 16
Location: Iowa
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:43 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for sharing your experience with us. My son can't express his thoughts so well, and I think I've finally caught a glimpse of what he goes through day to day. I appreciate your post!
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Michelle
"In life, you'll find, something to stand on or you will be given wings to fly." Mark Schultz |
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alexbeetle
Knight of the blackest black beetle
Joined: Mar 17, 2007
Posts: 1386
Location: beetle hole
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you for your post.
I am feeling like this virtually all the time and am particularly down right now.
I work really hard and put in very long hours including nights and weekends to try feel a useful and accepted member of the 'team' but it never works and others who do less and have less ideas are the valued people - I just feel like I am always on the outside and taken for granted.
I was even refered to as 'the back up' making me feel like the spare thing you use when nothing better is available, this was after I salvaged some important work we were doing for a company. We had a party on friday for someone who had completed their diploma and I made the effort to go even though every one knows I find these things very hard. I'm sure everyone here has has the experience of when you join a room/group and they have been talking and laughing but immediately shut up and seem embarassed when you join them - makes me think they had been joking about me...
I just got really upset on friday night and all I want to do is cry.
I am moving to another group next year but don't expect it to be any better anywhere I work - I feel like just giving up.
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Spot17
Phoenix
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Joined: Apr 18, 2007
Posts: 525
Location: lost, as usual...
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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I completely understand what you mean. I'll go out of my way to avoid large social events at my office when everyone else seems to get so excited about them. I like the people at my office and don't even mind hanging out with small groups of them, but things like the BBQs and ice cream socials my company has during business hours make me want to crawl in a hole and hide. I'll make up excuses as to why I'm not taking advantage of free food when in actuality, I just don't want to deal with all those people in one place.
Harry Potter has been one of my obsessions and that's why I was excited about the book coming out. The mass hysteria kind of annoyed me though. I went to a 24 hr grocery store and got my copy at midnight - no crowds, no waiting. I drove by Barnes & Noble on my way home though and it looked like a madhouse, line around the building and masses of people just milling around. I really don't understand why anyone would put themselves through that.
Furthermore, I bet the majority of them know far less about the books than I do, it's more about jumping on the social bandwagon. The same thing happened when the Titanic movie came out. I've been into the Titanic since I was a kid (I practically peed my pants when Robert Ballard found it in 1985) and all of the sudden, everyone else is into it too. I almost felt like it was spoiled for me. |
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Aysmptotes
Toucan
Joined: May 11, 2007
Posts: 286
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:56 am Post subject: |
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Thanks everyone for your understanding and empathy. It was a rough night, but now its over and everything is pretty much back to normal.
| rachel46 wrote: | | whatever the Harry Potter thing is?! |
For a moment I thought you meant that you didn't know what Harry Potter is. Haha. Or was since it is now over. Pretty much at Barnes and Noble, where I work, or at any bookstore there is always this big release party. Pretty much it was a big Harry Potter Party which culimatined in buying the book. After seven books they have gotten quite organized. They give out wristbands ahead of time which put you in certain groups which will be checked ou in a certain order. The lines at midnight aren't really that long. Like I said before they were quite fast.
| rachel46 wrote: | | They think standing in line for hours to get a book that WILL be available the next day is bonding or somehow a meaningful experience. ... It's just a book and in the end I think some of these people who got so hyped up feel a let down after getting so overwrought with excitement. |
Yeah, in theory, a book is a book is a book. But they want to wait in line because for the last four books they have waited in line. Because they love the series and there is a whole party and it is a badge of honor and because it is fun to them. There were games and food and all that other crap. It is something that only happens once and you can't get that if you just buy it the next day. I am only trying to explain what I understand of the whole party hype stuff and why people would wait in line and such at least why NTs would. But I am not sure about being let down, this has happened before and I think people would have stopped reading it if after waiting it was such a let down. This whole thing isn't like waiting for a Playstation Three or for an iPhone. From what I know about those waiting lines was that there was just waiting. At least where I worked the only line real line there was was for the bracelet which came and went in spats and spurts hours before midnight.
Pretty much people were there for the party I think and spending time with other people who liked the book. Personally, if there ever was a release party for my obsession book, well... hmm I am not sure I would go. If it was like a discussion forum for it, yeah totally, I love talking about my obsession book but I would not stand making fake wands for it though. Haha.
Its not like I wanted something great either, it was like I just want to be free to have fun. I wanted to have fun, I couldn't. Sometimes I wish I had the courage even to do stupid stuff. Like sing karoke or dance or make lame jokes, tell someone off, go to a party and laugh at people as they get wasted or something. I just want to be free to enjoy myself. Bleh.
| alexbeetle wrote: | I work really hard and put in very long hours including nights and weekends to try feel a useful and accepted member of the 'team' but it never works and others who do less and have less ideas are the valued people - I just feel like I am always on the outside and taken for granted.
I was even refered to as 'the back up' making me feel like the spare thing you use when nothing better is available. ... I'm sure everyone here has has the experience of when you join a room/group and they have been talking and laughing but immediately shut up and seem embarassed when you join them - makes me think they had been joking about me...
I just got really upset on friday night and all I want to do is cry. |
Me too exactly. It is interesting about how our jobs are probably drastically different bue we have the exact same situation. I work hard, I don't slack off, I didn't even want to take bathroom breaks, but I have started to use that excuse to get away and walk outside for a bit. I work in a bookstore cafe half of the time, and I know I am the best at working support, which is preparing all the food stuff, well heating it up and getting the pasteries and such. And if there is nothing on support I help make drinks if they are being a bit slow. But the moment I get one little paper bag ordering a simple cookie and my manager sees it, she bans be back to support as if I am not doing my job right or good enough and that I am useless at trying to help. And everyone, get so much slack. They can just stand around and talk talk talk and talk with the manager and she doesn't care and they all gossip together, but if I hobble out my hole she just tells me to do something else as if I am lazy or something.
Wow, I am getting angry. Haha. But with the whole seeing people talking and they you come in and they all get quiet. I get so paranoid with that, too. I find that if I start at someone they shut up pretty much. Even in school, I was listening to someone talking about a show or something, but I didn't realize that I was starring so hard, and the person turned and saw me and just stopped talking and just said "Sorry." and turned around. My boyfriend once explained to me that alot of people (NTs) are very uncomfortable around quitet people. But I just wonder about the whole flow of the social dynamic. Its like a chemical reaction or process. If you and A plus B you get an active chemical reaction but if you add X it halts that chemical reaction. And what people bring socially is just another chemical. We are just chemical X.
But yeah, friday really did suck didn't it.
| Spot17 wrote: | Harry Potter has been one of my obsessions and that's why I was excited about the book coming out. The mass hysteria kind of annoyed me though. I went to a 24 hr grocery store and got my copy at midnight - no crowds, no waiting. I drove by Barnes & Noble on my way home though and it looked like a madhouse, line around the building and masses of people just milling around. I really don't understand why anyone would put themselves through that.
Furthermore, I bet the majority of them know far less about the books than I do, it's more about jumping on the social bandwagon. The same thing happened when the Titanic movie came out. I've been into the Titanic since I was a kid (I practically peed my pants when Robert Ballard found it in 1985) and all of the sudden, everyone else is into it too. I almost felt like it was spoiled for me. |
Yeah, I work at a Barnes and Noble, and I can honeslty say that it was absolutely crazy. We even had a band called the Scurvies, like this loud heavy metal band. You could hearit loub and clear all the way across the store plus they piped their music through the speakers all over the store. All of the girls I worked with loved it and sang along. I have no idea what possessed my store manager to hire a heavy metal band.
But with hype, I am really put off about hype. If there is a movie or something that can genuinely be good, but there is alot of hype I just back off. Like Titanic, when I heard that girls were watching the freakin thing twelve times forwards and backwards and such, I couldn't watch it. My parents ended up buying it and I did watch it a total of one times. Haha. It was a good movie but because of the hype I will never watch it again. I just don't want to be associated with those prissy girls. Same thing with Pirates of the Carribean, good movie, but I will not watch it ever again. And if something I enjoy becomes hyped, I will be very very angry and feel like my thing has been cheapened.
Therefore, I probably won't read the last Harry Potter for a few years yet, maybe when I have nothing to do and I am bored. My boyfriend, who is like me with the hype and stuff has never seen or read any harry potter books, yet he found out who dies, and he won't tell me. He thinks that it will ruin harry potter for me, but really it won't. But I don't need to find out that bad so bleh.
Thanks again for listening. |
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hyper_alien
why?
Joined: Apr 19, 2006
Age: 20
Posts: 1050
Location: In the arms of me lover
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| Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:46 am Post subject: |
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I thought the new Harry Potter book was actually pretty good. So whatever anyone says I quite enjoyed it.
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Aysmptotes
Toucan
Joined: May 11, 2007
Posts: 286
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| Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| hyper_alien wrote: | | I thought the new Harry Potter book was actually pretty good. So whatever anyone says I quite enjoyed it. |
Actually I haven't even touched the book, I don't think I will for some years, since I still haven't read the last one. The whole title was more refering to my night at the bookstore when it was released. |
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