Confessions of a Recovering Ravenclaw

[rockinlibrarian]

Hey, all, I'm a BLOGGING FREAK this week, aren't I? Remember this during my dry spells.

The thing that's made me start writing TODAY is the conversation that ensued when my video blog* friends discovered this Buzzfeed post: 12 Reasons Why Hufflepuff House Is Actually Badass,** and everyone cheered for their not-so-closet Hufflepuffness, and we naturally got onto the topic of Self-Sorting and/or Letting-Pottermore-Do-It-For-You, and once more I found myself getting TOO DEEP AND VERBOSE FOR TWITTER, so here you are.

Thing is, I was always clearly a Ravenclaw. A Capital-N Nerd. My life WAS my brain, and learning, and even showing off what a huge-know-it-all I was (though, unlike Hermione Granger, I LACKED the bravery and crusading, SPEW-creating spirit that would have put me in Gryffindor. And Slytherin? Pah, it has nothing to do with not wanting to associate with dark wizards, and more to do with COMPLETE LACK OF AMBITION TO A FAULT). Also, though this was established only in 2003, if I've had ANY ambition in my life it has been to Be Luna Lovegood, so there is that.

But reading this article, I had a gut "It's true, we ARE!" reaction. And then I had to think. WAIT. Ravenclaw. I've always been Ravenclaw. But suddenly I wasn't feeling it any more.***

When I look back, I'm pretty sure I would have still immediately put myself in Ravenclaw as recently as maybe a year ago. But I might have been a little bitter-proud about it. "Yep, I'm the brainiac. Completely useless at anything else, but a brainiac."

But I really HAVE changed in the past year. You know I've been working through my self-esteem/depression issues for years, but it's this past year that I feel like I've been making REAL PROGRESS. And yes, that's why nearly everything I post anymore is all philosophical, because I've been spending so much time and energy Working These Things Out. It's still a work in progress, mind you, but... but that's what I'm getting to. Let's start from the beginning.

At Hogwarts at the age of 11, I certainly would have been a Ravenclaw-- as long as they didn't hold that HOMEWORK thing against me. I clung to the fact that I was smart. Only a year or two before one of the books I was always writing contained a scene that went something like this:
Mary Sue Version of Me: "Hmm, maybe [incredibly obvious deduction]!"
Classmate: "Wow, Amy, you're such a genius, you should be in the ADVANCED ADVANCED Gifted Education Program!"
Mary Sue Amy, without trace of reaction: "Well, they don't have that, so I guess the REGULAR Gifted Education Program will have to do."

I swear I actually wrote that. Unironically.

At the end of 8th grade we had an awards assembly, and among the awards were medals given to the student who scored the highest on each separate subject of the standardized tests we'd taken. I got all but one. I think it was the math. Anyway, that was the first I'd ever felt a little embarrassed about it. But at least it was something I could feel CONFIDENT about.

Sure, I was a crybaby whose "best friends" pretended we WEREN'T actually friends around other kids. Sure, I had over-sized glasses and crooked teeth and the physical coordination of a chess piece. But DANGIT, I WAS SMART.

It probably was in about 8th grade, too, because that was the height of my paperback-horror phase, that I read a book (shout out in the comments if you remember this one-- I don't remember the name or author) about a cursed prom/formal dress that left each unwitting girl who wore it without the one thing they were most proud about. And there was a brainiac girl who ended up brain damaged. And it squigged me out. THAT CAN'T HAPPEN TO ME, I thought. MY LIFE WOULD TOTALLY BE OVER.

Fact is, I was a snob. For an unpopular kid with no fashion sense who claimed to hate snobs, I was an INTELLIGENCE snob. I didn't have the patience for people who THOUGHT SLOWER than me.

In high school I read an article about EQ-- how emotional intelligence was more important than traditional IQ in predicting future success. I was offended. So I KNOW they're trying to make people who aren't so smart feel better about themselves, but are they trying to say people who DO have high IQs aren't so great? PAH.

But as I got older, I started to figure out that the article was right. For one thing, a positive thing, I met several people who taught me to appreciate that even people who WEREN'T SMART-- who even had LOW IQs-- had OTHER valuable qualities-- sometimes even MORE valuable. "I know I'm not very good at some things," one such woman, who I'd (take that, snobby-younger-self) come to know as a friend, told me once, "but there are OTHER things I AM good at, so I focus on those!" I've never forgotten that. The world would say I was blessed with so much more natural talent than she was-- and yet here she was, teaching ME something very important that I still haven't quite mastered.

For a not-so-positive thing? Yeah, real life has no use for brainiacs. Who gets paid to take standardized tests?

So for most of adulthood, I haven't taken much pride in my brains. But I still defined myself by them. Now I was just bitter, and resigned that the school system had failed me and I was a failure.

But they say, when real change happens, the old self dies and makes way for the new. And it's possible that my OLD self was the Ravenclaw. And right, I'm still a nerd. I still love learning and memorizing weird trivia facts and doing pencil puzzles in GAMES Magazine, but I don't DEFINE myself by it any more. There are other things I value more. There are other things I want to BE. I'm not STUCK in my old ways of thinking. And it's possible this New Me would fit in better in another Hogwarts house. Right now I AM leaning particularly toward Hufflepuff's open, loving, supportive, and need I add food-appreciating nature.

But as I continue to grow, I could even find myself latching on to a big boost of Gryffindor courage. Who knows, really. But I'll be open to it, whatever it is. I'll still try to be the Best ME I can be.

-----
*which I am on hiatus from for a bit by reason of TimeSuck, but here's three blog posts in one week if that helps any!
**why yes I DID realize there's a lovely GIF of Martin right there two down, but I swear that's not why I'm linking you to the article! ...You have to admit it's a nice bonus, though.
***and no, it had NOTHING to do with the lovely GIF of Martin, which was only being used to illustrate that Hufflepuff House is like a Hobbit Hole. Obviously, Bilbo Baggins would be (the only hobbit ever to be) in Gryffindor, so that wouldn't have been a draw to it. (OKAY, Tolkien nerds, ease off, he's not the ONLY hobbit ever, some of his Tookish ancestors might have gone that way, too, and MAYBE one or two of the Fellowship, BUT IT STILL WOULD HAVE BEEN RARE).

Comments

[grrlpup]

Prom Dress, by Lael Littke! I haven't actually read it, but it's been lying around my house for years and has a memorable cover. :)

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

YES, THAT'S IT!

[elouise82.livejournal.com]

This sent me off on a rabbit-trail of wondering, what would it be like if the Sorting Hat re-sorted them every year? I mean, I know that's not the way Houses work, but still. Wouldn't it be interesting? As people change, and grow, and develop, so might their Houses change. Because who we are when we are eleven is not (so I devoutly hope) who we will be the rest of our lives.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I suppose the Sorting Hat may be better at looking at the overarching life of a person than any one of us can do self-sorting. Look at Neville Longbottom, for example. Maybe the Sorting Hat WOULD have put me in something else other than Ravenclaw, or maybe not. Maybe it would have debated about it for a long while like it did for Hermione.

Of course, now I'm wondering if there's danger in sorting kids at that age. If Neville had been sorted into, say, Hufflepuff, would it have squelched his drive, made him believe that he'd never be as brave as a Gryffindor so he might as well stop striving so hard? Of course, knowing Neville, I can't see him really CARING what anyone thinks, he'd just do what he feels is right... hence, Gryffindor. Gah, I love Neville.

Speaking of my favorite characters and sorting hobbits, I remember reading about how Sam Gamgee is a textbook Hufflepuff and that's what MADE him Samwise the Brave-- the steadfastness and all. So how people act under pressure is different than how they'd act in ordinary circumstances, too.

WHY ARE WE THINKING SO HARD ABOUT A FICTIONAL PERSONALITY TEST, ANYWAY. Dang, that Ravenclaw's coming out in us.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm also someone who was a bit snobbish as a kid, and who hung on to the "at least I'm smart" thing to compensate somewhat for my general awkwardness. In a way it's not a bad thing, as it gives people who are down on themselves something to hold on to, but it's usually not a good idea to be a snob of any kind. I think the schools kind of encourage that sort of snobbery as well, which makes sense as their main point is to promote academics, but I've frequently been in classes where they showered plaudits on the best students. Perhaps a good way to remain humble is to remember Socrates' statement that the only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing, and ignore the fact that Socrates was likely an intellectual snob himself.

I've occasionally considered the idea that Gryffindor being presented as the Awesomest House is based on British ideals, and that Hufflepuff is a better representation of the American ideal. Americans at least claim to value hard work. Whether this is actually true is frequently called into question, but it remains part of our national mythology. Not that American schools are divided into houses anyway.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm so passionately against when school boards and politicians put all their focus on TEST SCORES. We must raise TEST SCORES! And I'm like, "Being good at taking tests did NOTHING to help me in the real world! Tests are stupid!"

I wrote a Lycoris letter recently to a girl who said something like "I know I'll never be anything important; I have to work really hard just to hold a B average," and I wanted to cry out "NO, HONEY, DON'T THINK THAT, THEY'RE BRAINWASHING YOU!" but then I much more rationally told her how working hard was WAY more important than natural smarts in real life, when it came to DOING much of anything.

...which makes me doubt the Hufflepuff = American Ideals theory. It seems like American Ideals are always about STRIVING TO BE NUMBER ONE. Which I guess would make them more Slytherin than anything.

Hufflepuff are more Salt of the Earth like.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Which is why No Child Left Behind is likely to leave a lot of children behind (and not just because it's inadequately funded).

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Or Every Child Left Behind, amirite? --as nearly everyone I know says it.

[sapphireone.livejournal.com]

And I've always felt like a Ravenclaw... though I went around showing everyone that "Sorted That Way" Hufflepuff video on Youtube last summer. I don't think my brains are the most important part about me - but as a librarian, I'm proud of using my brains to help people. It feels very cozily Ravenclaw-y - but then I was also never happy with the way J.K. portrayed Ravenclaws in the last book.