Blogger Positions Available!

Hi everyone. Honeyspoon, The Ravenclaw Aerie editor-in-chief here. I'm looking for 4-8 Ravenclaw bloggers in addition to myself to help make the blog awesome. Cyprienne will be returning as our resident Geek of the Week expert. Will you be one of the other 3-7 bloggers?

Shared Duties:

Each blogger will have 1-2 class subjects that he or she will monitor for the purpose of selecting classwork to feature in our weekly Classwork Showcase posts. Each blogger will also keep track of the number of classwork submissions for each house for his or her class(es) half way through the month and one week before the end of the month in addition to reporting the grade totals for each house for his or her class(es) once final grades have been posted.

Blog Features:

In addition to shared tasks mentioned above, each blogger will have his or her own special project if desired including but not limited to:

• Quidditch Summaries
• feature outstanding projects
• pie graph reports
• Advanced Studies Reporting
• feature outstanding projects
• pie graph reports
• Headmistress Challenge / General Events Reporting
• HMC outstanding projects
• HMC pie graph reports
• any seasonal events, Interhouse Unity projects, etc that pop up
• Any other ideas you might have!

Interested in applying? Please fill out this form. Thanks! 

P.S. Applications will be accepted until midnight POT time May 6th. (or whenever I wake up the morning of May 7th)

Winter 2013 Mrs. Lovegood Memorial Mad Scientist

In case you haven't heard, this term's winner of the Mad Scientist award is Nightrae for her full Company of Dwarves! Here they are in all their glory:

In the midst of all the celebrating, Nightrae kindly took a moment for a brief interview.

First, congratulations on being awarded the Winter 2013 Mrs. Lovegood Memorial Mad Scientist. What was your initial reaction when you found out you had won?

Thank you! To be completely honest, I was confused: I get an email every time I get Ravelry message or earburn, and those emails forward to my phone. My phone kept going off at random times and I couldn’t figure out why people were suddenly earburning me! I thought it might just be a Random Act of Earburning, such as we have in the Tower. I was partially right--this really just was another wonderful outpouring of Ravenclaw love. My reaction to the nomination was actually more funny, though, and makes a better story: I found out two hours before I usually wake up when my phone buzzed. I had an email notifying me of an earburn from GazeboGal. I was going to ignore it and go back to bed, until I saw that it was in the Mad Scientist thread. I was so excited and overwhelmed that I fell out of bed! I couldn’t sleep after that, but I was so excited that I didn’t care.

Going back in time a bit, what drove you to take on such a project? Did you know at that time that this project was mad enough to lead to a Mad Scientist nomination and ultimate win?

I took on this project because I could. I started making amigurumi with this pattern before Christmas. One of them was a Samwise Gamgee for a dear friend of mine. I’m a huge fan of Tolkien, and once the Hobbit movie came out and Samwise went off to his new home, I realized I had a whole huge world of characters that I could craft with. (Besides, the hair! The beard bling! It called to me!) This had the added bonus of improving my crochet and needle-felting skills, which desperately needed attention. I didn’t know when I first started that this would be worthy of a Mad Scientist nomination. In fact, I didn’t even plan on finishing the whole thing in three months. But life got crazy and I needed crochet to keep me afloat. By the end of the third month, when I had five amigurumi left, I began to wonder if maybe I might get a mad scientist nomination if I finished the collection. While that motivated me, I wasn’t betting on it.
 
 

You completed this set of dwarves while defending your thesis. How on (middle-)earth did you find the time?

You can’t see me, but please know that I am blushing profusely. Some of the Tower folk know that I have ADHD; that, honestly, was a huge motivator for me in starting this project. As an English master, I do a TON of reading, but my hands have to be busy while I’m reading or I’ll get up to clean my room or put away laundry or do the dishes or… well, do anything that isn’t homework. Crafting was a wonderful compromise. Not only did it mean I had a little cheerleading section growing in the living room, it got me through the twenty-five titles on the reading list for the defense!

Any advice for fellow Ravenclaws who might be trying to find their inner Mad Scientist next term?

Craft what you love, and share what you’re excited about. The support of my Ravenclaw sisters was huge in motivating me to finish this project. I was much more excited about finishing a project when I knew that TheRealKarity wanted FO pics, and when CathyCake asked me to start sharing pictures in the Fellowship of the String thread, I was immensely flattered. This project became kind of a group effort--my Dwarrow weren’t my only cheerleaders. I give the Tower as a whole credit for my being a Mad Scientist because their excitement helped me be passionate about my project. And while passion and madness aren’t necessarily the same thing, we Ravenclaws walk the line between the two!

A big thank you to Nightrae for taking a moment to answer a few questions and congrats again for being awarded this term's Mad Scientist!

Common Room Recap March 29-31

This Weekend in Ravenclaw

• Now there's a cake flavor you don't see every day!
• Wooohoo Ravenbaby has arrived! And here is a picture.
• The Easter Spaniel greeted the Common Room.
• 7.5 feet long?! That's more like a NEWT!
• A lovely Easter Table complete with homework.
• Ooohhhhh check out the Ravenclaw Quidditch slide show!
• And that's the term! Soar Ravenclaw!
• There will be no recap during the break month, plan accordingly ;)