Witches and wizards, please turn to the features page now—a new idea has been haunting me for several weeks. It’s cheesy, sappy and weird, but I’ll share it anyway. It is this: Drake University is tenfold more magical than the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Cheesy? Yes. But I seriously can’t stop thinking about it.
I’ve probably read and recited the Harry Potter books more in my life than our own Pledge of Allegiance. Every time after reading them I have to find some antidepressants on the black market.
My friends’ and my lives are utterly devoid of importance and anything “special” like there is in the wizarding world. There are no clear-cut lines of good and evil in our Muggle world, nor can I make trolls levitate by the flick of my wrist on a pine stick. I mean, I can’t even find the damn trolls in the first place.
So after hustling on the black market for antidepressants since the release of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” I was sick of the life of a hustler. It was time to find magic in the Muggle world.
That’s when I stumbled upon my senior year of high school and college applications.
I found, applied to and enrolled in Drake University, and this my friends, is when I found magic.
I knew prior to college that automobiles were produced, but I never realized that knowledge was also created. And now, trapped in rooms with challenging professors, engaging texts and 10 to 20 other brains with wheels spinning, I had to discover, create or defend my own knowledge.
I partied way too much last year to “Tik Tok” with students of other ethnicities, political views and backgrounds. I go to parties with students from other states and continents that come from both impoverished and affluent families. Some of us are still learning English, and some of us are beginning to learn Arabic.
When I sit back and think about it, it really is kind of magical.
Not only the learning that takes place at this university is magical, but even the simple things we Muggles do every day.
I can go to a shower that is four stories above the ground and turn some little silver faucet, and water comes out.
I can put quarters in a dryer and my clothes transform.
A student in one of my classes can suggest a new idea and we can spend an hour discussing the merits of it.
I can ring a doorbell under some golden arches, order off something called the “late-night menu” and all of a sudden a chicken between two pieces of bread with some mayonnaise on it appears to me.
I can give Jackie or Marietta my card at Hubbell South and gorge my face with food.
I can give Keith my card at Quad Creek, and boom, a buffalo chicken wrap appears.
Thank you, Sodexo, for turning my student ID into a magical food wand.
We can get in these things called automobiles and if we press down on a little pedal, we can drive faster than a Nimbus 2000.
See, this is what I think: Magic is a matter of perspective.
If an alien were to land at Drake University and see the things we did every day without thinking about it, they would think we were Hogwarts.
Plus, good and evil are clear lines in the sand.
Ignorance versus education is just one example.
As Azar Nafisi said, “Ignorance has become a sort of badge of honor” in the United States. There are battles to be fought.
See, my friends, we are pretty magical.
So lay off the antidepressants and stop crying because Dobby died; what matters is what we have here.
