Ghosts / Happy B-day / colleges / condolences / Break A Leg

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Rachel Bray wrote:

> Could someone please remind me why some people turn to ghosts and 
> why some don't.  We're (office folk) discussing why Harry won't see
> his parents as ghosts and I can't remember why that is.

In an interview, JKR said there is a reason why some people become 
ghosts and some don't, but she didn't tell the reason in that 
interview. She only have a hint: if you think of the people who have 
become ghosts, they aren't exactly the happiest people. Moaning 
Myrtle certainly isn't the happiest person, but I dunno that the Fat 
Friar isn't happy, and my friend Lee thinks Sir Patrick 
Delancey-Podmore and his Headless Hunters are happy.

Amy Z wrote: 

> Happy birthday, Melanie!

Here's a roast turkey with candles stuck in it and cranberries 
arranged to spell out Happy Birthday.

Amy Z wrote:

> In the US, "college" is also, very rarely, the term for a separate
> dorm and entity within the undergraduate institution, (snip)
> Yale is actually the only university I know that has this system.

UC San Diego's colleges within the university are (or were, last I 
looked) non-residential but divided by worldview rather than by 
academic subject. Revelle College had the idea of teaching its 
students all knowledge there is, by putting them all through the same 
curriculum, designed to avoid wasting time on doing the same subject 
matter over and over, e.g. you can cover ten units of Intro Chem and 
ten units of Intro Bio and ten units of Intro Physics in a twenty 
unit Intro Natural Science class by weeding out such redundancies as 
teaching the Periodic Table in all three classes. Muir College 
claimed to have the idea that knowledge is only valuable if it is 
connected to the natural environment. 

Rachel Bray wrote:

> I am beyond words upset right now.
> Someone walked into my cubicle last night and ripped my Muggles for 
> Harry Potter poster almost in half!  It's beyond repair.

Oh, poor Rachel. Maybe someone else who has a Muggles for HP poster 
will photocopy theirs for you as a replacment.

Al wrote:

> In just about two and a half hours time, I'm going on stage for the 
> first time in seven years in 'Our Country's Good' at the Gardner 
> Arts Centre.  I haven't acted for years and am abso-bloody-lutely 
> petrified,

It's remarkable how many show-business celebrities are still 
petrified with stage fright the millionth time they step out on 
stage. You'll fit right in.