2nd January- Feast Day of Gaspar del Bufalo

10.04am I picked Gaspar del Bufalo to be the subject of my daily holiday because his name closely resembles the word 'Buffalo'. It turns out that he is not super exciting. I tried to look him up in the encyclopedia while I was enjoying breakfast, but was deterred by the large numbers of convoluted Italian names (eg. Annunziata). Honestly, who names their child Annunziata? That is just asking for said child to have trouble in school, because right from the first day they are behind all the Lukes and Ellas who can already spell their own names.

Also. Apparently, 'Szczesny' is a perfectly common name in Poland. This is hilarious to me.

10.10am Oops. I am a few hours in to the second day of the New Year, and I am already filling my journal up with nonsense, despite my firm promise to myself slash New Year's resolution.

But. I have a plan. I will have this journal for all my mad raving, and then a decoy journal. The decoy journal will have entries like this:

"Dear Only Journal That I Own,

Today, I contacted several important government officials about potentially starting a charity to promote/fund curing drug addicts, stopping whale slaughter and spreading world peace.

Then I wrote another section of my very serious book on current global issues of great weight. Let me just reiterate the fact that it is very serious and non-fictional. And also that the introduction is going to be written by someone very important in the poverty prevention world, whose books I have read because I am scholarly.

Very formally yours,

Lily Evans"

This way, when I am dead and biographers want to put together a best-selling book about my life, they will find and read this decoy journal. They will then inform the world that I was an incredibly intellectual person, even at a young age. (They will ignore the fact that my manuscript about pressing global issues is missing. They will assume that it was just too life-changingly amazing and had to be kept from the public eye.)

Without this cunning plan, I run the risk of having a biography that reads something like this:

"Lily Evans was a joke. When at Hogwarts, she spent much of her time breaking her New Year's Resolutions and having miniature breakdowns over boys. Also, she watched an inordinate amount of marine biology related documentaries, and spent the rest of her time devising ways of getting out of her Head Girl duties."

Should this version of my life story be published, then my only consolation will be that no-one bothered to write a biography about Potter.

10.35am Speaking of Potter. I never replied to Potter's last letter.

Potter,

Agreed.

Lily Evans

But what if he doesn't remember what I'm referring to? Maybe he kissed lots of girls last night, and he sent some of them invitations to dates or something? Then my letter might seem like an acceptance letter. And then Potter might feel like he had to let me down gently, which would be just about the most hideously embarrassing thing ever ever ever. I will try again.

Potter,

I don't even remember kissing you. Maybe it was someone else with red hair. There was a girl with a duck outfit at the party who had red hair. Are you sure you didn't kiss her?

Lily Evans

Hmm. No. Somehow, I don't think that he is going to fall for that one.

Potter,

Kissing you was incredibly repulsive. The sooner we forget it ever happened, the happier I will be.

Lily Evans

Aaaargh. This is also unacceptable. Maybe I just won't reply at all. I like that. It kind of send the 'What kiss?' vibe. As though I had already forgotten about it. Which I practically have.

3.14pm Spent most of the morning and early afternoon working on Healer applications. Then it hit me that I should also be applying to internships so that I will have a strong CV once I have left my medical training. I also realized that I have mounds of homework to finish.

What have I been doing all break?

3.25pm Just wasted ten minutes going through my journal trying to figure out what I had been wasting my time on over the holidays. Then I saw the irony in my actions and decided to waste some more time writing down these two sentences.

4.15pm Rang Mary. Had a fifty-minute conversation with her about how much work we both had to do.

4.16pm Debating whether or not I should ring Alice. She will probably just hang up the phone anyway.

6.03pm Rang Alice. She did not hang up the phone. Another two hours wasted. On the plus side, we had a long discussion about her New Year's Eve. Frank Longbottom finally asked her out!

6.04pm I can't believe it took her two days to tell me.

6.05pm What if I am so self-centered that no one ever wants to tell me anything? What if they all think that I will ignore their news and just harp on about my own super shallow problems?

6.16pm Just rang Alice again. Turns out she couldn't tell me because they were keeping it a secret, but that she is very bad at keeping secrets. I am not super self-centered after all. Hopefully.

Note to self: Do not tell Alice any more secrets.

6.17pm Aaaaaargh. School starts in TWO DAYS. DOOOOOOOOOOOM. Must focus.

11.32pm It is practically midnight and I am still working. McG sat us all down at the end of term and reminded us that this year is absolutely life defining and that our future happiness depends almost entirely on our ability to self-discipline ourselves and to avoid procrastination.

I consider myself to be incredibly self-disciplined when I eat two pieces of pound cake instead of three. I am doomed.