He who shall not be named

Friday has just crept up on me unawares... 

Stolen from the internet,
but just in case you need the reminder

You know that scene in Harry Potter the Order of the Phoenix (of course you do) where Harry is lying on the floor, possessed by Voldemort who is telling Dumbledore that he has lost... Dramatic moment... And, while that is going on, Harry is flipping through these poignant mental images of happy memories - the one that resonates with me is this sepia-esque shot of Harry, Ron and Hermione giggling in front of the fire, discussing the fact that Ron has the depth of a teaspoon. So, if you remember (obviously you do), Harry Potter  pushes Voldemort out with: "you're the weak one, you'll never know love, or friendship and I feel sorry for you." (Yes, I HAD to watch it again to check...) 

You are unlikely (thank goodness) to be fighting the unnameable forces of evil personified (and sadly, you don't get to go to Hogwarts) but it is possible that you are sometimes feeling alone, overwhelmed and as though you are tackling something monstrous, much bigger than yourself. If you find yourself lying on the floor, feeling defeated, make sure that you have a catalogue of happy memories that you can flip through to fight the demons off.  

The "bad" news is, to build up this catalogue, you can't possibly spend every evening and weekend working. You need to keep up the friendships and be open to giggle moments. My catalogue of moments generally include sunshine and wine... and my awesome, awesome (pink champagne drinking) friends. These moments will hopefully get you through those Word-crashing, R-flopping, late-night-working, nothing-going-right weeks and still give you something to smile about. And, like Harry, you don't have to do it all alone. There are people that will help, people that care about you and people that will giggle with you (some particularly rad people will do all those things). Thank goodness, unlike Harry, it's just a PhD that you have to battle with...

It's almost weekend, go out and add some happy moments to your catalogue.