My House & Your House

time.com/hp-quiz

Although reading to her when she was young was an important part of my life, it was my wife who led our daughter through the Harry Potter series beginning in 1997. I eavesdropped enough to glean a few tidbits but most of that magic unfortunately bypassed me. Then, this week's Time magazine arrived and page ninety eight caught my eye - Hogwarts, here I come.  

How can any self-respecting geography geek overlook a map of the US, color coded to correspond to one of the four houses at Hogwarts? As someone who spent years administering and interpreting instruments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, how can I resist taking a personality quiz to find out which Harry Potter house fits me best? Can you resist that temptation? If not, click on the link at the top of this post.

Most significantly, I needed to know how closely my quiz results - which would determine which house I'd reside in - either supported or refuted my self grade on three of the four attributes, each of which was featured in my long running series called "My Grade (So Far)". Back in February 2012, I gave myself a "C" for ambition (The House of Slytherin). Then a month later I gave myself a "C" for bravery (The House of Gryffindoor - where Harry resides). In October that same year I gave myself an "A" for loyalty  (The House of Hufflepuff) , leaving only studiousness (The House Of Ravenclaw) as an attribute that escaped my long running exercise in self-scrutiny. And though I never graded myself on studiousness, if the sorting hat did work, I suspect I could have ended up in the House of Ravenclaw had the House of Hufflepuff been at capacity.

How about you? Which house do you belong in? Take the quiz and tell me how your self-grades for each of the four matches the quiz results. If you do, I'll reciprocate. Otherwise, I'm keeping my wand to myself.