So, for the past few weeks, I had been perusing the Tumblr syndication of My Life Is Average, a (somewhat) counter-”attack” on the negativity of the popular site F* My Life, where readers share mishaps and mayhem of their own (miserable, little) lives. MLIA operates in pretty much the same way — readers submit, others vote, et cetera — but unlike FML, it centers on the average things that happen in life.

The quality of these “average” posts aren’t the boring, Bella-Swan-narration type of entries, though. The people that frequent this part of the Internet are those who have not been disenchanted by the screwed-upness of the world, but are, instead, still fascinated by the little things. An example: “Today, I took a test in science class. One of the questions was “What is arguably the most dangerous element?” I said the element of surprise. I got extra credit. MLIA.” (link) Another example: “Today my husband and I pulled over at McDonalds after visiting a viking market. We were fully dressed up as vikings. The girl at the drive-through stared at us. I told her it is rude to stare at time-travellers. MLIA.” (link)

I guess another quality of MLIA that drew me in is the seeming domination of people who liked Harry Potter, cats, zombies, ninjas, Narnia, Pokémon, finding Waldo and so on. The appeal of MLIA lies not in second-hand embarrassment or pity commiseration, but in the joy of finding “kindred spirits” — for the lack of a better term — in the course of daily life.

Inspired by this thought (and the rousing feeling in my bones!), I read this MLIA post, and this one, both of which concern putting up sign-up sheets for Dumbledore’s Army on bulletin boards in school. (Dumbledore’s Army is the insurrection group Harry Potter put up in Hogwarts when the toad-faced Dolores Umbridge threatened to take over the school, putting up systems and rules that remind one of the Dark Ages.)

I put two sheets up on bulletin boards in school yesterday, and this is what I saw at about 9 a.m. today:

(free board on the way to the library)

(Sec-A)

Ateneans, I’ve got to say, I’m a little bit disappointed. I don’t know, maybe I was expecting actual names instead of fictional ones that were in the books. (I’m not going to even touch on the desecration of the Sec-A sign-up sheet. Edward Cullen, GTFO.) Anyway, I’m a little sad about this little failed experiment. I was looking forward to see who would actually take the time to put their names on it, not see a bunch of names of fictional characters written by who knows who.

A big hello to Irene Lukban, Matt S. and Myta Santigo, though. Whoever you are, you guys rule!