Hufflepuff.

[silveradept]

I've airways been resistant to the idea that I'm part of House Hufflepuff in the numerous Sorting Hat questionnaires that proliferated on the Internet while the Hermione Granger series was popular with the books and the movies and now the online experience. Hufflepuff is the house of "everyone else", after all, the people who don't get in to any other house. The Sorting Hat says so, although it's in Order of the Phoenix that he does.

Said Slytherin, “We’ll teach just those
Whose ancestry is purest.”
Said Ravenclaw, “We’ll teach those whose
Intelligence is surest.”
Said Gryffindor, “We’ll teach all those
With brave deeds to their name,”
Said Hufflepuff, “I’ll teach the lot,
And treat them just the same.”

Which doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement for the Hufflepuffs. Even though, by this system, they are probably the most numerous house by far.

There aren't many, if any, Hufflepuffs in the books, (Cedric and Tonks, apparently), so there's no real way of getting a representative sample of what a Hufflepuff is. All we get off what Hufflepuff House is supposed to be about comes from other Hat Songs.

You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you’ve a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were
Prized far beyond the rest;
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest
Would always be the best;
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were
Most worthy of admission;
And power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition.

So the virtues of the House of Hufflepuff are Hard Work and Loyalty, which are definitely the virtues of the Everybody Else. They're not the foolhardy Gryffindors that rush in before considering the consequences, or the ambitious and manipulative Slytherins who consider every interaction and try to come out ahead with personal gain.

[Aside Number One: Draco Malfoy is a Gryffindor. The way he acts, and the henchmen he uses, are supposed to be Harry's mirror images in a different house, but Draco rarely stops to consider consequences and advantages. He's part of Slytherin for the same reasons Harry is part of Gryffindor - because it's where he wanted to go, for whatever value of "want" is possible in a first-year. Also, if experiences like Harry's are typical, I'm surprised more people don't talk about them. If you want the exemplars of Slytherin, you want Horace Slughorn and, to some degree, Tom Riddle, who use their connections, charm and knowledge to advance their goals and acquire more resources to use.]

Hufflepuffs aren't after knowledge for knowledge's sake like the Ravenclaws, either.

[Aside two: Hermione Granger is most definitely a Gryffindor. While she's certainly brilliant enough to be in Ravenclaw, her knowledge is geared toward practical application. She knows the answer to school questions, and does her research to solve the problems she faces. New facts and ideas are fascinating to her based on their applicability. Hermione at her most Gryffindor, though, is when she's campaigning and working toward solving the problem of house elf slavery.]

The way things were designed, it seems like Hufflepuffs are House We Do All The Work And Everyone Else Gets The Credit. Which, as someone on the tail (lead?) end of the Millennials, there was a steady diet of "You're going to change the world, one you get control of it from the cynics of the previous generation and the hangers-on from the last" in the formative years. Hufflepuffs aren't world-changers, they're just hard workers and loyal to those they work with / under. (Which, some may point out, is one of the ways that change is not only achieved, but sustained.)

And then I went into the public library profession. Which is increasingly a profession that finds itself with one foot in the past, one in the future, and two in the grave, acting as the bridge that allows the past to walk its way into the future, either by choice, disaster, or layoff. There are very few entities engaged in the practice of making sure there is training for older people on technology and the new ways of working, and training for young people outside of school for their interests (and technologies, too), as well as maintaining collections and resources from the past so that we don't forget things too quickly. It is a corner of the world that is not always paid attention to, past adulthood and/or college, unless there is a disaster. House No Credit finds one of its many homes in public library service.

For extra sting, I work in children's services, where miracles of literacy, storytelling, rekindling interest in books, and programming happen on a regular basis. But, since the profession is very much women-heavy, it turns out that it's possible for No Credit House to have a No Credit House nested inside it. Molding the future and all that, but how many people remember their children's librarian past story time? It's a triumph for us that we were able to plant in your head the idea that reading is a good thing to be enjoyed frequently, before school dug it up and replaced it with the idea that reading is a chore and must be suffered through.

This is not to say I regret my career choice. I am well-suited to public library children's and teen services, and I like what I do. It's just that I was fed a large diet of "you are going to be important to the world" as a youngster, and it takes adjustment to realize that it did not mean that you were going to become world-famous or fantastically wealthy or any other thing that would guarantee your presence in the history books. At least not immediately.

After some resetting of the sights, and the very real possibility that someone's thought that I wasn't competent enough to do the job would halt my career, I started keeping track of the things I have done - not just because it makes it easier to put down on my evaluation worksheets what kind of awesome person I am, but because chasing the idea that success is measured by magazine covers makes it very easy to miss out on all the success that is happening on lower levels than that.

Like the fact that children want to do one of your storytime rhymes outside of the program, because they love to bounce up and down so much.

Or planting the seed of an idea in a child's head that this, too, is something that you can do, regardless of what anyone says about you and that thing.

Or the unvarnished joy in the face of an octogenarian who is learning for the first time how to select and download books from a library collection to their tablet.

And the high praise delivered at the end of a session covering those basics: "Thanks. That's the most fun I've had in a computer class at the library." Because making learning fun is making it memorable.

And there's the skills. I left an easel pad out to occasionally talk to my teens about things I wanted their opinions on. While I didn't always get a response to the questions, the easel pad started to sprout art. (And games of hangman that use inappropriate words in their blanks, but that's to be expected from teenagers.) I wanted to showcase and preserve the art, and so, in addition to getting some material that I can use to decorate the windows with the art, I decided to try and preserve them by digitizing them. That way, they could join the slideshow of images advertising various library services that was already at work there, thanks to a generous donation of code for use with repurposed netbooks running Linux off a flash drive. (Which was an interesting thing to get to play with, as well. I've gone through a couple different iterations of portable Linux, learning all the way about what they can do and what their quirks are. In all things, there is training.) I've picked up some rudimentary image-manipulation technique in digitizing the artwork - digital inking, basically. Not enough to make a profession at it, but enough to be able to help Significant Other clean up a possible logo idea for them into something they quite liked.

And while nobody in the teen section has explicitly said thanks over the easel or the sideshow or anything else, for that matter, the artwork keeps appearing. It has to be enough to have filled the need, or to have provided a serendipitous moment in someone's life. House No Credit still abides.

Not that I don't occasionally try to raise my own profile - I've submitted an idea to three conferences so far. One said no, and I'm waiting on the other two still. And I've been writing some articles and posts about things I think are important or that are working on a theme. Some even have been published. But it's less about the pursuit of rockstar status and more about trying to find a platform where those ideas can be voiced.

So, because I like helping, and because I'm trying to put in the work, and because I still get joy of of the thanks that do happen, that pretty well puts me in house Hufflepuff. Now all I need is my zodiacal House badge and quote. jenett has "Virgo Hufflepuff - details managed.", which I think it's great and would happily embrace, if it were anywhere near the truth on sign or aspect. Heh. I'm not sure what to do for my own sign. "Foodstuffs Managed", perhaps? Maybe if there were just a set with all of them somewhere?

Anyway, it takes time to reach the point where you can be accepting of being important without being known. I suspect there should be a pithy tag on the end of this, like "This is the beginning of wisdom" or something, but I suspect that of my words were going to be used as aphorisms or wisdom quotes, I'd end up more like G'kar trying to illuminate his disciples than Laozi.

Luminous Emporium used a quote by Daniell Koehler, and I think it's a good closing line.

“You are not too sensitive or too needy. You are thoughtful and empathetic. You are compassionate and kind. And – with or without anyone’s acknowledgment or affection – you are enough.”

That's House Hufflepuff.

Comments

[lilacstarprint.livejournal.com]

Apologies for being a little off-topic. I sent you a message. Did you receive it?

[silveradept]

I have received it, and have been trying to find a block of time to properly take a look at things, because I don't want to do it distracted or juggling other things that would impact the experience.