No showers. Sierra wilderness. Fourteen days. I told each of my friends of my impending deprivation and secretly enjoyed their bewildered response every time. I felt like I was bragging, honestly, because a backpacking trip for two weeks away from computers, cars and people was, to me, a luxury, not a sacrifice. After about Day Five, however, my lack of a bath smelled anything but luxurious.

After taking a dozen online multiple-choice quizzes — from sorting hats, not Sparknotes — I kept getting mixed results for my Hogwarts house placement. The quizzes let me get a taste of Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, but the various sorting hats never settled on who, in essence, I was. But finally, after a rigorous sorting hat test identified me as a Hufflepuff (oh snap!), my sorting on Pottermore (see ‘Pottermore enchants Muggles' e-world’) officially confirmed my Hufflepuff status. Me — a Hufflepuff?

The humid, Nicaraguan sun beat down on my back as I kicked about desperately. My heart raced, pumping adrenaline through my veins and I screamed out a string of words we would never print in this paper. The tiny, vicious beast clawed at my calf, ripping through my jeans until I was finally able to shake it off. Even as I limped away frantically, half in shock, I could hardly believe what had happened. Attacked… by a monkey!