Day 2.

And did I rise and meet the challenge of posting every day? Of course not. ;) But, whatever. It'll get done when it gets done! So, here is...

Day 2: A favorite movie.

Oh man...I could go crazy with this, too, and make up ten zillion genres and fill them all with at least two or three movies. But I won't. I'll also pick something other than Lord of the Rings, because I think that everyone knows those are my absolute favorite movies! It will never cease to amaze me that I can watch them absolutely any amount of times and I love them as much as ever. But wait...I WASN'T going to talk about LOTR. ;) However, I will talk about my second favorite movie, which has the added benefit of not being very well-known! And that would be...

I'm not even completely sure what it is about this movie that I love so much. I love the story...it's so inspiring and not quite like any other sports movie. I love the general air of British-ness. I love the characters. I love the music (the theme is one of the best things ever, and I've also fallen in love with "Jerusalem", England's unofficial national anthem that plays at the end...it is EPIC. And listen carefully to the second verse - the name of the movie was taken from a line of the song!). I love the cinematography. I love to run. So I guess I came up with a ton of things I love about it, but there's still something undefinable that makes it amazing and puts it right up there under LOTR in my favorite movies.

"Now there are just two of us...who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels." Lord Andrew Lindsay, Chariots of Fire

"I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." Eric Liddell, Chariots of Fire

* * *

I cannot wait for summer! I went out to dinner with some friends last night and had a great time making tons of grand plans with one of them for the summer. This summer is going to be absolutely AMAZING. I almost always make big plans for the summer, but I really think that this year they'll be carried out. I can't wait! Today wasn't so great, however...all day I felt extremely dizzy, like I'd just done about ten zillion double pique turns all around a room. Then I started feeling nauseated, it got worse when I laid down, and wasn't too encouraged when my mom looked up "dizziness and nausea" on the internet and informed me that they are symptoms for heart problems, kidney problems, brain tumors, anemia, and basically nothing less serious than food poisoning. Lovely. However, these dizziness issues happened last year too and as far as I know nothing is seriously wrong, so hopefully it's still just mild anemia or something and will just go away! I'm feeling a bit better now, however.

I really need a haircut. I HATE MY HAIR!!! Well, I do at the moment, at least. Erm. Anyways! Just had to throw that out there!

My dad designed the logo for this year's dance recital and it is SWEET. I'll most definitely post a picture of the t-shirt after I get it! And speaking of dance, I don't think that dance studios should have spring break. Actually, I don't think they should have a summer break either (well, maybe for like two weeks...)! We're on spring break right now and I miss it!!! Right now I'd usually be in modern... *sigh* At least we'll be going Thursday afternoon to work on the duet my sister and I are doing for the recital! We're reprising Spanish from our Christmas show, but this time on pointe!

Oh...and I'm SO excited! I now have 60 followers! :D That's amazing! Thank you so much, Polka Dot! Plus, I now have an even number of followers, which also makes me happy. haha But don't let that discourage you from following! ;)

Of movies and fearlessness.

We have been watching SO many good movies lately! They are...

Bright Star - This was one of the most beautiful, romantic, and sad movies I've ever seen. It tells the story of the short-lived but amazingly intense relationship between the poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Bright Star was wonderfully acted, the music was unique and beautiful (I especially loved the wordless choral singing), and the cinematography was jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly gorgeous. It also made me want to read more of Keat's poetry! Some of my favorite lines were:

"Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: do I wake or sleep?"

"There is a holiness to the heart's affections."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness."

"Bright star, would that I were as steadfast as thou art."

Another aspect I really loved was how Fanny's family was so present, and they were all obviously so happy and loved each other very much. It seems like you just don't see that in very many movies, even period dramas. It also added a really nice note of groundedness to what could have been a very sentimental movie (but wasn't at all, for reasons in addition to that!).

I had a lot of fun making graphics from this movie, too. With such beautiful imagery and quotes, how could it be anything but a joy? If you like to see a slideshow from them, click here!


Alice in Wonderland - Finally, finally, finally, we saw it, and just as we expected, we (we meaning my mom, sister, and I...not the royal we...or "We are Bates, sir," (if you've watched Top Hat - and if you haven't, you should! - you'll get it) ) loved it! It was so wonderfully Tim Burton-y (in other words, weird and hilarious and creepy and interesting and awesome), I absolutely loved the music (I'm adding the theme song to my playlist on here as soon as I get a chance), and I loved Alice's clothes! Steampunk, I've decided, is my new favorite style. *swoons* I especially loved the dress she wore at the beginning, the dress the Hatter made (which I can't find a picture of...), the dress the Red Queen had made, and the coat she wore at the end.

Some people have taken issue with supposed "feminist undertones" in Alice - I myself didn't see them at all. There was the incident of Alice refusing to wear a corset. Smart girl! Corsets were absolutely horrible for your health, and just because everyone is wearing something doesn't mean you have to also. It really can be taken as a good message. Then there was the fact that Alice slayed the Jabberwocky. So what? Eowyn slew the Witch King. Girls don't always have to always conform to someone's ideal of what they should act like. Look at St. Joan of Arc - she certainly was no damsel in distress. Everyone is different...everyone's calling is different. And besides, in this case it is a story about a fantasical land where anything can happen and usually does. ;) And finally, people have taken issue with the way the movie ends - Alice becomes an apprentice with a trading company. Oh well...that's what she wants to do, and she's motivated in a large part by love and admiration for her deceased father - it seems to me that she wants to carry on his legacy. Also, if you've read the book, you'll remember that Alice is a very curious, contrary, strong-minded sort of girl. I thought the movie captured her personality very well.

But, anyways, back to the movie!

The Cheshire Cat was so awesome and cat-like! Definitely my favorite character after... [fan girl warning] THE HATTER!!!!!!!!!! Johnny Depp is an incredible man, the way he can be completely endearing even with an orange bozo wig and garish makeup and fake gooseberry green eyes. :D [/end fan girl warning] The Bandersnatch was also rather creepily adorable after it came over to Alice's side.

I also loved the way the movie started. I have a thing about the opening scenes of movies...if they're extremely awesome, the movie goes way up in my estimation! And this one was wonderful (Tim Burton's usually are)...the theme playing dramatically to the backdrop of a full moon overlooking a stylized London, with the title in its awesome font flying towards you through the sky. Danny Elfman was the composer, so, therefore, all the music was completely epic!

And, finally, another thing I really liked was how elements of both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were woven in. I've loved both of those books since I was about 4 years old, and it was so much fun to see them come to life! The books are rather (extremely) odd themselves, so Tim Burton was the perfect person to make them into a movie, in my opinion!



Sherlock Holmes - As the credits (amazingly epic credits, I might add, with scenes from the movie suddenly turning into sketches) began to roll as we finished watching this movie last night, these were the first words from my lips:

"That. was. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!"

That about sums it up!

I've always been a big Sherlock Holmes fan (and fan girl, I must admit...I developed quite a crush on him, and that certainly hasn't changed after seeing this new incarnation!), ever since watching the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies for the first time when I was about 11. Those were great, but this...this was awesome!

First of all, I loved the whole atmosphere. It was very underworld of London, steampunk-y, slightly seedy, and reminded me a lot of The Ruby in the Smoke (one of my favorite books, and unfortunately the only good book ever written by Philip Pullman, IMO). Then there was the villain Lord Blackwood, and all the fighting, and the creepy "black magic", and Irene's mysterious employer, which all kept it exciting. Then there was Irene herself, who I thought was really cool. I liked the way she was sort of mysterious and obviously had her own life...it was a nice departure from the usual sidekick. Then there was the humor - Holmes and Watson were absolutely hysterical together!

Watson: "Get that thing out of my face."

Holmes: "It's not in your face, it's in my hand."

Watson: "Then get that thing in your hand out of my face!"

and,

Watson: *enters the room where Holmes is practicing shooting and in the process freaking out the landlady*: "Permission to enter the armory, sir.

And then there was the music! Oh my goodness, Hans Zimmer outdid himself on this soundtrack...it was one of the best I've ever heard! It even made Irish music with annoying singing sound cool! It was epic, there's no other word for it.

The one jarring note...what was up with Mary's hair? Correct me if I'm wrong, but women didn't have big heavy bangs like that back then, did they? I really liked her character, but every time she showed up I winced...the hair just looked totally out of place!

But aside from that I enjoyed every minute of it, and I cannot wait for Sherlock Holmes 2!!!


* * *

I've finally been getting a grip on my fear lately. Fear was my ruling passion for years...I was afraid of the dark, afraid of reading scary books or watching scary movies, afraid of talking to people, afriad of what people were thinking of me, afraid to state my own opinion, afraid to make jokes, even afraid of the sound of my own voice. It's a pretty awful way to be.

But I've been realizing that life is far too short to be afraid to live. It sounds cliche, but it's so true. Fear of what people will think of you or what might happen or that you'll look like an idiot can't stop you from living. You are who God created you to be, and you shouldn't be ashamed of that, or afraid people will hate it. And besides, assuming that people dislike you isn't a very charitable thing to think about them! ;)

Fear kept me from being honest with people. I was afraid they'd mock me, or think badly of me, or pick a fight, or simply think I was weird. I'm just not afraid of that anymore. Really, people generally aren't that bad, and even if they are, oh well. Who cares? Does their opinion really matter in the grand scheme of things? Nope. Fear also kept me from being honest with my friends in that I was afraid to talk to them and afraid to show them that I care about them. And it kept people from seeing the honest-to-goodness real me. I've been noticing lately that the image people seem to have of me is often very different from what I truly am. And as I thought about it, I found that I can think of plenty of instances in which the way I act is not quite in line with what I'm thinking. I'm not calling myself a hypocrite...I hope I'm not...I just tend to suppress the real me for, what I realized, is absolutely no good reason at all.

I read this post by Melody on her wonderful blog Vividry a few days ago, and wow, I couldn't believe how perfectly she described just what I, too, am going through right now! And now I have an excellent mantra. Just do it. Thank you, Melody! :)

Feeling fearless (and, if not completely fearless, at least like you have a grip on your fear and it isn't controlling you) is an exhilarating feeling. I'm starting to realize that I'm at the beginning of my life. Exciting things are just around the bend, and anything can happen.

100th Post!

We watched Eight Below last night. Amendment: my mom and sister watched Eight Below - I ended up running out of the room screaming! Here's a brief synopsis of the movie, in case you've never heard of it: Jerry is a guide in Antarctica, and provides transportation for scientists with the aid of his beloved dogsled team. On one journey, the scientist he is assisting breaks his leg, Jerry gets frostbitten fingers, and after getting back to the station in the nick of time before a huge storm hits, they have to be airlifted to the hospital. And sadly, there is no room on the plane for the dogs. After plans to return immediately to get them fall through due to the awful weather, Jerry is forced to return to the U.S, tortured by the thought that he left his dogs to die. It turns out fairly well, with Jerry being reunited with 6 of his dogs months later.

However, in one part one of the dogs is eating an orca carcass (naaasty looking), when suddenly a huge, hideous, nightmarish-looking leopard seal comes bursting out of it! I screamed bloody murder! Thinking about it still gives me the creeps, in fact. :P I stuck around, slightly petrified by the seal (if you don't know what they look like, here is a picture. *shudders* And they're huge), until the seal, which had vanished back under the ice, suddenly popped out of a hole and grabbed one of the dogs by the leg! That was when I leapt off the couch, bolted upstairs, and started reading C.S Lewis. :P Good comfort for a troubled mind.

But before I tell you how, thanks to Mere Christianity, a question that had been troubling me has been answered, I'll remark that I really dislike movies like Eight Below and March of the Penguins. It's not that I find that morally problematic...I just find them terribly depressing. I guess it's because it just seems so hopeless, since even when things are at their worst for humans, they still have reason and can at least try to find a way out. And even if they do die in the end, if they were a good person you know they're going to a better place, but when animals die, that's that. They're guided entirely by instinct, they don't understand what's happening to them, and all in all it makes for a depressing experience.


Anyways...on to brighter topics!

For months, I've been struggling with the question of why God gave us free will. The answer I was always given was, "Because we cannot love without being free, and He wanted us to be able to love Him." To me this always just seemed terribly selfish, so I figured I must be missing something. I was, and it was all made clear in Chapter Three of Book Two of Mere Christianity.

"Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot imagine such a thing. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on. If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will - that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings - then we may take it it is worth paying." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

You would not believe how grateful I was when I read that. For months, I'd been tortured with doubts about free will. It seemed selfish and unnecessarily cruel of God to give us our free wills simply that we may love Him when it was so terribly easy for us to go astray. But after reading that, I realized, among other things, that God does not need us. He doesn't need our love, so why would He create a bunch of automatons simply to love Him? It would be absurd. But He loves us, and He loves us so intensely that He wants us to share in His love. And as C.S. Lewis pointed out, He knew there would be great risks in giving us free will, and He knew it was worth the risk.

With that thought in mind, isn't it awe-inspiring to imagine what the Beatific Vision must be?


Well, back to more earthly topics. I have joined that venerable company of people who have...found their first gray hair! :^O Except in my case, it skipped gray and went directly to white. :P My mom and I were taking a walk and as I ran my fingers through my hair, I glanced down and noticed one of the strands looked very pale.

"It must just be blonde," I thought, since I have a few hairs that are very light blonde amidst the majority of brown. But it looked awfully pale...I looked closer...

"Mum," I said, "I just found a white hair!"

She looked at it and confirmed that yes, indeed, I have a white hair! It's sooo weird... I hope it stops right there for...um...at least 20 more years?


So here it is, folks - my 100th post! I can't believe I've actually written that much on here. I've officially been on Blogger since February 2009, but I didn't actively start blogging until June of last year...just a little over a year ago. I'd wanted a blog for months, but I just couldn't think of anything to write about. Suddenly, however, I started thinking of things, and I haven't stopped since!

And I am so, so, SO thrilled to have 43 followers! It is so wonderful and encouraging to know that there are people out there who enjoy my writing. Thank you SO much! You're all so very much appreciated, and I keep you in my prayers. Every time I get a new follower, I shriek happily, "Yay! I have another follower!"

So, since it seems like people often have some sort of celebratory thing when they reach a significant number of posts or followers or years on Blogger, I thought I'd borrow Melody's idea. You can ask me any question you'd like (within reason, naturally. heehee), and I will answer them all in a post next Saturday! Yay...you get to know more about me...exciting. Sarcasm there. ;) But I really enjoyed reading Melody's post, and I figure, we all like learning more about our friends, be it IRL or in the blogosphere. So...ask away, me hearties! Yo ho!

Bread and Movie Trivia!

It has been so unseasonably cold here! When I got up at 7 am, it was only 50 degrees Fahrenheit out. Brrr! It's 66 right now, which is still pretty cold for the last day of June. o.O

I felt like baking, so I made not one, but two loaves of bread. The banana bread had to bake for an hour, so I decided to just bake a loaf of oat bread as well, since it bakes for only 15 minutes. The house smells sooo good right now!

I also cleaned parts of the house, and I think I've figured out why cleaning can be so therapeutic. You can feel like this, at least, is something you're in control of. And often thoughts will start spinning out of control, but when you clean, you can actually see something become orderly.

And now for the Movie Trivia Game!

I thought it would be fun. Some of my friends have done it on Facebook and I've seen it on a few other blogs lately, so I thought I'd give it a try!

Here are the rules:

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.

2. Go to IMDB.com and find a quote from each movie.

3. Post them for everyone to guess.

4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.

5. NO cheating.

I'll give you until next Wednesday to guess. :)


1. Character #1: - "Look at me. What did you see?"
Character #2: - "A tree. There was a white tree in a courtyard of stone. It was dead. The city was burning." Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, guessed by Christina and Vicki

2. Character #1 - "If I can't win, I won't run!"
Character #2 - "If you don't run, you can't win." Chariots of Fire, guessed by AutumnRose

3. Character #1: - "Reckon I'll leave my brains at home, then." North and South, guessed by Jessica

4. Character #1 - "I'm sorry I said anything about it now. I'll try to find a more agreeable piece of news."
[pause]
Character #1: "Old Marjorie at the lodge is dead." Wives and Daughters, guessed by Jessica

5. Character #1 - "The fact that you rescued me, unnecessarily, hardly wipes out past wrongs." Anne of Green Gables, guessed by Vicki

6. Character #1 - "Some day it'll just end. Everyone will go home, get on with their lives. Tall grass will cover the battlefields. And all the pilots we've lost won't mean a d--n thing." Flyboys

7. Character #1 - "I was so tall."
Character #2 - "Well, you were older then."
Character #3 - "As opposed to hundreds of years later, when you're younger." Prince Caspian, guessed by Jessica

8. Character #1 - "A bird may love a fish, signore, but where will they live?"
Character #2 - "Then I shall have to make you wings." Ever After, guessed by Jessica

9. Character #1 - [holding Character #2's cat] She's so soft. And she's vibrating.
Character #2 - She's purring, David. I Am David

10. Character #1 - "No one of our age has ever taken power."
Character #2 - "Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway." Amazing Grace, guessed by Christina and Vicki

11. Character #1 - "Monsieur! You are now addressing the second most celebrated balloonist in Europe."
Character #1 - "And who is the first?"
Character #1 - "He is not available. He was, uh, buried last Tuesday." Around the World in Eighty Days, guessed by RoseinFaith

12. Character #1 - "Oh, er, do you mind if I ask you a question, frankly? Do you love my daughter?"
Character #2 - "Any guy that'd fall in love with your daughter ought to have his head examined."
Character #1 - "Now that's an evasion!" It Happened One Night, guessed by RoseinFaith

13. Character #1 - "How many have I had?"
Character #2 - "Two."
Character #1 - "Make it an uneven three." The Sound of Music, guessed by Jessica and Vicki

14. Character #1 - "Never again will I allow WOMEN to wear my dresses! " Top Hat

15. Character #1 - "That's it. Out you two pixies go - through the door, or out the window. " It's a Wonderful Life, guessed by Vicki

16. Character #1 - [exits study, finds four of his daughters eavesdropping] "Good heavens. People." Pride and Prejudice (2005), guessed by Christina and Vicki

17. Character #1 - "I've been sitting right here since seven o'clock."
Character #2 - "Yes, with your back to me. When I invite a woman to dinner I expect her to look at my face. That's the price she has to pay." A Night at the Opera

18. Character #1 - "She saves me from an inferno and she's glad she happened to be awake." Jane Eyre, guessed by Audrey

19. Character #1 - "I'm fighting for something that's real for the first time in my life! " Step Up

20. Character #1 - "I feel as though someone's handed me the moon... and I don't exactly know what to do with it." Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, guessed by Vicki

One of those days...

It's one of those days...one of those days when you just feel sort of out of it...and depressed...and like doing something interesting...but there's nothing to do. :P I think I'm feeling people deprived - I wasn't able to talk to any of my friends after Mass today! So I will try and cheer myself up by writing a long, random, rambly post. ;)

I think I have finally figured out what my temperament (for more on the temperaments, here's an article I wrote on them) is! At various times in my life, I've thought I was choleric, melancholic, or sanguine (but never phlegmatic). I now think I'm melancholic-choleric, because of my mix of introversion and extroversion, and, well, I think I have a lot of traits from both temperaments. *sighs contentedly* For some reason it's so nice to know these things! I also found out that my Myers-Briggs personality is INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceptive), and the descriptions I've read sound very much like me.

* * *

I read (actually re-read) a very good book yesterday - The Borrowed House, by Hilda van Stockum. The first time I read it, I was about the age of the main character - 12 - and, like her, many things just went over my head. But with this reading, I was able to really appreciate what a wonderful book it is. It's set during WWII, but from an angle that is seldom heard from - 12-year-old Janna is a member of Hitler's Youth, and believes fervently everything they indoctrinate her in. After she is sent to live with her actor parents in Amsterdam, however, things begin to change. She sees more clearly what the Nazis are doing, and the foundations of her world begin to tilt. I sort of fell in love with this book...I remember loving it when I was 12, too, but I think I love it even more now. It truly paints a vivid picture of what things were like during WWII, and brought tears to my eyes by the second chapter. And **SPOILER** I just know that Janna and Sef will find one another when the war is over! I wish there was a sequel. :) **END SPOILER** Hilda van Stockum is such a talented writer and portrays her characters so sympathetically and well that you feel their pain and suffering as though you were suffering it yourself. Much as I love this book, I find books about WWII to be so disturbing...it happened not so very long ago, and it could happen again. God grant that it won't.

* * *

I just experienced a really cool weather phenomenon! It started raining about 15 minutes ago, but before long I saw the sun shining through the window. It was still raining, however, and it looked so beautiful that I just had to go outside. As I stood in the sunlight in the front yard, raining pouring on my head, I could see the sky was blue on one side of the house and full of gray clouds on the other. As the clouds moved over my head the rain lightened up and eventually stopped, but when I ran over to the sidewalk it was still raining! It was so strange, but really cool.

* * *

And with that, I shall leave you. Today wasn't the greatest, but I know it won't stay like this. Ohhh! I forgot to mention - we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the other night, and I must admit I loved it! :) It's so crazy...and weird...and hilarious ("Even I am edible, but that is called cannibalism. And cannibalism, my dear children, is something that is frowned upon in most decent societies.")...and Johnny Depp is my favorite actor, I've decided. My family has also been having far too much fun watching the Marx Brothers lately...our favorites so far are A Night at the Opera and Room Service. :D