Movie Review: Freetown

Synopsis:

A group of native Liberian missionaries make a desperate cross-country trip through their war-torn country to save one of their own. 

My rating: 4.5 out of 5

Last Thursday night, my dad, Sarah, and I went to see Freetown. So far it's the only movie in theaters that I was actually interested in (I cannot WAIT for the summer blockbusters--Avengers 2!!!!!!).

I didn't know much about this movie besides the synopsis above, but I left feeling really happy that I'd seen it.

But first, I just have to point out that there are a lot of LDS movies coming to theaters this year. I'm pretty sure this was the first time in my life when I went to an LDS movie, and every trailer that played before it was for another LDS movie! Usually they use Disney movie trailers or something, but they filled the whole 10-minute trailer space with LDS stuff. It was really cool to see.

Anyways, Freetown was beautiful. It was so authentic. I expected there to be at least one white missionary in the mix or some nice white people to help them out, because frankly that's how every movie set in Africa usually is. I've never seen a movie before where the entire cast was native African and actually filmed in Africa. In Freetown, most of the movie was shot on location, everyone was actually from Liberia, and there were only two white people in the entire cast. They only appeared for two minutes, tops. It was awesome.

It was actually kind of hard to understand what the characters were saying, though. They had such strong Liberian accents that a lot of the dialogue went over my head. And I've studied African accents before, so I can only imagine how general audiences struggled to tell what they were saying. When it comes out on DVD, I'll have to watch it with subtitles...

The missing dialogue didn't detract from the story, though. You could easily get the general gist of what they were saying and doing, and the characters were wonderful. They had such a happy, positive outlook despite their situation, and the film did a great job of showing how genuinely loving and enthusiastic these missionaries were for life and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It also did a great job of showing the dangers of war-torn Africa. There were too many instances for me to recount without giving away the whole movie, but the most poignant shot for me was near the beginning when you see a rebel fighter moving slowly through the jungle with an AK-47. You expect him to attack or be attacked and for there to be this horrific war scene. Instead, into the frame steps a group of missionaries and Church members, just trying to reach a waterfall where they can hold a baptism without interruption--the rebel fighter acting as their protector. It was beautiful.

The music was good, the acting was great, and the story was pretty darn amazing. It left me appreciating the relatively easy life (and mission!) I have. I learned so much from this film--both about Liberia and about living true to yourself and to your faith, no matter the danger.

The only reason I didn't give it a perfect 5/5 was because it never made me cry, the soundtrack was pretty limited, and there was one preachy moment that pulled me out of the story a bit too much.

"But Carly, you don't like crying in movies!" I know. But when I go to a movie that's about genocide and missionaries, I expect at least a happy spiritual moment or a heart-wrenching death. This was a really inspiring, interesting movie, but I never felt close to tears, and that was a little anticlimactic for me.

"But Carly, you just said that you liked the soundtrack!" Yes, I did. But it also sounded a lot like the Saratov Approach soundtrack, and they used the exact same song for every traveling scene, which only reminded me that there were a lot of traveling scenes.

"But Carly, it's a Mormon movie! And it wasn't even that preachy!" Well of course I liked the spiritual themes and messages, but there was just this one part where they're huddling in an apartment, worried for their lives, trying to decide what to do, and the woman with them stands up and shares her whole conversion story. It had a point in the end, but when she started, it didn't seem to have anything to do with the current situation, and it pulled me away from the tense moment.

Really, those are the only things. The movie was great, and I will gladly watch it again. I hope there will be many more of these kinds of movies to come. It's not even necessarily the missionary aspect that draws me in now--it's the introduction to different ways of life that I've never thought of before.

2015 Reading Challenge: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

A book by a female author...

(Okay, first of all, I find it weird that "a book by a female author" would be one of my challenge criteria. Like...do you think I specifically avoid books by female authors, and this will expand by focus? Half the time, I barely even notice the author's name when I read a book. But I know it's sadly true that sometimes publishers alter an author's name so people won't know their gender [J.K. Rowling being a prominent example], and to those people who don't buy a book because it's written by a female, shame on you.)

Anyways.

Synopsis: 

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.  

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

My rating: 4 out of 5 (I'm giving those a lot lately...)

Cinderella. As a cyborg. Just let that awesomeness sink in for a minute.

I really liked this book. It came highly recommended from a friend, and I wasn't disappointed. Well, not too disappointed. Overall it was excellent. I loved that it was based off of the classic fairy tale, but really only slightly resembled it. You've got the wicked stepmother, the two stepsisters, the handsome prince, the royal ball, and even the pumpkin turned into a carriage (...sort of...). And yet it's so original that you mostly forget it's a Cinderella spinoff.

I loved Cinder, I loved the plot, and I loved the setting. So much.

But... I was disappointed in two things.

1) I saw the twist coming a mile away.

I'm not going to spoil it for you, but I guessed the twist ending about 50 pages in, and the rest of the book I was hoping I would be proven wrong. I wasn't.

2) This wasn't a stand-alone novel.

I mean, I knew this was part of a series, but I was kind of hoping that Cinder's overall plot would be wrapped up, and then linked to the other books. I didn't expect a cliffhanger, and I started panicking when I only had twenty pages left and important things still hadn't happened.

That's the only reason I took a star away. But really it was fantastic and I'm excited to read the rest of the series.

2015 Reading Challenge: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

A popular author's first book...

Well, it was no contest--I had to choose Elantris, because it's bothered me for a long time that I hadn't yet read Brandon Sanderson's first published book!

Synopsis:

Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling.

Arelon's new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping -- based on their correspondence -- to also find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. So Sarene decides to use her new status to counter the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell high priest who has come to Kae to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god.  

But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspect the truth about Prince Raoden. Stricken by the same curse that ruined Elantris, Raoden was secretly exiled by his father to the dark city. His struggle to help the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps reveal the secret of Elantris itself.

My rating: 4 out of 5

You thought that was a long synopsis? Try reading the actual book. I listened to the audiobook, and it took me almost three weeks, since I only got the chance to listen to it during my 40 minute train rides. 

But I did it! And ultimately, I wasn't disappointed. People were warning me that since this was Sanderson's first book, it was his worst. I was expecting it to be really bad. Maybe I just had low expectations, but I thought that even Sanderson's "worst" was excellent.

I mean, it's a story about (essentially) a zombie prison city!! And as usual, Sanderson is amazing at world building, character development, and storytelling. As with his other books, his magic system is very grounded and simple to understand (making the conclusion that much more satisfying). It was really, really good. I've heard that he's working on a sequel, and I would love that. 

I think the only thing I was actually disappointed about was how similar I found this book to some of his others. I know that all of his books take place in the same Cosmere, but they all have such a unique flavor. Elantris, on the other hand, felt like a derivation of The Stormlight Archive. (Except Elantris came first... so then The Stormlight Archive feels like an expansion of Elantris?)

For example (mild spoilers), the male and female main characters were very similar to the main characters of The Stormlight Archive. Sarene (Elantris) and Shallan (TSA) were both nobles from other lands. They both travel by sea to the country where the main events take place. Both have happily-arranged marriages to main character princes. Both have little supernatural creatures that follow them around and help them out. Both tend to get involved where they shouldn't. And both are described as "not like the other girls."

Raoden (Elantris) was a lot like Kaladin (TSA). Both were thrown from a lofty position of power to the lowest possible state in their respective countries. Both have indomitable spirits and make the most of their crappy situations. Both take a group of hopeless outcasts and turn them into valuable members of their own little pseudo-society. And both eventually regain positions of great prestige.

On top of that, a lot of the names sounded similar to both The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn. I mean, his world-building and language creation is outstanding, don't get me wrong. But things in Elantris just sounded so familiar to me after having read so many of his other books, and I guess I was hoping for something totally unique.

I need to find something of his that doesn't involve an ambiguously evil godlike emperor, a powerful nation about to be overthrown, and a group of ragtag rebels who save the day.

Also, my friend was right when she said that the author had yet to learn how to control his "Sanderson Avalanche" when he wrote Elantris. The "Sanderson Avalanche" is an actual thing (look it up online)--it's Sanderson's trademark. After creating dozens of characters and side plots and Chekhov's Guns, he ends his books with this huge outpouring of shocking reveals, brilliant solutions to the characters' problems, and wrap-ups of loose ends. He has indeed gotten really good at handling the avalanche of information in his other books, but in Elantris, it all kind of happened at once. It still wasn't as bad as I expected, but it left me feeling like no one brilliant thing stood out, because he threw out all his brilliant conclusions at once.

Anyways, as I said before, this was still better than many books I've read, and Sanderson will forever remain one of my top 5 favorite authors. So if you're looking for a good fantasy book, this is a good choice.

Doodle in the Margins: Kin Fanart

Haven't seen one of these in a while, have you?

This is a doodle I did the other day after another great time at writing group. One of the group members, Heather, is writing a book that involves mermaids, and she's so good at descriptions and character and world-building that I just had to draw her main character, Kin, as soon as I got home.

So here it is!

Her tail is supposed to be like a white, orange, and black koi fish, which is really pretty and fun to draw. The human half was much harder for me because I never practice drawing people. And before you point it out, she's supposed to have only four fingers on her left hand. :)

Sunday Soliloquy: General Conference 2015

Since today is Easter and General Conference Sunday, I'm just going to share with you some of my favorite quotes from this weekend's Conference and let you think about them on your own. :)

Note: Some of these might not be verbatim. I was taking notes as fast as I could, but I'm not perfect.

Romantic love is just a preview of the love that comes from raising a family together. 

-- President Boyd K. Packer

The most important calling a man can receive is that of Father. 

--Linda K. Burton

Men and women shouldn't compete with each other; we complete each other. 

--Linda K. Burton

"Thee lift me and I'll lift thee, and we'll both ascend together." 

--John Greenleaf Whittier

Don't let the opinions of the world give you a "keyhole view" of the true panorama of the Gospel. 

--Dallin H. Oaks

Replace selfish desires with a love of God and a determination to serve Him and His children. 

--Dallin H. Oaks 

Focus on what you know and have faith to keep going in the right direction, even if you aren't quite sure what you'll find at the end. 

--L. Whitney Clayton

In a culture of Temporary, be a revolutionary--seek truth and lasting love. 

--L. Tom Perry

The media is the minority making itself out to be the majority. 

--L. Tom Perry

We can become completely fearless if we look to Christ, build upon the foundation of Christ, and press forward with faith in Christ. 

--David A. Bednar

"But perfect love casteth out fear." 

--1 John 4:18

"I can teach you to dance, but you must learn to hear the music" ... We learn the steps of the gospel with our minds, but we must hear the music of the gospel with our hearts. 

--Wilford W. Andersen 

"'Twas I, but 'tis not I. I do not shame to tell you what I was, since my conversion so sweetly tastes, being the thing I am." 

--Oliver in Shakespeare's As You Like It 

In my pursuit of me and mine, have I forgotten Thee and Thine? 

--Michael T. Ringwood

Freewrite: "Having sorrow in my heart daily"

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? - Psalm 13:2 

Recently I've been inspired by my amazing sister Sarah to take a personal inventory and identify the things in my life that are dragging me down.

After several long chats with her, and several tearful prayers, I finally decided that what it all comes down to is chronic low self-esteem.

Everyone's self-esteem fluctuates on a daily basis. We all wake up on the wrong side of the bed occasionally. Other days it seems like everything's going our way. But while it may be easy for most people to bounce back from the bad days, there are those like me who take every slight personally and file it away to remember later as one of the reasons why we suck.

That's because self-esteem is like an emotional immune system. If you have healthy self-esteem (not necessarily high self-esteem--that's narcissism), then the little challenges and trials don't affect you for long. But when your self-esteem is low, every blow damages you for much longer than it should.

Unfortunately, most people see low self-esteem much the same way that they see depression. "Well, just be happy with yourself!" they say. "You're wonderful! You have no reason to hate yourself! Get over it!"

If only it were that easy.

I found a study on the Psychology Today website (find it here) that helped me to see just why I'm struggling so badly. It gives me great comfort to know that it's not just me--this is a widespread problem that has cause and effect, and it's something that I can get over with a little TLC.

My problem for the last 15 years (if not longer) was that I was misidentifying the cause of my unhappiness. I always thought it was because I've struggled with keeping my weight under control. It wasn't until recently that I realized that I'm not unhappy because I'm overweight--I'm overweight because I'm unhappy.

Sure enough, the study showed that self-esteem is not necessarily connected to physical attractiveness. Overweight people can have great self-esteem. Thin people can have very low self-esteem.

I've experienced that firsthand. I've been overweight the majority of my life, but there were two years in there that I was actually really skinny. First was when I followed the Cohen Diet for seven months, the second was when I served a mission in Paraguay and was at my happiest and lost weight without even trying.

I used to tell myself, "If only I could go back to my freshman year of college--back to when I was so skinny that I stopped menstruating and my hair was falling out. I was happy then because I was skinny!"

Now I realize, I wasn't happy even then! I still hated every picture of myself. I still wished I could fit into a smaller pant size. I still felt unable to climb Y mountain. I still didn't think I was worthy of a boy's attention. And because I still felt that way, despite the fact I was too skinny, as soon as my strict diet was "over," I gained all the weight back by the end of sophomore year. I thought, "What's the point of dieting? I'm a loser! Chocolate makes me feel better." And that was that.

The same thing happened after my mission, when I came back at my healthiest natural weight. I still thought I was fat, I still thought I wasn't worth taking pictures of, and so I started gaining weight only a few months later. And as soon as someone pointed out that I was gaining weight, I promptly got depressed and gained ten more pounds. I can literally trace my weight back the last seven years and show you how spikes in my weight coincide with peoples' comments and the poor way I handled them emotionally.

Fall 2008 - 150 lbs
My thoughts: "Amanda is so much smaller than me!"

Summer 2010 - 220 lbs
My thoughts: "Better turn to the side because I'm such a cow."

Fall 2012 - 180 lbs (my healthiest weight)
My thoughts: "Ugh I have so much weight to lose. Look at my hips."

Now (Spring 2015) - I'm still too insecure to tell you my weight
My thoughts: "I'm dying a little inside. I hate picture day."

So no, while it's true that losing weight would for sure make me healthier and get my critics off my back, I know I still wouldn't be happy. Gaining weight is a symptom, not the problem.

Before you start leaving comments that say, "You're beautiful the way you are! You're so amazing and we love you and just want you to be happy!" let me point out something else that the study showed:

People with low self-esteem are resistant to positive feedback and positive affirmations only make people with low self-esteem feel worse.

Sounds crazy, right? Yet it's so true for me. It's gotten to the point that when you tell me all the good things about me, it's so far from the way I perceive myself that I just don't believe it. When I feel completely weak and helpless, telling me how strong and powerful I am only reminds me of how I feel the opposite. Positive feedback doesn't reach my self-esteem at all--I just block it out and think, "Either they're lying or they just don't really know me. I'm not worthy of their compliments." Plus, I get stressed out by positive feedback, because I'm afraid of letting people down.

"Well, Carly," you're thinking, "What's gonna happen to you, then, if you won't take our advice or our compliments? Are you just going to wallow in self-pity for the rest of your life?"

No.

I AM going to make goals for myself, despite my past and despite my tendency to give up. One of my favorite quotes is by Winston Churchill: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."

There's this article about the "7 Habits of Highly Emotionally Healthy People" that I'm going to use as my foundation for my goals.

Here are the habits:

1. Gain control after a failure 
    As I mentioned before, I take every hit hard. I don't roll with the punches. I need to learn to identify the things that I can control, and then be satisfied when I do, no matter what outside factors interfere. And I need to remember that Winston Churchill quote, to continue trying even when I feel like I've failed too much.

2. Find meaning in loss and trauma
    You would think that this would be easier for a Latter-day Saint who believes that every trial in life has a purpose in God's plan, but it wasn't until I read this article that I realized my self-inflicted trauma was something I needed to accept and move past.

3. Disrupt the urge to brood and ruminate
    I honestly think I've become addicted to self-pity. I'm the kind of person who replays my mistakes and my hurts over and over in my head, feeling justified as the "victim" to be unhappy and not let anyone know about it. The article says I need to distract myself from those thoughts by concentrating on something else. Like Sudoku.

4. Nurture your self-esteem
    How do I do that without positive affirmations (since we already established that they don't work on me)? Basically, instead of just distracting myself from brooding, I need to develop self-compassion. I need to comfort myself like I would a friend. Instead of going, "Of course that guy didn't want to go out with you! Look at yourself, you pig!" I need to be my own best friend and convince myself that I do have eternal worth and no one can take that from me. That's gonna be a challenge for me, but it's something I need to start doing.

5. Revive your self-worth after a rejection
    This is the step where I learn to make positive affirmations work for myself. Instead of justifying someone's rejection by pointing out my own flaws, I need to focus on the qualities I like about myself. The problem is, I so hardly ever get rejected anymore because I just avoid any and all possibility of rejection. See habit 6.

6. Combat loneliness by identifying self-defeating behaviors
    I've gotten to the point that I'm so terrified of rejection that I just lie about everything. I lie about what I eat, what I think, what I like to watch on Netflix, who I think is cute, and even what I write about. I've been a compulsive liar for as long as I can remember, and it's always in the name of self-preservation. I'm crippling myself by letting past slights determine my present and future. This is especially evident in my social life. I tell myself I can't go out because I have nothing to wear, because I hate shopping, because I'm too big to fit into anything cute. I tell myself that my friends don't really want me there--they'd just judge me for my clothes or how much I eat or who I dare think is cute. I told myself this when I was 150 pounds, and I told myself this when I was 220 pounds. It's all internal, an the more I tell myself this, the more I cement myself into that mold. I need to stop preemptively criticizing myself and instead fill my social calendar with visits to people who I know love me no matter what. I need to surround myself with people and stop feeling unworthy of their company. This one will be really hard because I've gotten so used to my "me time," but if I ever want permanent change, I know this is the way to do it.

7. Shed excessive guilt by repairing damaged relationships
    This is the biggest goal for me. This should be #1 on my list. Because I've been such a liar and been so low on self-esteem, I've severely damaged a relationship that I care very much about. This person has tried to help me be happy so many times, and it always ends with me being offended and doing nothing to change. I need to repair that damage, and soon.

And that's really the point of this blog post: to stop lying about how I'm feeling and to start forgiving everyone who I feel put me here. In reality I put myself here. No one is to blame but me. And I'm so grateful for everyone who loved me enough to try to give me constructive criticism. I'm so sorry that it seemed like I just threw it back in your face and continued my self-defeating behaviors.

As I said before, I take failure very badly. So when I say that I'm making goals and trying to improve, please don't give up on me when I don't look like I am. I want to be healthy and happy, but I've always had such an all-or-nothing attitude that if I mess up even once I feel like an absolute failure too pathetic to stick with it. I cope with lack of emotional control by overeating and rebelling against everyone's wishes for me to get in shape.

I'm a wreck. I have a lifetime of emotional damage and bad habits to get over, and it's going to take some time. But I'm tired of being the object of pity and disappointment--the one who cries whenever my weight is mentioned. I'm tired of hating myself. I'm tired of putting on a mask of okay when I'm not okay. I'm tired of giving up on myself.

I don't want pity, I just want love and understanding. I don't want help, I want encouragement. I don't want people to give up on me; I've already given up on myself. I want people to have high expectations for me but continue to cheer me on when I stumble. I want you to have faith in me, especially when I don't have any in myself.

If you've even read this far, thank you. It means a lot to me. I don't really know how to end this post except to say that I know it's possible for a person to change. Nothing is set in stone. No past can't be overcome. I can never go too deep or too dark to be out of reach of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and I know that ultimately it will be by His grace that I'll be able to put aside my hurt and my anger and be free of the chains that drag me down. Especially as Easter approaches, I'm so grateful for His loving sacrifice on my behalf, and for His support every step of the way.