I Get All 'Warm and Fuzzy' After Watching Good Romantic Movies...

For Sunday breakfast, we ate altogether leftover pies and boy, it was delicious! Drinking egg-nog was really good, too... :D After breakfast, we took some time to pray quietly by ourselves before starting our service. Naomi led today and had a pre-sermon sermon (a Kanto Christian Church thing) prepared. :D It was a really good pre-sermon sermon about continuing to search for our vision for the church here. We next listened to Mr. Imamura's sermon from a few weeks ago titled 'The World of Life' vs. 'My Life'. It was nice hearing another sermon 'from home'; I like it how he explained that as Christians, we can't encourage other Christians with just 'nice words'. For example, if a doctor sees that you are sick, does he just say that you'll be 'all right' and that you don't have to do anything abou it? No, a real doctor will tell you to 'get better' and tell you what to do to get better. That's the type of 'enouragement' Christians need to give each other.

After the service, I was able to talk to my father which was really nice. It was so cute to hear Bianca whimpering over the phone because she was starved (actually, she had already eaten breakfast but had apparently forgotten all about it) :P.

Naomi made fried rice for lunch (we ate real late, like around 2:20); sooo happy to be able to eat rice. ^_^ We had planned to go watch a movie with some other people from church but something had come up so we had to cancel. However, later on, we were able to go to see Pride and Prejudice later in the afternoon. Before watching he quickly stopped by the calendar store to shop for some gifts and such. It really is the coolest store, I'd like to go there again so I can spend some more time browsing for something to get for myself. :P

Pride and Prejudice... what can I say but that it was an EXCELLENT movie! I really like the 5-hour long version with Colin Firth so I made sure to have an open mind when watching this new version. But I really had no trouble watching the movie with a fresh eye; the director was a genius, cleverly changing just enough to not be 'just another Pride and Prejudice movie' yet making sure to still retain the essence from the original Jane Austen novel. I was very impressed with how well the movie was edited. To be sure, not everything and not every character from the book was in the movie, but the script was so well written that nothing felt missing and the movie flowed from beginning to end.

As for the characters (I really loved the movie, I just have to analyze and put all my thoughts down :P): Keira Knightely I thought was actually an excellent choice as Elizabeth Bennet. A bit more 'modern' I admit, but at least she really IS twenty-years old (all the other versions have a much older Elizabeth which puts the story a bit 'off' in my opinion). She's also a terrific actress and I love the added scene in the end where she really admits how much pride she herself had.

Mention MUST be made for Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet. He was utterly charming and perfect as the father who hardly seems to know what to do with his 'odd' family. :P He has a wonderful scene at the end which he shares with Keira Knightely; simply beautiful, I almost cried. :D

Oh, and Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy! I know Erin and Maki didn't much care for him, but I simply loved Matthew MacFayden as Mr. Darcy. Dark, brooding, handsome, and most of all, tall (dreamy sigh), I thought him quite up to playing such a complicated character as Mr. Darcy is. He played his character to perfection and he does the whole 'completely anguished and confused' look very well. :P I do like Colin Firth, too, of course, but I'm not even going to try to compare the two. Both of them were excellent, each giving their own 'personality' to Mr. Darcy that I would never compare them. Matthew MacFayden and Keira Knightely had real chemistry together and whenever they were together in a scene, you can't help but smile because you just KNOW that they're perfect for each other.

All in all, an excellent film. I'm very tempted to go see it in theaters again, perhaps Restaurant Row (50 cents a ticket :P). Great acting, good script, nice editing, beautiful couple, and need I mention the cinematography? The camera-work was well done; there are some really clever scenes which I must applaud the director for with such interesting camera close-ups, focuses, and angles.

Ok, enough gushing over Pride and Prejudice. :P Couldn't help it!

Got home and since we were still full from a late lunch, we just went each to our computers. I was able to work a bit more on my history paper on Oedipus the King and Antigone. Yesterday I really didn't have much of a clue on how to write it, but I'm starting to get an idea now so the words are 'flowing' more. ^_^

Had a late dinner while watching Hogan's Heroes then back to my computer. Maria and I were fiddling around with I-Tunes which was fun. Well, it's getting late and I'm off to bed. 15th week of school begins tomorrow... only a little bit more before the semester is over and I'll be going home for Christmas! And because I put so many pictures from Pride and Prejudice up, here are a couple of Christmas pictures from last year. Good night!