Rambling

It has been a long week. Not necessarily all the way in a bad way. I mean, I'll admit it, my fabulously awesomest best friend aka my sister moved out and that has taken its toll on my emotions. I keep thinking I hear her in the night (we shared a room for forever), breathing or moving, but then it's just like...earrings blowing off of the windowsill. 

Why I have a pile of earrings on the windowsill is debatable. 

Other than that, learning Chinese, man. It's hard. Like, I am terrible at learning languages. Half the time I am thinking to myself, Why on earth do I think that I can EVER learn this language? And the other half of the time I'm sweating over my accent marks and wishing that I knew how to read/write the language other than in pinyin (English characters. Well, barely English with all of the accent marks. I'm going insane.) But then I just have to go back to the reason WHY I am learning Chinese.... Because I'm going to China to work in an orphanage. Don't ask for details, I don't have them. But I know I'm going because God told me so. 

So yeah, then there's that. I'm like, I REALLY REALLY want to go to China, NOW, God! So I'm always not-so-subtly hinting at God that I, like Tintin, I'm looking for answers. I do this not-so-subtle hinting as I drive by the glorious sunset, and......yeah, God. I get the drift.

I need to slow down. 

And I get that. I know that. So I take the next turn a little slower, take a deep breath, and begin to say Psalm 139, slowly and gently. Because God is good. God is really, really, really good. And He knows exactly why I need to wait. So He gently, but firmly closes doors. And then He patiently listens while I try my hardest to work things through on my own until finally, finally I do the thing I should have done all along--call on Him. 

He doesn't always give the answers that I want, but He always gives an answer. And that is very encouraging because it means He's always listening. Even if it's just an, "Okay, Hannah. I hear you. Now take a deep breath and slowwwwwww down. Do not worry about your life." 

Worry's a bit of an addiction for me, sometimes. Seriously. It's like, I almost want to do it because at least I have control of part of the situation, right? It's so silly. 

*deep breath in, then lets it out slowly*

Wow. You know one thing I was thinking? I was thinking how the sky is not just pretty at night. And how the trees are not just pretty in the summer or even the autumn. God speaks poetry through every season, every change in lighting, in time, in life. Just as there is beauty in childhood all the way up through all stages of adulthood. I want to have a heightened sensitivity to this beauty. 

And more than that, I want to see the completion of beauty in my Savior face-to-face. How incredible will that be? Wow. I can't wait. 

Whew. That felt really good. You guys should try ranting sometime. I'd love to read it in the comments, if you so desire. :-) 

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

Psalm 68:19-20

Eep!

So heyyyy! Did you notice my new blog design? *grins stupidly* I mean, it's not exactly an entirely new design, but there's a fancy schmancy header (which I'll rant about later) and I did a little less-than-expert changes to spruce it up a bit. Since it's mostly the same design/template, credit still goes to Twenty-One Designs (Now Lynde Avenue Designs, I guess!), but I fiddled around with it so anything that looks weird was probably me. ;-)

BUT THE HEADER GUYS. Seriously, isn't it LOVELY (And PERFECT?)? I could just stare at it all day. You know Treskie? If you don't, you should. She's an incredibly talented artist, an incredibly fun and amazing blogger, and an incredibly wonderful friend. So go throw money and chocolate and love at her. Tell her, WOW WHAT AN AMAZING BLOG HEADER YOU DID FOR HANNAH JOY'S BLOG. HOW ARE YOU NOT FAMOUS?

So yeah, Treskie, you da best.

So yeah. My mind is in a bit of a buzz right now because I'm a happy camper.

Quite honestly, the best part of Merlin was the bloopers.

Anyway. How's life going for the rest of you? I'll try to get a for real post done tomorrow.  

An Interesting Tag

Behold! I have been tagged once more! This time it is by the ever-wonderful Bella! I call it an interesting tag because it kind of struck me as funny. It is called the Five Male Characters tag.

I don't know, it's just funny. XD

There are rules.

-List Five of your Favorite Male Characters, book or screen. (Yay books!)

-Tagging other people is optional. (Isn't it always???)

-If you are tagged, link to the person who tagged you. (Done! Look at me, I'm so good at this.)

-Link back to Revealed in Time. (Yup, did it.)

-Be awesome. (Just kidding, that's not a rule.) 

To List the Five Favorite Male Characters, you choose one for each category:

-Hero (Duh)

-Villain (Less duh)

-Anti-Hero 

-Best Book-to-Screen Adaption

-Best Character Perception (What does that mean? *sees what other people post to find out and is still slightly confused*)

M'kay. *rubs hands together* This will be fun.

Hero

Book cover picture found on Pinterest. I'll give you a hint: Taran is not the bald, evil sorcerer.

 Taran of Caer Dallben from The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, hands down, is my favorite hero. He is cool.

The thing I love most about Taran is that he is so human. He struggles with his pride and hot temper, with trying to impress a certain, red-haired princess, with wanting to be more than he is, and just with himself in general. Yet he realizes that in himself. The fact that he goes and apologizes to others, takes the blame for things, and gives all that he has several times...that is so awesome. And yet, it is a struggle still, just as it always is, to humble yourself before the people who have embarrassed and hurt you.

Also, his character development is the best ever. The way he grows is so real, and the man he is in The High King is so much different than the boy he was in The Book of Three. Yet, always, he is still Taran.

Also, he says things like, "Coll? But he's so...bald!"

Villain

I feel like finding a favorite villain is sometimes dangerous waters. Like, villains are so blurry nowadays, with the onslaught of sympathetic villains, or just the idea that darkness might be something to like. And that is kind of scary. But I am fully aware that villains are necessary parts of stories, and that they can be well done or they can be altogether lame. I could go into a whole blog post just about villains and what their role is and how they should fulfill it and blah-dee-blah as if I was an expert at it, but instead, I'll just go with the villain that I think fits the villainy bill. I don't want to say that he's my favorite villain because I actually hate him. But that's what you're supposed to feel towards villains, right? 

From Pinterest

The Sheriff of Nottingham, from the Robin Hood BBC TV Series. He's pretty darn evil. He likes festivals of pain and killing peasants and basically just lives for his own amusement and gaining power. Which is partially just for his own amusement. And he frankly is quite funny, until the moments when he's just too evil to bear and then you just thoroughly hate him. 

And he fights Robin Hood, which makes him thoroughly villainous because Robin Hood is awesome.

And he says things like, "A clue: No!" 

Anti-Hero

So, the definition of Anti-Hero is, "a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes." (according to Google). Now, heh, I'm going to cheat with this one. Because my sister and I are writing a story together and one of the main characters is a great anti-hero named Dan, who is basically a loser. 

I love him because he is Dan. Because he never really knows what's going on. Because he sleeps on the couch and drinks milk all day. Because he's more focused on his band than on the fact that the world might be in danger. 

And because he totally rushed the villain with the superpower and headbutted him in the stomach and that was hysterical. 

And he says things like. "WHA?????" 

Best Book-to-Screen Adaption

Okay, this is a slightly weird one, because I've only read one book in the Guardians of Childhood series by William Joyce (though I'd like to read the rest of them), but I'm going to go with...

Both from Pinterest.

Nightlight/Jack Frost. Honestly, I'd say just looking at both these pictures just says it all. Because they're both, like, amazing. The moment you realize that they are the same person is like...basically I got shivers. Like, they are different, but they are different in the way they are supposed to be different. 

And Jack (Nightlight doesn't talk all that much) says things like, "Right on time, Sandman." 

Best Character Perception

Ah, the hard one. So apparently what this means is how the audience's perception of the character changes over the course of the story (different from character development because the character doesn't actually change). 

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm......

OH I GOT ONE. 

THEY'RE ALL FROM PINTEREST GUYS WOAH HOW DID I DO THAT

That's so right, guys. You didn't think I would actually go a whole post about characters without mentioning a Ninjago character, did you? Funny that it's Dareth..... 

So yeah, Dareth. I also could have put him under the anti-hero category, I suppose, but whatever. So the funny thing about him is not really that you realize, "Oh, he's such a great guy after all!" but you realize, "I adore this funny little man and all of his quirks and idioticness." Because he's an absolute fool, really, but he's got a good heart, and big ambitions... 

And he says things like, "I Dareth you to join my Dojo." 

OKAY! I hope you enjoyed this fun little tag of mine. It stretched my imaginative powers, actually, because I had to actually THINK about the characters I wanted to talk about. And I got to talk about some characters that I don't talk about often. So SCHMANKS FOR THE TAG, BELLA! :-) 

And because I feel extra nice, I'm going to tag people. 

I TAG

Addy T. 

Cally D. 

Jess

Lady Gargoyle

KAY I'M OUT BAI.

So I'm going to be gone...

Dropping by to say...

So yes, I'm going to be gone. I planned to write one last post before I leave for a ten day vacation, but then Writer's Block attacked and I was nearly killed in our epic duel.

If you're curious, I wounded him, but sadly, he escaped with his life and an elixir of healing.

Thus, you get a really lame post telling you that I will be gone and will not be blogging or writing comments on other blogs for a little while.

Try not to miss me too much. I shall endeavor to write something worth sharing while relaxing in the cabin by the lake.

It may or may not happen.

Oh, and if you see WB running by with an elixir, shoot him dead and take the elixir and return it to me post haste.

So long!

Yours,
Hannah Joy