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Hey everyone! Happy December. We need a little Christmas this year, huh? I recommend DJ Riko’s Christmas mixes: http://www.djriko.com/mixmases.htm Scroll down and download them all.

My mood continues stable and I feel cheerful most days. I recorded a chapter of “Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown” last week and I’ll do more soon. Oh, and I went to the movies last night with my friend Uwimana to see “Moana”, the new Disney movie, and it was such fun to go OUT with her and to see a movie with a beautiful message of hope and courage. Just what we needed in this dark year.

And: a believable heroine; a Polynesian teenager who isn’t Barbie-shaped, whose quest depended on courage, determination, trust, and choices — not romance or a handsome prince! I didn’t think Disney could do it, but they did.

I don’t know if you men out there, no matter how enlightened and feminist you are, can imagine what it feels like as a woman to see a “Hero’s Quest” movie with a truly female hero — not a male personality in a female body, but a believable, flawed young girl on her way to womanhood. She didn’t flirt, she didn’t bat her eyes; she used her heart and her mind, her wits and her strength. It was amazing to see, and to know that kids everywhere will see a new kind of Disney heroine; a chief’s daughter who will someday be a chief herself, and who makes a /choice/ to continue her quest even when it seems impossible.

The animation was glorious, particularly the “voyagers” sequences. I got choked up in the same way that I get choked up watching films of the Apollo missions. Humanity’s drive to discover!