Year: 2011

My Own Attempt at Walden

Posted on by Sierra

“To be awake is to be alive,” or so sayeth Thoreau anyway. Well said, Thoreau, I heartily agree. My genial sense of concordance with Thoreau’s aphorism was augmented this past weekend as I took to the mountains of Heber, where I could curl up on a Love Sac (antithetical to Walden Pond, perhaps, but I certainly wasn’t complaining), and ponder my semi-Walden weekend experience. Sheer bliss, my friends. Afterwards, I almost wanted to personally patch up all the holes in my clothes, and stop paying my poll taxes…(I’ve been studying Transcendentalism in American Lit. Can you tell?)

Special thanks to the Penrods for an amazing weekend. 

Jeremy Fainted! He FAINTED!

Posted on by Sierra

I collect idiosyncrasies; which is to say that I’m kind of an odd duck. One such idiosyncrasy is my peculiar affinity for having blood drawn. Since I was tested for mono in the 9th grade (test positive, thank you very much), I realized that once the needle was in, it felt kind of like a little sucker-fish sucking on a teeny hole in my arm—and for some crazy reason, I kinda liked it.

An unfortunate Robinson reality: I have yet to break the 110-pound limit required of blood donors, so I’ve never gotten to wear one of those nifty criss-crossy colored bandage thingies that you get, along with complimentary juice, that one receives after they donate. Thus, I persuaded two of my most trusted BYU acquaintances, Miss Chloe Noelle (who you’ve met before) and Sir Jeremy Penrod Esquire, to donate their red humor in my stead.

Chloe. Was. Nervous. 

Jeremy was obnoxiously nonchalant.

Jeremy, after finishing the question and answer session, which sounds more akin to a PPI, was escorted to the donation chair, where they juiced his arm up with iodine and inserted an impressive needle. I played the role of the dutiful girlfriend-type-thing, and gasped and grimaced in all the right places. Jeremy charmed the male nurses, all the while maintaining a positive demeanor, and cheering Chloe on as she made her begrudging death march to her own donation chair.

Chloe. Was. Still. Nervous. She declined my invitation to hold her hand, and opted for Jeremy’s masculine (albeit a tad clammy) hand instead. The nurse was appropriately sarcastic with Chloe as me, Jess (another cheerleader), and Jeremy gathered around her and watched her squeeze the blood out of her arms. Chloe expressed her concern, not about the pinch of the needle, but of the lurking fear that she would pass out after the deed was done. Jeremy made wise cracks about the impossibility of the whole affair.

And then, he mentioned that he perhaps ought to get something to eat.

And then he turned paler than Edward Cullen.

And then I thought he was merely trying to psyche my woe-begotten friend out by falling, face-first, almost in slow motion, on top of her as the blood drained from her arm.

“Jeremy!” I said harshly. “That’s not funny! Stop faking it.”

Jess was quicker on the uptake. She realized that my boyfriend-type-thing was indeed fainting—genuinely. There was a slight panic as the nurses eased Jeremy’s pale, momentarily lifeless, and excessively limp body to the floor.



Chloe got up and got juice like it was nobody’s business.



Bathroom Stalls in Munchkin Land

Posted on by Sierra
       Standing in the middle of the junior high, with pubescent children launching at me like hand grenades in guerilla warfare, I feel sometimes like clicking my moccasin slippers together and stating three times “There’s no place like home.” The last time I was in this munchkin land, I was actually a middle-school munchkin.  While I know I’m still comparatively short, it’s heartening to see that I’m at least taller than someone—or a whole sea of full of someones—even if they are 13-years-old.
            I haven’t head the word “Sevie” in years, but there’s something charming about this colloquial degradation that makes me warm to these miniature humans in surprising ways. There’s something charming about walking into a classroom where all girls literally Tower over all the boys, & all of the boys who are still munchkin-sized start sounding like men as they read aloud in class. There’s something charming about the white eyeliner mistakes and the awkward hair decisions. It’s enough to render the whole experience vaguely charming in general.
      But you know what is not charming?  Going to the restroom (in a moment of sheer desperation, I assure you), and seeing unkind, unflattering words like  “Karly Winters* is a F-Ing B****” and the like, emblazoned across the walls of the stalls.
         I was just starting to forget how mean kids can be.
Though these students can be little charmers in the classroom, which I am sure is a more accurate depiction of their potential, I remember that special sort of meanness that is especially reserved for Junior High. I remember being that “sevie” that was so worried about seeing my own name on a bathroom stall. My heart aches for *Karly Winters, who can’t even pee without being reminded of her social status.
Who even brings pens to the bathroom anyways? Middle Schoolers, that’s who. 
*Name changed to protect the innocent.

Warming Trends

Posted on by Sierra
Usually, in February, the cold fronts—metaphorical and physical—start to move in. Big frosty waves amble across the airwaves, glittering on our car windows and haunting our brittle bones. The snow is incarcerating, the frost taste-able, and the clouds enveloping. But I’m finding, the most frustrating thing about Cold in February is that it is typically more of an emotional personality rather than a state of physical temperament.
But even though today, February 1, is probably one of the coldest days of the year, I’m finding that February Cold is losing conviction, giving way to temptations, and having something of a love affair with Warming Trends. Thus, my emotional forecasting is predicting: temperate.
Though I like to think I project outward warm waves, I know that internally when I decide to let someone in, there’s some inner-ice that needs to be broken.
I suppose, this February evening, I am grateful for those people who suit up, buckle down, and ice skate across my inner-ice, turning my soul into hot chocolate. So thanks to these special people; you’re the reason for my unseasonable warming trend.

The “Germ Casserole”

Posted on by Sierra
For the record, I hate that when you type in “high school” to the Google search bar, you are besieged with pictures of Zac Efron and that Hudgins chick. I’m sorry, but the two weeks that I have spent in one of the local high schools in the area has confirmed that there are no beautiful chemistry nerds breaking out into song anywhere inside the school.


This is not accurate.
  Now, I’m not bagging on your musical, so calm down, pre-teens. I am simply saying that when I Google-search “High School,” I wish the images of the Nirvana-memorabilia clad kid with plaster casting his broken nose, and the Jamaican cheerleader, and the high functioning autistic young man would show up.
 I think I remember high school with rose-colored glasses—I belong to the small minority of US citizens that absolutely loved high school. I thought it was so great that the basketball players at my school may as well have been bouncing their basketballs in unison. I am glad to have had this experience to go back to the high school, this time as an educator, so that these students could pull the rose-colored glasses off my face, and unceremoniously fling them to the ground, where they then become trampled by a stampeding mass of hormones.


The first thing that happened to me as I stepped into the “Germ Casserole,” proudly donning my teacher-observer badge and brimming with optimism:
A student burped in my face.

Yet, still full to bursting with idealism, thrilled to teach the students the joy of participial phrases and thesis statements, I heard a student compare the works of Shakespeare and Nicholas Sparks with this sentiment: “That’s like trying to compare Gerard Butler with Heath Ledger… You just can’t do it.” (Poor Heath, I hope you’re Shakespeare.)

Later in the week, I graded one too many literary analysis papers citing Bella’s mother as an important supernumerary in Twilight because she made Bella move to Forks where she could meet Edward and fall in love.

On Thursday, a multitude of skinny boys in various phases of awkward kept attempting to friend me on facebook.

Yesterday, I made an enemy by asking the Nirvana-shirted boy what happened to his nose, and he had to admit that he lost a fight.
 
And today I am realizing how excited it all makes me. I’m so excited. 
Bring on the hand sanitizer and the thick skin. I’m ready. 

One More Time With Feeling

Posted on by Sierra

I feel like the word “feelings” has become something of a buzzword lately. Like every time I mention how I’m feeling, 93.4% of the people around me bunker down behind the nearest solid object and whip out their hard hats, as if I might launch a gloomy grenade in their direction at any moment. I find that males in general are especially adverse to this two-syllable word. You can almost see the pallor in their faces green as they contemplate the fact that they might have to listen to your emotional spew for twenty minutes—or worse, they might be required to also do some emotional spewing themselves. Bless the male heart, feeling just doesn’t seem to be their thing. And that’s ok. Trust me, us girls, we have enough passion for the entire world’s populous, you men probably don’t need to contribute to this particular verse.
      But I feel the need to assert that just because people “feel” things, that doesn’t always make them “sad.” In fact, sometimes even the word “Sad” doesn’t mean Sadness, or Depression, or even Gloominess. Sometimes, I think sadness is just sort of an emotional upsweep that isn’t exactly happy so writers reach for a word that means the opposite—and that happens to be “sad.” But the coolest thing about this word, and this *brace yourselves* feeling, is how diverse it happens to be. For me, when I am feeling sad, it is a time that I feel most pliable—most introspective—most willing to be molded by my Heavenly Father. It is an intense, passionate upheaval of sentiment—cathartic in nature, and thus completely curable—delightful in occasional execution. Sadness can even be a little bit pretty sometimes.
Over all, I think sadness creates, by far, some of the most beautiful music.

I mean, listen to this line by Wordsworth (a man who…just… gets it, in my opinion):
“The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
 To chasten and subdue.”
Pretty, Right? Sad, a little–but mostly just pretty.
Do you get it? Can anyone relate to my redefinition of this word? I think lots of people can relate, actually. Otherwise there would be less of this:
How pretty does that sound? May the sad elaborate music of humanity continue, and you may contribute a verse.

PS: How much do you love this new blog design?!

Robins in Winter

Posted on by Sierra

Today was one of those miserable, sucky days (with the exception of the three blissful hours I spent in a high school English class, details forthcoming).
One of those days where I woke up a heavy mass of dark, tangled human, trying to be remembered by my memory foam mattress that I was trying to sink back into. 
It was one of those days where my cramps literally pushed me up against a wall and pinned me, immobile, but mentally kicking and screaming. 
Today was one of those “parking permit gets revoked” sort of days. 
And just as I was beginning my solitary t r u d g e home from campus, feeling burdened by the impending cumulus-nimbus and the pervasive cold that was marching into my ears—a little one of these guys burrowed out from a bush beside my path.

A robin! A robin?! In Winter?!
I didn’t even know that there were robins in winter! I thought they were strictly spring creatures. And actually, as it were, there was a whole family of twenty beautiful robins puttering around the bushes and looking for frozen worms. And while I was scaring innocent passers-by, accosting them by enthusiastically yanking on their shirts and forcing them to notice our feathered friends, I realized something:

Sometimes, you gotta stop and look down. Especially when you’re already looking down to begin with.
Oh! And watch this: The Weepies

Little Prince

Posted on by Sierra

     I’m the sort of girl that appreciates a healthy amount of validation. 

     While now I have come to understand that this thirst for validation may be somewhat damaging to my person, especially since they have seemed to dwindle significantly in my college years. I have exercised great care in needing validation less—and to some degree, I have been successful. But even still, it appears that there is someone out there who understands my apparent need for validation—and for the last month has been giving it to me in form of type-written (like, from a type writer) notes perched in the seal between my car’s frame and my car’s door twice a week or so. These notes are literary in nature, and even though they might not be from a secret admirer per se, they seem perhaps affectionate, or if nothing else—intensely personal.

   I call this mysterious note-leaver “The Little Prince,” though my friends have been careful to inform me that it might be a “princess” since these aren’t necessarily professions of love.  “The Little Prince,” aptly titled because of the quote he/she left on my car first comes from a French book called The Little Prince, a book I love dearly. I’ve gotten quotes from The Alchemist, another favorite of mine, and from A History of Love, where the title of this blog was born. I’ve gotten, strangely, lyrics from a Glen Hansard song that I’ve always loved since it was played at my friend Tiffany’s wedding. Whoever this person is, I feel like they know me well, even though it’s possible that they might not know me at all. If anything, even if these aren’t love notes, or even compliments for that matter, getting them on my window every so often at least validates that I am alive, and that I have good taste in books.

    I have reason to suspect that The Little Prince reads this blog. To you, Little Prince, who seems to have ceased with the notes this semester, I leave you this message: Thanks for the validation. Now kindly tell me who you are. I will find out who you are eventually, Little Prince, because “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”


How Not To Make A Drumstick

Posted on by Sierra

1.     Do not accidentally place your twelve pack of fresh chicken drumsticks in the freezer instead of the refrigerator, so that they all freeze in one giant clump.
2.     Do not try and slam them into the counter repeatedly to get them to break out of their frozen clump.
3.     Do not try and take a knife to them to get them out of their frozen clump.
4.     Do not shove the humungous Styrofoam crate they came in diagonally in the microwave because you are too impatient to defrost.
5.     Do not coat the bottom of the frying pan that you should not be using with a layer of olive oil.
6.     Do not get to close when that layer of olive oil turns on you and starts scorching your hands off bit by bit.
7.     Do not keep your windows closed because “It’s too cold,” even as your house begins to fill with smoke.
8.     Do not give up the frying pan method by sticking your drumsticks back in the microwave in attempts to move things along.
9.     Do not assume that though your drumstick looks tasty, cooked, and white on the outside, that it is anything resembling cooked on the inside.
10. Do not leave the Styrofoam packaging the drumsticks came in on top of the stove that is still on.
11. Do not eat. Whatever you do, do not eat.

Lesson Learned. The Hard Way.