Category: Uncategorized

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.”


Sports Humility Syndrome

Posted on by Sierra
Friends: This is not me. 

I blame the slippery handle. I blame the knee-deep layer of sediment in the two-foot deep water. I blame the choppy waves that the multitude of other Pioneer Day celebrators bequeathed to us on Utah Lake. But for all my blame-placement, the fact of the matter is, I just don’t wakeboard.

I discovered this yesterday, on a most blissful day at the lake with my friends Brooke, Tiffany, Preston, and my new friend called “Brooke’s Boat.” I glided into the water with a little bit of an arrogant swagger, thinking, “Ben Dailey does this, how hard could it be?” Yet as I found myself continually whipped around the back of the boat, and usually falling backwards into the mud (the water was not especially deep, as I mentioned), a familiar breed of humility crossed my countenance.
This particular breed of humility is what I call “Sports Humility.” It was Heavenly Father’s, shall we say, gift to me to remind me that I’m really not that awesome. I was not blessed with an athletic bone in my body. I don’t even have an athletic pinky. I don’t even have an athletic fingernail (although I did quit biting for a while, see THE BLOG for proof).
In keeping with blaming anyone in the world but me for my lack of athletic ability, I will examine the Robinson family lineage. My dad’s athletic recessive gene was beat out by my mom’s dominant reader gene. For family gatherings and evenings of fun, you were more likely to find my family reading independently in the same vicinity rather than snorkeling, skiing, and goodness knows, wakeboarding. Thus, I came into the world—a non-wakeboarding, speed-reading dork.
Brooke offered me a good consolation prize as I emerged from the water, dripping in defeat.
“It’s ok, Sierra,” she said. “At least you can blog about it.
*A special thanks to Preston and Brooke, and of course Brooke’s boat. Because honestly, I had so much fun out there. Thanks friends!

Cartoon Crushes

Posted on by Sierra

I didn’t feel good last night, which is basically just a good excuse to allow yourself to snuggle into your sheets at 9:30 PM with the (not) Disney classic movie, Anastasia. This movie is surprisingly awesome for a 1997 animated film. First of all, I highly approve of Anastasia’s fashion choices (once she becomes a Princess, not a pauper). Also the music is extremely well done, and while the delicate framework of historical fact in the movie has been horribly skewed, we cannot overlook the fact that the movie has THIS character:
Now, I doubt that I am the first to blog about this reprehensible cartoon conman.  It seems common knowledge that Dimitri is just sexy, plain and simple. I mean, look at that jawline.  I remember coming out of the movie theater after the Romonav line had been restored and Anastasia effectively eliminated Rasputin (something the Communist party failed to do), and having my sister exclaim, “That Dimitri! He was cute!”
Apparently she was not alone.  The next day, all my third grade comrades (it’s nice to keep the communist diction alive) were all a buzz about the finest new cartoon spectacle. It seemed that Dimitri was all the rage, solidly beating out Alladin, but maybe even trumping Prince Eric. But I couldn’t join in the discussion. I just didn’t see it. You see, my third grade self only had eyes for one cartoon. It was a secret buried deep inside me, that only now—thirteen years later—that I feel comfortable divulging my cartoon crush. It was this boy:

Elroy Jetson. Elroy was the stout, futuristic boy of my dreams. I’m not sure what struck my childhood fancy about him exactly.  Maybe it was those black hole eyes or that little antenna thing on his cap. Actually in retrospect, I really think that it might have been his voice, and that when I sneaked down in the middle of the night to watch Cartoon Network, it was Elroy’s dulcet tones that lulled me to sleep in front of the faint flicker of the wildly inaccurate “ultramodern” program.
Now I bet that I am the first to blog about that.
Stay tuned, and you will hear about my childhood crushes on: 
Dante Bichette 
and
Patrick Roy.
Apparently I had a thing for fat athletes too. 

… I haz it.

Posted on by Sierra

The feeling. One morning you can wake up and you just know it. Today is a good day. For today you can feel the writing. You can feel the words streaming from your brain, through your fingers, onto a page. Today is a good day because today you are a writer. It’s one of those things that you can wake up and just know. But today is not a writer today.
            Today is one of those days where try as you might to corral them, the words you want are just out of reach, and though the tendons on your fingers are outstretched with effort, the brain isn’t supplying the words to complete the task. 

             What I’m trying to say is: I have Writer’s Block. Alright all you blog-loving community…. How do I combat it? What do you do when it seems you have nothing to say?

My Feelings on Twilight

Posted on by Sierra

Let me start this blog with a justification: I had no idea that the new Twilight movie had come out already. I take pride in the fact that I was informed about Eclipse by a boy no less. I rather thought that the Twilight movies would function more like the Harry Potter movies, which wring all of the patience out of you as though you were a particularly damp towel. But Twilight is different: twilight is a vast expansive money making machine. It is not about delayed gratification… Or actually, maybe that’s exactly what it’s about. And gratuitous vampire non- sex.

Let us please review the book that was so set up for failure: the book is about a vampire who falls in love with a girl  because he quite literally wants  to drink her . I want to drink a kool- aid but you dont see me lusting after the Kool Aid man. (although he does say ohhhh yeah! In a very suggestive way) I feel like I need to pre justify myself again and say that I HAVE NOT read the books in their entirety. This is because I believe that Stephanie Meyer had tortured the English language into uncomfortably bad sentences. Among my favorites ( and coincedentally the line that I stopped reading at) went something like this: “Two things were for certain:  Edward Cullen was a vampire and I was irrevocably in love with him.” I mean, really?! we wasted trees for that?

Now I feel I must give Miss Meyer some deserved credit however. Man, does that lady know how to manipulate the heart strings. It is here that I make my confession: I did see eclipse on opening night. Not only that but I enjoyed it also. Particularly, I enjoyed the scene where a scantily clad Jacob had to cling to Bella in the middle of a snow storm while Edward grimaced and bore it because his love for Bella was so deep that he wanted to keep her warm by letting the werewolf do it for him. I enjoyed the moment Jacob and Edward shared when Bella, nestled closely to Jacob’s bosom, slept and Edward confided in Jacob that “if we weren’t sworn enemies, I might actually like you.” I appreciated how the filmmakers set it up to feel like an almost secret gay confession. I think that would make the plot even more complex and dynamic, don’t you? 



I also appreciated the film’s power of persuasion. Formerly I considered myself to be an ignorant team Jacobite, but after sitting through two hours of Taylor laugtners appallingly bad acting, I now proclaim myself an Edward supporter. 

So folks, I confess– I’m jumping on the band wagon. I can say in all honesty that I enjoyed my eclipse experience immensely. Just make sure when you see it to have a fellow nay sayer with you to make fun of it with you sitting on your right. It makes the movie ten times more fun and I was surprised to find the Kool Aid man is exceptionally good company.

30 books in 6 weeks. Hallelujah!

Posted on by Sierra

Did I mention I love being an English Teaching major? Part of the curriculum for this major is an adolescent literature class where I have to read 3o books in six weeks of the”Young Adult” genre. Might you be able to help me in my quest? What are some truly fantastic adolescent lit books you’ve read in the past?

See You Again.

Posted on by Sierra

            I told him I would see him soon. I patted his shoulder because he was too frail for a hug, and I told him I would see him soon. And I genuinely thought I would. I thought I would be back next weekend so I could pat his shoulder and put chapstick on his chapped lips, and that I could keep telling him weekend after weekend how much I loved him and that I would see him soon.
            Today my Grandpa Tom died, so I won’t be seeing him tomorrow, or next weekend, or next year. For me, it won’t be soon when I see him again. But the marvelous thing about the plan of salvation, is that for him, I won’t have backed out on my promise. For him, by the time I see him, it really will be soon.
            

I’m finally gonna nail it.

Posted on by Sierra

Let me tell you about my fingernails:


My cousin called them nublets once. She didn’t just call them that actually; she printed the word NUBLETS in all capital letters on a piece of lined paper and drew stars on it, and then taped it to my closet, just in case I forgot that my fingernails have never, not once in my ENTIRE life, grown past the tips of my fingers.
Every year since I was fourteen I have loved making New Years Resolutions. So for seven shiny years, I have made myself the bold promise that THIS would finally be the year that I kick my fingernail biting habit. Clearly this is a problem that has been vexing me—see my 2009 poem: The Biter, for proof.
Here have been my strategies:
  1. The icky tasting nail polish—But, my problem is so severe, I just bite the bad taste off and then am rewarded by the delectable nail beneath it.
  2. The incentive program—My mom is still bound by her promise to cash in on a free manicure for me if I can let them grow out. My aunt offered to buy me an entire new OUTFIT if I could kick the habit. Neither of them has had to follow through.
  3. The Buddy System—I’ve made bets and pacts with fellow nail-biters, that whoever bit first owed the other brownies. I’ve made a lot of brownies.
  4. I’ve painted them, sat on them, got acrylics (waste of 25 dollars, I usually just bite them off within three days), had people smack my hands away from my lips when they see me “going for it.”
Yet one suspenseful movie or stressful test later, and all my efforts are chewed to bits and I have the familiar, almost comforting sting of stripping my nails too far down.
But now. This time. I AM FOR REAL. I made a missionary friend a promise that I would kick the habit before he got back, and since that is two months from now, I reckon it’s time I start getting serious. Man, did I push this one down to the wire or what? That makes me so nervous the only solace would be to bite…
Friends. I implore you to help me in my quest. How did YOU kick the habit? What are your bad habits?