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.

Starting Over Number 1

Posted on by Sierra

        It has recently come alarmingly to my attention that I should have written in my blog more during 2010. Unbeknownst to me, a special someone was collecting my blog posts, gathering them up, and binding them in a special little book, so that I could feel the joy of being published. And I petered out in September. Not to diminish the extreme treasure this little book is to me, or to diminish the extreme treasure the giver of the book is to me—but it feels incomplete—just like all the other projects and goals that I was so excited about at the beginning of 2010.
        But let me explain something. I love new beginnings. I love a clean slate. I love the first of the month. I love blank notebooks that are ready to be filled with a gigantor list of all the things I want to do that day/week/month/year/instant. I love birthdays and holidays, because all of these times are “Starting Over” times for me—times that I can recommit to stop biting my fingernails (which have been growing strong since my birthday in early December, in case you were wondering), or to start working out, or to write in my blog more often.
            Yet, seeing as every day is not a “starting over point,” and seeing that I stopped “starting over” with my blog in September–this leads my to my newest New Years Resolution:  No more “starting over” landmarks. 
Every day is the first day. 
Tackle your goals as if it’s the first day of the year, and this is the year you finally decided to start using dental floss.  
Fill your notebooks with scribbles, and letters, and pictures, and thinkings so that at the end of the year, your book is full.

You lived your life. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself by the end of 2011. 
            I’m back, blogger friends, and it feels so nice. Happy Starting Over Day #1. See you on Starting Over Day # 2.

Selectric.

Posted on by Sierra
Say it with me now: Selectric. Se-lec-tric. Say it aloud! Isn’t it a beautiful word? If it wasn’t only the celebrities that named their children after inanimate objects like Apple and Blanket, I might consider naming my firstborn son Selectric.
To me, there has always been something mysteriously romantic about typewriters. After spending an afternoon rifling through my grandfather’s belongings, I emerged the proud inheritor of his 1970’s typewriter. If it didn’t weigh more than me, I would cuddle with it in bed at night. I love it that much.
Which is why I knew instantly that I was going to love Tuesday night British Literature History with Dr. Steven Walker. In order to add the class, Dr. Walker had to give me a special code that allowed me entrance into his class, even though it was technically at max capacity. He told me that I would find an envelope containing the code outside his office door with my name on it.
My name was typewritten on the front of the envelope.
For those of you who don’t understand the significance of this simple gesture, allow me to paint a character sketch of Dr. Walker for you.
He is an old man. I mean this earnestly. He walks in a slightly crooked, jovial sort of gait. Sometimes, when his eyebrows betray any sort of emotion—delight, surprise, dismay, you name it—the wrinkles caused by his eyebrows remain for several minutes long after his eyebrows have said their peace. Yet, Dr. Walker is still as quick as a fiddle. He memorized the entire class roster before ever having met his students. He can still tell you the exact dates that William Blake went to art school. He could probably recite from memory the novel, Great Expectations, from start to finish if you asked him.
Dr. Walker displays all of the wisdom of age with none of the arrogance. With all of his brilliance, he has probably been to the edge of the universe and back. He has written novels, and discourses, and lectures.
And yet, his wrinkly, experienced hands of wisdom humbly took an envelope, wove it through (I imagine) the classiest of IBM Selectrics, and punched out my name on the front of an envelope.