All I want is a sabbatical...and perhaps a Cherry Icee

The other day, I began musing on the meaning of success and whether or not I was achieving it. After careful meditation on the semester and my own feelings, I determined that I was succeeding after all, but this semester had taken a bit of a toll on me, and that I wasn't doing enough of what I love most...writing. After further consideration, I decided to consult the ceiling of the Tanner Building.

The Tanner Building, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the BYU campus, is the business school. It is a modern-looking building, and the ceiling is made of glass supported by tessellating steel triangles, so you can see the weather outside like the ceiling at Hogwarts. It is also very echo-y, and there are three lightly trickling fountains. It is a tranquil building, and I go there often to think about life by staring at that ceiling while I wait for Hailey, a bestie, and Donovan, my wonderful boyfriend, to get out of the Book of Mormon class they have together.

As I stared up at that ceiling, I thought about what I had taken in that day and I realized that what I needed was a sabbatical. I also realized that I really wanted a Cherry Icee.

Most of you probably know what a Cherry Icee is, but sabbatical isn't a term used often, at least anymore. I didn't hear it until Rex Harrison sang it in a lyric of My Fair Lady.


A sabbatical is defined, for my purpose, as " any extended period of leave from one's customary work, especially for rest, to acquire new skills or training, etc." by dictionary.com. I wanted a day with no obligations. I wanted to take a day to myself, pack a picnic, head out to a park, and just write what came to me. I wanted to just sit and let all the stress leave me. Correction--I still want all of that!


Part of the problem is probably the fact that I recently read Stargirl. It's supposed to be a young-adult classic and my friend Emilee recommended it, so I decided I would try it. The main character is so carefree, and she often meditates in the middle of the desert. I loved it, even though the ending wasn't quite what I would have done. So now I want to take time existing as a part of nature like Stargirl teaches Leo to do. I got it into my head that my writing would be better if I could do this. I also got it into it that inspiration would blow the block I have come to out of the water.


I had so much time to just sit and write this summer, and it was fantastic! But that time is greatly seized and polluted by the responsibilities of school, and there is so little time to just write without having to think about study guides, finals, or research papers. It's rather difficult to immerse myself in the 1899 world of my characters when all I can think about is studying on my laptop. 


Don't get me wrong, I enjoy school--I just wish more time existed for me to write. But this Spring Break (4.5 weeks, folks!) I shall be down in Vegas with the Family, and I think I will take a sabbatical there. And, if needed before, I can take a Saturday sabbatical.


I really have no idea where the Icee craving came from. 

The Dangers of Moccasin Love

I first saw them when we were looking for Hailey's social dance shoes. Payless was the third store we'd been to in the mall, but nobody quite had what we were looking for. I was a little tired and ready to call down the perfect cha-cha shoes from on high, just to see if I could do it. And then I saw that pink box.

Two tan suede moccasins lined with soft fur. I tried them on. Yes, they were as blissful as they appeared. I thought I had wrapped my feet in two little clouds of heaven and happiness. It almost pained me to put on my own shoes as we left. However, finding Hailey's shoes at Famous Footwear consoled me a little.

Why Moccasins? In the first place, as my friend Abby put it once, Moccasins are "the socially acceptable slippers." Come on, you know you have those days you want to wear slippers to class. That is what it feels like you have done when you wear your moccasins.

I am not wearing my Moccasins today. I got into wearing them every day, whether they matched what I was wearing or not. I decided in light of the coming spring, that I ought to be more careful and space out when I wear them.

But I wish I had worn them. The sky is gray and it is cooler than yesterday. Yesterday was so nice. It was almost too warm for moccasins.

Winter...fun?

I was talking to my Grandma yesterday and she said something to the effect of "I keep thinking to myself 'maybe this week Lindsey won't have anything much to deal with.' But..."

Here she trailed off. What she didn't have to say to me was no, so far I have not had an uneventful semester. On the one hand, this is good, because I have not by any means been bored this semester.

First, I learned I had not signed up for enough credits for my scholarship and almost lost it. I spent two weeks trying to fix that one.

Cleaning checks are fun. Not really.

I worried for a whole weekend whether or not I was accepted into my major (small ray of sunshine: I was!)

So, winter has been quite eventful for me. Although I will say that even the class I hated once is now kind of fun. We're doing team projects in a business writing class my mother was deceived into pestering me to take. At first, I loathed the class, but now we are actually writing and I like it much better.

As Spring begins to lift its head like a Crocus in the snow, I am feeling satisfied with myself and the work I have done.

I had a conversation with my mother this morning--about success. I was voted Most Likely to Succeed, and I wasn't sure, for a moment, that I had been. But I think now that success isn't necessarily a straight line. It just might be a little squiggly, even if it is statistically straight or pursuing one object. I know that success is not a destination, per se, but I thought the course was fairly steady, at least if one planned properly.

Now I see that bumps in the road are not necessarily there to shake up the car. They exist to harden our resolve and so propel us farther.

Nevertheless, I look to Spring as a time of tranquility in the sun.

Defending Disney Princesses:Episode 2; Sleeping Beauty--Politics, Intrigue, Heartbreak

Welcome to the second installment! I am, for those of you who missed the last one, defending the relevance of Disney Princesses to modern women and girls, and saying that they are not just ninnies and waifs who have no thoughts or personality apart for waiting to be saved by their Prince. They do not just sit around and do nothing until he comes.

Many think Sleeping Beauty would be hard to defend thusly. Granted, she is in a coma for the last half of the movie. But she is well-characterized before, and one can guess from the context at the politics of her world, that She is highly defendable.

The movie begins, of course, when she is born and the whole kingdom turns out to celebrate. There is no lack of celebration because she was not born a boy--the people are so happy at the birth of an heir, a child for their monarchs. One gets the idea that King Stefan and his wife--we never do learn the Queen's name, do we?--rule jointly, like Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. But it is assumed that Aurora will take the throne, that when she marries Prince Phillip and both of their parents are dead, they will jointly rule the newly-joined kingdoms.

Anyway, she goes through and is blessed by two out of the three good fairies, Flora and Fauna, and just as the third, Merriweather, is about to give her gift, the party is crashed. We meet Maleficent, "The Mistresss of All Evil!" (as she styles herself. Incedentally, in case you were not aware, the fortune-teller head on the Haunted Mansion Ride and Maleficent are the same person--both are voiced by the impeccable Eleanor Audley)

Maleficent is so ticked that she didn't get an invite--yeah, let's think, would a law-abiding king and queen conceivably invite the mistress of all evil to the baby shower?--that she basically curses the uninvolved baby to die by spindle-prick.

Aurora is taken into hiding by the three fairies to live in a cottage in the woods, where they raise her to be a good worker and a kind person. While the fairies get her out of the house to plan her 16th birthday surprise, Aurora discusses her dreams of moving out and falling in love with a Prince.

Now, this is where Aurora (now called "Rose" by the fairies) is often shunted into the category of fainting, fawning, irrelevant Disney Princess. But the naysayers are wrong here too.

I watched "Sleeping Beauty" less than a month before coming to college--you know those nights where you just can't sleep because "Once Upon A Dream" is stuck in your head? It was one of those. She talks about how Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather never let her out to associate with people other than themselves. She reminded me of myself, a girl who wanted to move out of the house and meet new people.

While out in the woods, Aurora develops her talent--her lovely voice. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with a woman being a lovely, talented singer who sings for fun and the enjoyment of others. How many girls do you know who randomly sing when they don't necessarily have to? Exactly.

Well, then she meets Phillip and they fall quite in love after singing and dancing to "Once Upon A Dream"--beautiful piece of music! And, let's be honest girls: is it not attractive and a fantasy of ours to randomly sing/dance with a guy?

She goes back to the cottage and finds her surprise--who wouldn't love a three-layer cake and custom couture? On the other hand, she finds out her entire life up to that point is a lie, that she has to pack up and be the Princess again, and that she will never see Phillip again. And she has about five minutes to take this in.

Yes, women should be happy to have power as she did, but all that in five minutes must have been a wee bit of a shock for her.

She goes back and is put under Maleficent's spell for most of the rest of the movie. Phillip and the fairies have to carry the movie until Phillip kisses her, but the movie is just as much about the fairies as her.

Now, Sleeping Beauty's biggest critique perhaps is the fact that she literally has to be saved by a man, in a manner similar to Snow White--"True Love's Kiss."

I may have said this before, but at some time in every Woman's life, no matter how strong she may be, she will, at some point, need a man's help with SOMETHING. And there is nothing with a strong woman falling in love with a man, and there is nothing wrong with a man letting his girl--whether she be his girlfriend, fiancée, or wife--be loving and also strongly independent.

Anyway, freed from Maleficent's spell by Phillip's kiss, Aurora attends Phillip to her welcome ball, and nobody is any the wiser. At least for now; Aurora will probably tell her parents eventually!