Lessons We Learn from Disney Princesses

Lessons based on a conversation with Beth, Noelle, Laura, Summer, and Amanda. Pictures by Annie Leibovitz for Disney.

Pocahontas:

 Listen to your grandma. The right path is not always the easy path. And stop being racist, doggone it!

Belle:

Beauty is on the inside. Read.

Ariel:

Learn from your mistakes.

Snow White:

Kindness is more important than beauty.

Aurora:

Prince Charming can be Prince Charming, no matter what his name. Also, don't be naive.

Jasmine:

Just be yourself. Women are not objects to be won.

Cinderella:

Hard work and kindness will always pay off.

21

I made a post a few weeks ago about how I'd found a song I could listen to over and over again--"Someone Like You" by Adele. Last night,  the album it came from, 21,  was (finally) available in the United States! Okay, I waited until it was midnight on the east coast and immediately downloaded it. Beth and I are in love  in obsessed with it. In fact, we're listening to it now.

Adele has this rich and soulful voice and great control over it. Sometimes there are little squeaks or growls or she'll edge over her break less than gracefully, but Beth made the point that those imperfections in her voice make it even more beautiful. I'm (maybe) starting to get to the age and maturity where I can actually really understand a love song, and hers are complex and sweet and powerful. They get you thinking about what "having it all" means, what it is you want out of a relationship, waiting on a second chance, heartbreak, and (since we're just out of our teens here,) keeping up with rumors.

Overall, this album is my new favorite. I highly recommend it.

Who Has the Coolest Little Sister?

I do.

Okay, Maddie isn't technically my sister. But as I've said before, I will always claim her as such.

Seriously. So cool.

"Spinster" is a funny word.

Occasionally, my young relatives ask me why I'm single, and I have no good answer for them. Next time I'll tell them it's because being a spinster gives you superpowers. I even have evidence!

Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State

Jane Austen, Author

Elizabeth I

Joan of Arc

Fun fact: I'm totally procrastinating right now.

Rainbow High

I made my family watch Evita with me last night. There were awesome songs that weren't on the soundtrack my family's had since the movie first came out...so I did some research on iTunes and found the COMPLETE soundtrack. Right down to people yelling in the movie theater at the beginning. When there's almost no spoken dialogue in a movie, you might as well put the whole thing on the soundtrack, right? Right. Madonna was a great casting choice.

So besides the incredible music, I love Evita because Eva Perón was a fascinating person. She's not an ordinary Cinderella story at all. You can't put her into just one category. In Evita, her husband Juan is given the line "she is a diamond."  She was more than just an actress, a philanthropist, a politician, a woman of questionable chastity. She's certainly not the saint Argentina believed her to be. She was tough as diamonds, but not as durable. I agree with her own description of herself: "I am a rainbow." She was colorful, larger than life, not what she seemed, and fleeting. (She only lived to be 33.) I'm going to do a little more research to find out more about who she really was. I told a friend a condensed version of my quest: I'm trying to figure out whether she was a dumb gold digger who was brainwashed into being her husband's puppet or a brilliant gold digger who knew exactly how to get into power.

"What if were agreed that 'proper' meant wearing a codfish on your head? Would you wear it?"

Yesterday was all about dresses. First I saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. 

I. Loved. Those. Dresses.

And the White Queen's hand gestures.

All this fabulous dressness reminded me that I'm running low in the Sunday clothes department. That was a CRAZY modesty quest.  And my intensely picky taste didn't help either.

 But it worked out.

An Apology and a Celebration

I've noticed that I've been using this blog to complain. This means that I'm probably been complaining out loud to my friends and family. My bad, you guys. I'm going to stop it.

Besides, how can I complain during times like these?

 

With Sam and Erin in Salt Lake this weekend, Jenna and I have been having little adventures.Jenna keeps wearing her red-and-black Vegas High Wildcats gear and Sugar-Salem fans mistake her for a Madison student and yell strange and offensive things at us as we walk. But the guy at Jack in the Box must've thought we were cute or something because he upgraded our curly fries. That's a plus.

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image via
All this collaboration between Beyoncé and Lady Gaga is very exciting. In the video for "Telephone," Gaga calls Beyoncé "Honey Bee." That's what my friend Kasey calls me. I really wish that we could be in the same city for Halloween, because that gives me an awesome idea.

Upon re-discovering this newspaper article in my iPhoto library, I may be able to jump the wall I've hit in my family history quest. 

 I recently found a great way to chop onions without crying.

I found a good online photo editor so I can do fun things like this.

I can still use the teapot that I accidentally melted to the burner last week.

 

I'm doing way better in school than I thought I was, I successfully dyed my own hair (just a touch up), and I can put the pictures on my phone online again. Life is pretty darn good.

Charity Never Faileth

Today I read this wonderful post on c jane's blog. I was really struck by this comment of hers:
"I think that energy is created when two women respect and admire each other[...]and what if every woman felt that way towards every other woman? Imagine the energy that would fill this planet. It would cure disease, stop wars and wipe out social ills."

I believe that. I really do. I've felt it at Girls Camp, in Relief Society, in the little book club I was a part of before college.  That energy can do all kinds of good. It could go to serving the needy and the poor in spirit. To teaching children correct principles. I think that this energy is just the way we feel charity.

Last night I was telling a friend from back home about how I had taught Relief Society that morning. I struggled a little to try to explain it to her. She had gathered that it was just womens' Bible Study, but it's so much more! It's about creating and channeling this charitable energy into building the Lord's kingdom on Earth. I love it.

The Book is Always Better.

I'm re-reading my favorite novel, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. It's a lovely little love story that takes place on a sleepless night in New York City. They made a movie a while back, and I like it, but the book is way better.

Movie: "I love you so much it's retarded!"
             "You guys don't know what it's like to be straight. It's awful."
             

Book: "Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the [heck], I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet and presses against me for a slow dance and it's like we're in a dream where he's Christopher Plummer and I'm Julie Andrews and we're dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses against Nick's t-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal becasue maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning.
I shiver at that thought and in response, Nick takes his jacket off and places it around my shoulders. I feel safe and not cold and from the vibe the jacket gives off, I also feel fairly confident that the original Texaco Salvatore was a good family man, with perhaps a propensity for wearing his wife's panties and betting his kids' college money at the track, but otherwise a solid dude."

I rest my case.

MARVELous

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Of course, this was after 3-9 shampoos. At first, my hair broke Honor Code. Now I'm just afraid to wear colors and my roommate calls me Kool-Aid Head. Hopefully this color will bring about level 5 mutant powers and James Marsden.

Pop! Goes My Heart

There's a Pop Art gallery at the Spori. As a former wanna-be humanities major, I couldn't help but go. I'll probably go again. I love the definition of Pop they had in the gallery: "popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, witty, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business."

This one is one of my favorites. It says something about fame. It can take someone BEAUTIFUL and CONFIDENT (see black-and-white Marilyn below) and distort them beyond recognition. It's still flashy and bright and pretty in a way, but it can't come anywhere close to the original. It's just Pop Art. It's popular now, but you can just throw it out when you're done.  It's a dime-a-dozen. I noticed something while researching for this post: Warhol picked probably the worst picture Marilyn ever took to create this screen. Another downside of being famous: you can't pick out the bad shots.

Sven's take on Warhol. Yep. A new icon.