On a Thursday afternoon I was in the library asking Ms. Kass what I should write for the newspaper, and she suggested I should continue Rose Robinson’s Chillin’terviews. Then, to our surprise, Rose ’20 walked into the library. I interviewed her the next day in Kaiser. While we talked she was working on making handles for mugs.

Annabelle Svahn: Okay, so how are you doing today?

Rose Robinson: I’m good, do you want me to elaborate on that?

AS: Whatever you want.

RR: It’s been a little bit of a stressful, tiring week even though it’s only been three days but just had ceramics and now I have Soups On so I know I have a relaxing rest of the afternoon. Looking forward to that. 

AS: What did you do over Thanksgiving break?

RR: I… Let’s see… we hosted Zach (dramatic pause) Lonberg.

Melina Robertson ’20: Oh my god, Zach stayed at your house?

RR: Yeah, you didn’t know that?
MR: That must’ve been so weird. I can’t even imagine.

Claire Stone ’22: Wait, who is he?

RR: He is kinda of blondish, gingerish. He wears a red North Face coat all the time.

MR: Interesting kid. 

RR: Yeah, umm…

MR: I feel like he would’ve like stirred up [expletive] with my relatives or something.

AS: This is being recorded Melina!

MR: Okay, just cut out my parts… or you can use it—I don’t care. 

RR: Umm, what else did I do? I had Thanksgiving with my family. I went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire with my friend from the Mountain School, and it was nice to see her. I hung out with my friends in Newburyport, had a nice little Friendsgiving. I had a nice relaxing break. Did a bunch of college stuff.

AS: Fun times!

RR: Very fun.

AS: What Christmas song makes you cringe?

RR: Umm…well, Mistletoe by Justin Bieber is both a great song and makes me cringe. 

AS: I don’t know if I’ve heard it before? (pause) Do we need to play it? 

RR: It’s really bad, but it’s also like I have to listen to it at least once. (I proceed to find it on Spotify and play it.) It’s really dumb. 

CS: I really like this song.

MR: I’m neutral on it.

(We then have a conversation about whether pop singers make good Christmas music. Then Sarah asks Rose a question about glazes.) 

AS: If you were trapped in a holiday movie, which one would you want it to be and why?

RR: Umm, a holiday movie. I used to watch this really weird version of Rudolph growing up that had… I don’t know. It was just called Rudolph. I don’t know. Just a weird version of it. There was this whole backstory, Rudolph had a crush on this other reindeer and there was this ice witch that was voiced by Whoopie Goldberg which is hilarious. It’s just a very odd movie.  But, I…we would watch it every year growing up. There’s these winter sprites and faeries and they sing a song and I though they were very cool. So, probably that. (I look up the movie and find it on Wikipedia.)

AS: What character would you want to be if you were trapped in it?

RR: Oh, there was also this fox that lives in a cave. There’s one that lives in a cave and Rudolph happens upon them. 

AS: Slyly the arctic fox or Leonard the polar bear? (I read the characters in the movie)

RR: It’s either Slyly the arctic fox or  Leonard the polar bear. Whichever one lives in the cave.  Or they live together, whatever. But I remember the cave was really cool and they had a little house.

AS: What celebrity would you want to have as a friend?

RR: Oh, I feel like there are a lot of celebrities I would want to be friends with. Umm, Lily Tomlin. She’s really cool. She plays….I watch Grace and Frankie pretty religiously cause I’m like an old woman, and she’s Frankie in it and she’s super cool. Also Jane Fonda is really cool because she’s doing a lot of climate action and advocacy and stuff and she keeps getting arrested which is really cool. Either of them I’d want to be friends with. They’re both old. Lily Tomlin is also a virgo so you know.

AS: A spiritual connection?
RR: Yeah, yeah.

AS: If you could start a charity or nonprofit, what would it be?

RR: It would be…ah…damn. There would be so many things I would want to give money to. It would be uh, it would be an organization. It would do charitable work but be a nonprofit organization, it would be a farm with an art studio house on it and kids, I don’t know, low-income kids would come and they could take art classes and spend time outside and get to know where their food comes from, and their art could be sold in fancy galleries and the money could go back into the organization or go back to some climate environmental place. 

AS: I feel like that’s the most Rose thing I’ve ever heard. 

RR: I just tried to combine all the things I like into one thing. 

AS: Final question: favorite dining hall ice cream? 

RR: Ooo! Chocolate! Because I don’t really like that many types of ice cream, even though I really like ice cream. I don’t like vanilla ice cream. (we all gasp in astonishment) I know, but that narrows down a lot of things because they have a vanilla base. And I like coffee ice cream and I’m so sorry to Mr. Alonzi, but the dining hall’s coffee ice cream is really not good. It doesn’t have enough coffee flavor for me. I want it to be, you know, like an espresso. 

AS: Do you like espresso beans and stuff like that? 

RR: Yeah, chocolate covered espresso beans are delicious. (back to ice cream) The chocolate is good, as it has a pretty good chocolate favor and sometimes I take a brownie and heat up the brownie and put chocolate ice cream on it, if I’m having a really bad day and I need some chocolate decadent thing in my life I’ll do that. 

AS: Any final thoughts?
RR: This was interesting being on the other side of things, as I said before. I feel bad now, for people that I’ve interviewed. 

AS: Did you like my questions?

RR: I liked the holiday theme, that’s smart.

AS: That’s all I have so…

RR: Cool! Well thank you.

AS: Thank you!