A few lists

Right now chili is at the foot of my bed licking my toes. It's 1:35 AM, but it feels like 10:35 PM, so I have no desire to go to sleep. Instead I've been looking over some german and having an iTunes binge.

The first adjectives they teach you in this german course

• Old (alt)
• Working/Employed (berufstatig)
• Divorced (geschieden)
• Good (gut)
• Small (klein)
• Single (ledig)
• New (neu)
• Married (verheiratet)

Things I did on my 5 hour flight home

• Read a terrible teenage girl book that I bought at the airport (it was "Along for the Ride" by Sarah Dessen. I don't know what compelled me except the 'Oh-hey-I'm-in-an-airport-bookstore-and-want-reading-material' impulse)
• Read magazines
• Watched "Sunshine Cleaning", which was not funny but kind of interesting to watch
• Played with my chair. It was like the chairs at the dentist and you could move it with buttons... Mom got us into First Class again. She is beast that way.
• Drank a lot of water and tea
• Got up every hour. Which was approximately five times, seeing as it was a five hour flight...

Songs I just downloaded

• Blue Mind - Alexi Murdoch
• All My Days - Alexi Murdoch
• What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie
• 405 - Death Cab for Cutie
• Elevator Love Letter - Stars [also known as 'the elevator song' to those who have known me recently in an elevator] [Oh dear, not in the biblical sense]
• Brand New Colony - The Postal Service
• The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service
• On the Wing - Owl City
• Swimming in Miami - Owl City
• Captains and Cruise Ships - Owl City

Things I miss about film camp

• The marvelous human beings who I won't bother to name seeing as there are few enough that it would be plausible but many enough that it would be annoying.
• The elevator
• A 13:2 male female ratio
• Being a "bra"
• Filming stuff
• Really lame pranks by the guys
• ... NOT
• Gay tuesdays (sort of)
• Business time!

Things I'm finding interesting right now

• Documentaries
• Pomona College (visited this morning and liked it a lot)
• Insomnia
• The name "Thisbe" and other such Ovidian names and their validity in modern times
• My dog, who has given up on licking my toes and is sitting by the door now. He likes Mom better.
• Long phone conversations that are inexplicably continued although neither party has much specific interest in speaking to the other, just hearing oneself talk, and that these conversations are enjoyable
• Just over a month of home

Love always,
Clara

One more day

Until I'm home. I've been away since the 14th and it was getting old. Although this hotel has those sweet matresses that you can jump on without knocking over your glass of wine. Or whatever.

Today we're touring Pomona and then flying home. It is a hella long flight.
I feel like I can say 'hella' because I'm in California right now. I've earned that right.

I hadn't exactly realized how much I would miss film camp. I do now.

Going home will be great though. Despite two hours of german classes every morning, home will be wonderful. Basically, to anyone who is in the DC area and reading this (and whom I know), CALL ME UP when I get home because I would rather hang out with friends, who I might not see for months, than my family, whom I will be seeing entirely too much of in the near future.

Love always,
Clara

In Palo Alto

And I just took a very long nap in the sun.

I forgot my drugs at camp, so mom gave me one of hers. Bad idea. I am in the most volatile state right now. Worst mood ever comes at the drop of a hat.
Very annoying to be a ticking time bomb. No more of mom's drugs.

So here's something cool: At film camp there was a film festival of sorts for all our videos. Since there wasn't time to show every single one (would have taken over an hour) we all ranked our top three and voted.
And somehow mine was #1.
Which is totally sweet.
Congrats to the rest of the top five- and sorry I couldn't stick around. Mom and I had to roll.

Now we're about to have dinner. I'm starved. Looking forward to it.

Love always,
Clara

Excitement

MY VIDEO IS HERE!

In the wake of Michael Jackson's death, Greg has decided the only appropriate response is to dance badly and grab his crotch more than would allow us to feel comfortable.
Really. It's creepy.
I'll embed the documentary once vimeo gets its act together.

EDIT: HERE

Connected from clara beyer on Vimeo.

Love always,
Clara

The final morning

So last night at like 1:15 AM Nicole and I were totally ready to go to sleep. Like, lights off, eyes closed, not talking.
Then there's a knock at the door.
It's the wonderful and kind Leo (whose real name is... LEONID!) and he wants us to write thank you notes for Sunshine and Tracy and Leila, his fellow staffers. So we think this is a good idea, but it's one in the morning and my only really coherent thought is "blehggugugughhheee?"

So we sit down and write these letters and I draw a really demented sun for sunshine.

Then we go downstairs to give them to Leo so he can do his sneaky business and we're so nuts that he actually asks, "Are you guys drunk or something?"
We weren't, for the record. But you know how I get when I'm tired.

Anyway, we didn't get to sleep until like two thirty. And although I had two cups of coffee this morning (one more than usual) I am a mess. CANT FORM SENTENCES.

It's cool, it's cool.

Love always,
Clara

This is us!

As I said once last summer, "LOOK AT US EXISTING!"
I was having a curiously euphoric moment. And here I am again, for a completely different reason.

Anyway, that's all of us. I know right? Only 15. But we are an awesome fifteen.

Love always,
Clara

What weird timing

There's a kid here, Greg, who loves Michael Jackson. He made his whole video about how Michael Jackson was the king of pop and whatnot. He does the moonwalk at just about every opportunity. He's obsessed in a literal way.

Anyway, is it strangely fitting that Jackson might have died today? We're not sure- some sources say heart attack, some say dead, we'll know for sure probably in like half an hour.

I feel like the fact that it's the last full day of camp, which has been full of Michael Jackson references due to this kid, is really weird. Because camp is *dead* and he's dead. Maybe.

It's an interesting coincidence. That's all I'm saying.

And in the event that he is dead, R.I.P.

Love always,
Clara

Oh the testosterone

At lunch-
David: I'm coming over here. I'm tired of talking about religion
Me: We're talking about vaginas
David: Yes! Now that's my kind of religion!

In the elevator-
Someone: Penis
Someone else: Vagina
Nicole: I'm impressed with the maturity in this bunch.

Also, it has been decided that i have a secret werewolf penis. What? I don't know!

This is a ridiculous place. I won't be able to be half-normal hanging out with my mom tomorrow.
Yikes.

Well, tomorrow I leave filmworld and resume my regularly scheduled insanity. Which right now includes college-searching, hanging out with everyone I can, and packing to move.
Which is really weird to think about, and even weirder to type, seeing as it had to be secret for so long.

Love always,
Clara

ROUGH CUT DUE IN LIKE, AN HOUR

SO MUCH TO DO!
I really haven't the time for this, but here I am.
It's an addiction.

The more I hear myself talk about blogging, in my documentary, the more I want to blog and have things to blog about.

Here's something awkward-
I was doing voiceover work in the hallway, sitting on the floor with a rough script and a camera. I started to deviate from the script because there was really so much more to say than what i had written. And what I was saying was trying to answer the question "Why do I blog?"
So I start joking around with myself (out loud, into the camera) and saying stuff like "Oh, i don't know. Maybe I just like to hear myself talk. Like, here I am sitting alone in a hallway talking to myself. Clearly I enjoy it"
Then the people down the hall realized my presence.
That was awkward.

Love always,
Clara

A moment.

I was kind of tired today.
Also, I like neurology.

Love always,
Clara

Youtube awesomeness

I have never been in a place with a higher concentration of people with extensive knowledge of cool youtube videos.



Imagine how long that took. Stop motion. Must have taken months.
Imagine walking by one day and the wall is one thing and then the next it's different and then you think you're hallucinating. Or I would.

Love always,
Clara

Such hilarity.

Yoon has decided I'm a pervert.
I'm not! I swear.
For the record, he's also decided that Nicole is his daughter. She's three years older than he his, but never mind that.

Today at lunch, he gave her some pretty solid fatherly wisdom.

"Daughter, if you died, I would go to your funeral."
"Daughter, don't marry someone abusive."
"Daughter, if you got divorced 24 times, I would still love you"

It's pretty awesome.

Love always,
Clara

Yoon! And being an alien.

A.k.a. My favorite thirteen year old korean boy ever

He blows my mind. Frequently.

Yoon: You know what would be funny?
Me: What?
Yoon: If you had a boyfriend who was addicted to heroin.

Brendan: What did I have for breakfast?
Me: Pea soup
Brendan: What did I have for lunch?
Me: Pea soup
Brendan: What did I have for dinner?
Me: Pea soup
Brendan: What did I do after dinner?
Me: Pea soup... Oh god.
Yoon: (suggestively) I bet you like pea soup

We were walking by a bunch of homeless people

Yoon: It would be so funny if you came by here at night and catwalked by them. I bet they would grab you.
Me: Yeah... that would be funny...
Yoon: You'd be like "I NEED HELP!" and they be like "Oh, we'll help you..."

He says these things like they're really wonderful.

Also, there's a video that I feel the need to share:



Love always,
Clara

Old youtube videos (OHMYGOD)

At film camp, for my super cool documentary on internet culture, it seemed like a good idea to examine my own role on the internet.
I remembered that I had a brief moment where I was a video blogger. A LEGIT one.

These are from freshman year, between the months of April and June. If you knew me then, or know me now, this kind of makes sense.

My first foray into the world of video blogging:



This one is great specifically for Will's voice. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense:



Back when I had school spirit. Does anyone else remember that kickball game?



And this has the most views. Probably because freaky youtube people like to search "tongue" or something. It got some pretty creepy comments:



I'd kind of forgotten about all of this. The aforementioned creepy comments dissuaded me from continuing. I went into fighter-feminist mode and told the creepers who was boss. You know, not all fifteen year old girls are vulnerable. I was a ninja. A totally scary one.
Anyway, this is a blast from the past for me.

Love always,
Clara

I'm a spaz, by the way.

As if you didn't know.

Last night we were all hanging out on the Berkley quad throwing a frisbee and throwing a football and reading and filming and generally being chill. I was filming mostly because

• it was relevant to my documentary
• I don't do things that require coordination.

So I found myself walking around, getting footage, being in the thick of things without really worrying about being good at sports.
And I'm standing there, minding my own business, filming something or other, and my peripheral vision sees a ball coming toward me (ish)
So my awesome reflexes say "OH MY GOD YOU'RE GOING TO GET HIT! GET DOWN! NOW! DANGER! AAAAHH!"
And I basically throw myself into the grass.

The frisbee landed safely... like, twenty feet away.

Overreaction? Yes.
Awkward? Certainly.

Love always,
Clara

If We Did It

(A short story in the style of OJ Simpson)

There was an epic and awesome prank played last night. I had nothing to do with it. But if I did, it would have been in retaliation to a very silly prank played on Nicole and I involving green tape and "wet floor" signs outside our door.

But we didn't do it.

But if we did, we would have gone to Walgreens last night with Tracy, because when three girls go to Walgreens with ambiguous goals, no one really asks questions.
And at Walgreens we would have bought Nutella, Axe body spray, duct tape, and cling wrap.
We would have come upstairs discreetly in the elevator. Then we would have come downstairs and played guitar hero like the epic beasts that we are.

Then, we would have set our alarm for 3:30 AM.

Upon waking up at 3:30 AM, we would have quietly slipped down the stairs to the guys' hall with our supplies. Then we would have noted which doors contained people we knew.

Then, we would have gotten to work.

We (hypothetically of course) would have duct taped cling wrap to their doorframes, so that when they opened their doors they would have been trapped by a clear layer of plastic. It would have taken like, an hour. I have heard it's really pretty hard to get cling wrap to not cling to itself for long enough to tape it to a door.

Then, we would have smeared nutella on the handle to the door of the bathroom. On both sides.

As a finishing touch, we would have sprayed the Axe all over the hall, so that it smelled like an overzealous 13 year old boy.
(No offense Chris)

But no, we slept soundly through the night. Of course we did. My god, we're not nearly that creative or stealth. Although flattering that you would think so.

Love always,
Clara

We played an intense game of Apples to Apples last night.

Today during what was for me breakfast, I had a great text conversation with Daphna about being a botanist at a steakhouse, drinking tea in a posh manner, and why it's good not to become Bristol Palin.

Now our treatments are being read, so we're chillin.
A treatment, by the way, is a written plan for a documentary or other film. Not like, a script, but more general. It's pretty cool.

Then we're going to San Fransisco. Legit. We've been in Berkley, but now we're going to San Fransisco.
I'm looking forward to it. I've never been there.
I suppose I'm going to interview 'men-on-the-street'. I look forward to this as well. I love talking to strangers.

I mean, I blog. Come on.

Love always,
Clara

Being on Boats

The infamous "I'm on a boat" video has reached a new level of fame here.

I am basically blogging for blogging's sake.

Also, David has a message for Daphna, but I can't post it until I get home. Sorry. It's worth the wait, I swear.

We've been playing several epic games of "what are you doing?", the game in which you do something, and then the next person asks you what you're doing, and then you reply with something else entirely, which is what that next person has to do. And so on.
Highlights:

• "I'm in love with Trevor"
• "I'm trying to do the macerena, but I have severe burn wounds"
• "I'm doing the worm"
• "I am beating a dead cat"
  
• "I am Britney Spears's greatest fan"
• "Greg killed my mother"

This is really fun, but I also can't wait to get home and try to scrape together whomever is in town to chill, before I find myself leaving on a jetplane.

Love always,
Clara

In five minutes...

... I will begin the most INTENSE hour of my life.
Or so Sunshine tells me.

Her name isn't really Sunshine, by the way, but she won't tell us her real name. Apparently we get a prize or something if we guess it. The overexcitable types have been guessing names pretty relentlessly since they found that out.
Oh, boys.

This intense hour will be a period of learning about things like 'logging' and other film-type terms I've never heard of. It's making me very much love my happy little ChangeCam, which I think does all these things for me. Going digital is phenomenal. I'm such a fan.

I am living in a world where a post-breakfast popsicle is not that unusual.

Also, I have created my ideal morning coffee drink- one part vanilla cappuccino, two parts coffee. It's wonderful. I love eating in dining halls.
There are also copious vegetarian/vegan options here. California is sweet.

Anyway, that intense hour is about to start, so my time is limited. I'll keep you posted.

Love always,
Clara

We're back, we're back in san fransisco

That's a line of a Vanessa Carlton song.
I'm currently in San Fransisco. It's sweet.
Film camp is cool in that there are fifteen of us, and my roommate is the only other girl. It's a good thing she's cool or that would be mad awkward.

I have a billion and a half epic documentary ideas. GET READY. I promise to post them here.
My problem in this is that I'm too philosophical. I'm like, "Okay, now I'm going to make a five minute film about the meaning of life. That's not hard, right?"

My parents, because I was flying alone and that's stressful and because my mom does things this way, got me into first class. Pretty sweet.
Also, I made friends with the Australian flight attendant on my way here. Our Real Conversation-
Him: What happened to your iPod (the screen is broken, by the way)
Me: Oh, I dropped my backpack
*small talk*
Him: You know, apple will fix it for sixty dollars if you send it in.
Me: Oh really? Sweet. I should do that.
Him: Although if you're riding first class you can probably just buy a new one. POUND IT!
*we do a terrorist-fist-bump*

I like making friends.

Love always,
Clara

Out of the area

I'm going to documentary camp tomorrow!

This means you can expect more vlog-type blogging in the future, I hope.

This also means I'm not sure to what extent I'll have internet access. I'm not bringing Patrick the Laptop, but I've been told there are computers for general use.

I make no promises.

You know I'll try to blog though. Keep you updated on how that goes and the like. The fact is that if I don't blog enough, I begin to talk to myself.

Actually, this morning I was sitting in my parents' room spacing out, with my parents both in the next with the door open. And in the midst of my spacing, I almost spoke. I like, opened my mouth and made a noise, and then realized, "Wait, Clara, you shouldn't vocalize your thoughts right now. People can hear you"

So to avoid freaking out my roommates, I'll try to blog. Okay?

Okay.

Love always,
Clara

Loving the City

Eleni and I hung out in Dupont Circle today.

It is the best people-watching location I've ever encountered, if you don't mind the occasional naked bicyclist.

Frustratingly, we both hung out on opposite ends of the metro station for like, an hour before we realized the metro stop there has two exits. And she didn't have her phone, which was unfortunate.

While I was loitering in front of the "NO LOITERING" sign, a random man waved to me. Or, I suppose he waved to me while I was pretty obviously trying to make friends with a baby bird.

Being a generally friendly person, I waved back.

Real Conversation between myself and Creepy Man (CM)-

CM: Hi!

Me: Hi...

CM: What are you doing?

Me: *is flustered*

Me: *gesticulates awkwardly toward metro escalator*

Me: ... My friend...

CM: Want to sit down?

Me: No thanks

CM: I'll buy you an iced coffee! Let's talk!

Me: No thanks!

At that point I walked away and loitered out of his range of vision. I saw him a couple more times though, walking around that area. It was pretty awkward.

Then, at my transfer stop on the way home, I was standing on the escalator and there were like, four guys behind me who were probably not that much older than I, but quite intimidating DC people nonetheless. And I'm standing there on the escalator minding my own business, and I feel something like, touch my hair. Like, a hair-stroke. And I turn around and they are, no joke, giggling. And I give an exaggerated smiling eye-roll and luckily for me my train shows up at that very moment so I just think "train train train" and hurry on board.

I suppose if they giggle, they weren't that intimidating after all, but still. Creepiness has followed me everywhere today.

Love always,
Clara

Can someone explain to me...

Why THIS was in my "Recommended for You" videos on YouTube?

Just baffling.

As for what I was doing on youtube before I discovered this, look no further than Taylor Swift.

Let's just say I have an obsessive personality. I've watched this video a thousand times (that's a lie) and it makes me wish I could see into someone's window besides my numerous very weird childless neighbors. 

Note to my neighbors-across-the-street: Please adopt a teenage son, preferably attractive, bonus points if he's the kid from Hannah Montana.

Love always,
Clara

Glebe

A glebe is a piece of land owned by a church.

I looked this up one time, a while ago, and remembered it just recently.

I don't remember why I was so curious.

It seemed important.

Anyways, today the parkway was being an idiot again, so I took a different way home. I took Glebe Road! I wound my way through the random places I don't go very often! I was on unfamiliar territory! It was great!

Way better than my adventure the other day, which was an adventure at 2 mph, which is not much of an adventure at all.

It's like, I rarely really enjoy old movies, because they go too slowly. They could have the most exciting plots ever, but if they're moving 2 mph, it's just not as fun.

I was also playing this mix CD I made right after spring break, and it was very happy and summer-anticipation-ish. Now that it's actually summer, the CD is much more appropriate.

I love that it's summer. Not having to go to school is phenomenal. 

I'm obsessed.

Love always,
Clara

What madness.

Congratulations to the class of 09!

What a weird day.

Woke up on a couch, went to go sing, sang, got a tuna sandwich and ate it, sat at Greenberry's for what must have been several hours, then went back to Claire's house where she and Lily and Eleni and I arranged a four-pound tub of jellybeans by color. 

It was beautiful.

Then Lily gave me a henna tattoo of the symbol for 'dragon', because I'm her dragon and we are all each other's dragons, I think. If that's possible. Can I be your dragon?

Then I went home. Or rather, tried to go home.

I sat on 123 for a while, thinking the traffic was for the bridge and once I got on the parkway I'd be fine. 

WRONG!

You couldn't get onto the parkway, because there were cones. So I turned around and wandered the various highways of northern virginia in rush hour. Garmin was my only friend; my phone had died. I was off the grid.

It would have been exciting, but traffic wasn't moving on 66 for a solid half hour.

Real Conversation inside my head-

Me: This is kind of cool. Except not. BORINGEST ADVENTURE EVER.

I finally did get to a moving road that I recognized, and legit sang a little song to myself when I did. It was victory against the evil traffic machine.

Then I got home and looked at pictures of my new house, and claimed my bedroom. I am eldest, and I get priority. The sister will deal; it's not like either of the rooms-that-would-be-ours are bad.

(But mine is better!)

Love always,
Clara

Prom Video!

The answer to the question, "What did you do this weekend" is "Not sleep"

Love always,
Clara

Toe analysis fail.

So just now I was lying on my bed with my feet hanging off the bedside-table-side. 

(I was also making the Prom09 video, so get ready for that. It should be online in a few minutes)

While I was busy doing this, I was poking at things on my bedside table with my toes. I picked something up, and it felt cold and long and cylindrical, wider on one end than the other. 

I decided that it was probably a pen.

I wondered what metal pen I had.

Then I decided to confirm this, so I picked it up again and brought it forward with my feet and grabbed it.

And then I looked at it.

And guess what?!

It was a screwdriver!

So why did I have a small screwdriver on my bedside table? I have no idea. But I'm really disappointed that my toes couldn't tell a screwdriver from a pen. 

I mean, of course I don't have mysterious metal pens!

(As if it were more logical for me to have a mysterious screwdriver)

Anyways, mystery.

On a related note, remember when we were thirteen years old and EVERYTHING was sexual, even if it wasn't?

Real conversation I had in 2003-

Me: You know what word is really funny if you think about it? SCREW-DRIVER

Victoria and CeCe: OH MY GOD!

Charlie: Hahaha

The rest of the world: *cringes*

(This was on the Old Town Bus. Good times, yo)

Real conversation I had today-

TV: Five. Five Dollar. Five Dollar Footlongs!

Grace: *snicker* five dollar footlongs *scandalous giggle*

Me: Grace it's a sandwich. That doesn't even make sense.

Me (in my head): Honestly if there were any male prostitution involved in this situation, I would bet a footlong would be more than five dollars. Think about it.

Eleni and I talked extensively about time travel and the self today. That's why I love coffee.

Love always,
Clara

Ice Cream!

Prom was great.

I am so tired it's ridiculous.

And brain dead.

So, let's talk about Daphna's love life.

Once upon a time, there was a guy who was into masculine ballet. Daphna was in love. He was sexy and he was into discussing interesting ideas and whatnot. He was great. I met him too once, and I thought he was cool.

Then that ended. Daphna also really likes ice cream. Sometimes she thinks she's had enough ice cream (vanilla bean is her favorite flavor by the way) but then she realizes that she always wants more.

Vanilla bean ice cream is really the perfect flavor of ice cream anyways. It's smooth and simple. But the thing about vanilla bean ice cream is that it doesn't get tangled up in the typical trappings of high school life, such as chocolate chips or relationships or anything that would mar the beauty of the Vanilla bean. Not in a pretentious way, but just acknowledging the fact that vanilla bean ice cream needs nothing more to be wonderful.

From the beginning of ice creams, Vanilla bean and Chocolate have gone hand in hand. Daphna sometimes finds herself wanting to eat chocolate ice cream in the middle of the night, but she knows this is a bad decision. She doesn't know why she wants chocolate ice cream, because she doesn't actually like it. She just craves its flavor every once in a while. Usually this is remedied not by eating any actual chocolate ice cream, but just by looking up chocolate ice cream and its properties on wikipedia. 

The problem is that this cool girl, who eats fine aged ice creams of her own choosing, also looks up chocolate ice cream on wikipedia, and sometimes even google-image-searches Chocolate Ice Cream.

Chocolate ice cream gets a lot of random interest, despite the fact that it is never actually eaten.

Also, there's vanilla cream ice cream, which has a name very similar to vanilla bean ice cream. Daphna likes vanilla cream ice cream on occasion, but generally vanilla cream ice cream is a little jealous that Daphna trusts vanilla bean ice cream more in matters of making her taste buds happy.

The fact of the matter is that although sometimes frisbees have the power to melt vanilla bean ice cream, it might always refreeze. Daphna, for reasons incomprehensible to me, never feels like she should take vanilla bean ice cream out of this freezer to eat it. My god, if you have delicious vanilla bean ice cream in your vicinity, and it just takes a little effort to open the freezer, eat your ice cream! 

She may be afraid that once she tries to open the freezer, the ice cream will melt for good and it will never be able to be refrozen again and the world will have lost some great frozen ice cream.

And by frozen ice cream, I mean love.

Then there are the other people. Wow, Daphna's world is ridiculously complicated.

Sorry that that made no sense at all unless you're Daphna, and even if you are Daphna (Hi Daphna!) it probably didn't make that much sense. I'm really tired. 

And I rarely make sense when I'm tired.

Love always,
Clara

Sometimes I love xkcd so much I want to cry

For instance.

What other comic can seamlessly integrate a time vs. drama graph into the third panel without anyone blinking an eye?

Think about it. Their awesomeness is unparalleled. I would draw a graph for it, and it would be exponentially increasing.

This reminds me of this one time in Italy. I think it was the day that we had the very old prostitute as our guide, and it was FREEZING. Yes, this was Pompeii day. Anyways, we were back in Sorrento, or thereabouts, and we were warming up/getting hot beverages such as tea or hot chocolate at this random place before our reservation at the most epic pizza place I have ever been. So I'm sitting there with Katie and Tom and Eric and I think Eleni, and we start making graphs on napkins.

Because we're cool like that.

The graphs were cool things like sanity vs. sleep and irritability vs. temperature.

By 'cool', you know I obviously mean 'almost embarrassingly nerdy'

Whatever. I embrace this fact.

Love always,
Clara

Cruising for Kids and friendsicles

For real?

This cracks me up.

They mean well.

(via Gawker)

Today I had sushi. It was great. Sam was saying something about his "friendsicles", i.e. us. 

I told him that seeing as I had told my sister she was an idiot for adding "-sicles" to random words, it would be hypocritical not to do the same for him, because, really. We're not like, frozen treats.

He asserts, I think, that we are. Thus, "friendsicles" is an appropriate term.

It's debatable.

Now I'm watching that Paris Hilton show (oh please don't ask why, I know, my life is sad).

Paris: I wanted to get the party started, so I ordered room service. And when I say room service I mean room service.

Oh, and when she says room service, she actually means strippers.

Love always,
Clara

One of those times I watch TV

I'm watching this show, called like, "The strictest parents in the world" or something. 

I'm not really paying that much attention, but I just heard a kid named Garret, who has various lip piercings and wants to be a tattoo artist, say the following:

"If my real mom were here right now, I'd tell her, I'm sorry it hurt your feelings that I had... no direction in life"

What do I feel right now?

Distress.

Yikes.

Back to facebook for me.

Love always,
Clara

Facebook insults me.

I love those ads they have that pretend to know something about you. And by love I mean hate.

You know the ones, the ones that are like "2 people think you're smart!" or "You'll never guess who voted YOU the prettiest of them all!"

They're annoying mostly.

Today I saw two that were pretty funny though.

One was one of those "are you stupid" quizzes. It tried to lure me in with the name of a friend. It said:

VIVIAN thinks you're STUPID!

To which I thought:

1) Oh thanks, now I want to take your quiz. Very alluring.

2) Of course she does. I knew that.

The second was a little saddening.

I think it was for some kind of combo matchmaking-IQtest thing. But it said 

"You [sic] secret admirer thinks your IQ is 95"

My reactions:

1) Me secret admirer? Me have secret admirer?

2) Wow, this secret admirer doesn't think much of me.

So, secret admirer, I am thoroughly offended. If you're going to love me from afar, at least learn a little about me. Like, I'm not actually stupid.

Despite what Vivian thinks.

Love always,
Clara

Proof that my mind doesn't work the way minds should

As if anyone doubted this.

My parents are having a book party right now for my neighbor who wrote a book about his old neighbor in Florida who happened to be like, the nation's biggest pot dealer/smuggler. The book is called "Weed" if any of you want to read it. 

Anyways.

I got a text from Cath a little bit ago. It said, "Clara love, dress!"

I interpreted this to mean "Clara, get dressed! Dress yourself!"

Which led to a few questions in my head, such as "Why?" and "How can she tell I am currently on my bed in very unattractive sweatpants?" and "Oh dear, can Cath see me? How? Is my webcam on? Is she HERE?"

I was alarmed. I like, peered down the stairs like maybe she'd be there, spying on me and giggling or something. My logical thought process was that perhaps my parents, knowing that Cath and Sam's parents were crazy liberals like ourselves, invited them to the Weed party, and Cath (and perhaps even Sam) came along, and snuck up to my room or something.

So I sent a text back that said "Haha what?"

And then I got out of bed very suspiciously and changed into a dress, like she told me to. And I did so inside my closet, just in case they could see me... I didn't want to strip for Cath.

(No offense)

I'm standing there feeling very confused in a dress when I get a text back. Cath had left her dress at my house a couple days ago and that was her way of reminding me to bring it to her.

Um... does that mean I can get back into my sweatpants?

Love always,
Clara

He never saw it coming.

So I've watched this video like, five times, and have laughed literally out loud every time. I'm so glad real life is funny.

Also, as promised,

I swear, life is hilarious. And David rocks my sunglasses. 

Love always,
Clara

Reading IS Fundamental!

My parents went to a No Good Horrible Very Bad fundraiser. About children's books.

Real Description of Real Fundraiser-

Dad: So the emcee says, raise your hand if you like to read. And then he says, raise both hands if you love to read. And then he says, if you love love love to read, raise both hands and wiggle all your fingers! And he talks about how when he asks that one to his fifth grade class, it makes him so happy to see all the little wiggling fingers.

Mom: And then he asks, "WHO HERE IS A TWIN? I'M A TWIN WHO LOVES TO READ!"

Then the guy who was supposed to play jazz in the background decided he wanted to hold a concert instead, so no one could talk during dinner. I heard all about it. It was very bad. My parents, feel guilty too, because they invited Blythe's parents, not knowing what a trainwreck it would be. They left, either because the lights went out at their house, or because it was that horrible a fundraiser. Possibly both. I do not blame them at all, in either case.

I was not there. I went to watch some James Bond movies but ended up watching Layercake, which is not James Bond but

1. It is badass anyways
2. It has Daniel Craig 

So that's certainly good enough for me.

Driving home, there was this awesome lightning that didn't have bolts, per se, but lit up the colors of the sky. Very cool.

Love always,
Clara

COMMON SENSE

So basically, Common Sense, the more hilarious of our two school newspapers if you're unaware, did a little tribute to this blog, and I feel it is my duty in gratitude to do a similar tribute.

They essentially took various quotes without context and put them on a coherent page and it made my day and I cut it out of the paper and taped it to my door because it makes me feel special. So.

I love you guys and your melodramatic poetry and sorrowful eggs. Robotics is not a cult, but maybe a secret society. And Alexandra needn't be a hermit. And Caroline is right, we shouldn't be pretending we've got this awesome program that we obviously don't have. And Eleni has a lot of interesting things to say about religion, and I agree with most of them. And I will miss Mr. C dearly. And I have always loved the names you guys give yourselves in the 'contributors' bit.

Love always,
Clara

Why I liked English this year

The English exam was today.

Studying might have been a good idea, but regardless it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We got to read a Coleridge poem that we'd nver seen before, and I might say it's my favorite of his (although Kubla Kahn is pretty kinky). "The AEolean Harp".

It's really great and it's all about the wind and the nature and the interconnectedness of it all, and how... oh he says it better:

"O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where-
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument."

That's my favorite part. It is impossible not to love everything when we are all one thing alive, driven by "one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, the God of all". 

Katie and Isabella and Cath and I were on the swing set at the Lee St. Park (having had a picnic with Sam and Eleni and Nick also) and we began to talk about this and it was all so exciting and that intellectual breeze was blowing boldlier. 

Then someone mentioned a question on the actual exam about Sara, Coleridge's lover, and how she was more strictly Christian and told Coleridge to stop having these wild thoughts that were inconsistent with the bible, and "walk humbly with my God". 

Besides Isabella, we mostly thought she was being a hater, and I much preferred the idea that we are all harps, played upon by the same inexplicable powers, creating wild and unpredictable fairy music.

New way to sound cool and make a poetic allusion: "Stop being the Sara to my Coleridge"

It occurred to me that at the age of five or six, I remember being on that same swing set and looking at the same trees and twilight and seeing birds and thinking "You are free and happy. Why am I not you?"

I said this out loud, and it was immediately decided that I was Keats in "Ode to a Nightengale", minus the bit about contemplating my own mortality.

I was born to be this way. I am either a Romantic era poet or a total hippie at heart. Maybe both. 

On an entirely different note, I have pinpointed the occasion when Sam and I became friends. Ms. Simpson's Cotillion, 7th grade, 50's themed night. There were contests and what not, and one was for the twist. I don't know if we won, but we were in the top three. It was impressive.

Also, I am good at making many grilled cheese sandwiches in a short period of time.

Love always,
Clara