things that don't make sense

• Most of my thoughts
• Most conversations I have with anyone who twitters
• Dreams, usually
• People with whom you lose touch, and seeing them again
• Black ice
• Bitchiness
• Little tiny bags of pretzels on airplanes
• Metal songs (and the intelligibility of their words)
• Rap songs (and their lyrics)
• My headaches
• Maps of mountains
• My desk's organization

In other news, President Obama rocked my world recently. I just want to throw that out there.

Love always,
Clara

ski days: episode three

It was freezing today. I mean, it's always cold, but it was particularly cold and windy today. I decided to wear a pretty scarf instead of my blue fleece turtleneck thing. Bad idea. Fleece things don't get frozen and stiff. Scarves do, no matter how pretty they are.

We went on black slopes, which was fun, but the light was terrible and you couldn't tell what was packed snow and what was powder. Which meant we ended up doing a lot of inadvertent powder skiing. Which meant we did a lot of inadvertent falling on our faces.

It was fun though. Falling in powder isn't bad. Powder is soft.

David: This is how crush babies are made. You put them on the back of your brain to marinate, and then you put it on the stove and it's either done and smells good and delicious, or it burns and you throw it out...

David and I are chatting about the various interesting aspects of our respective love lives. It's a great convo.

Me: Oh I love great convos. Great convos are... great.

David: Let's converse about great convos!

I have a theory: David and I are geniuses. We think in analogies. We've turned life into an olympic sport, people into forests and settlers, and crushes into cancerous embryos marinating. That takes a certain degree of brilliance. Abstract thinking. Neurons performing unconventional activities.

I'd like to go with the "We're geniuses" theory and not the "We're mentally retarded" theory.

Me: [taps camera] Am I doing something?

David: Yes. Congratulations.

Maybe it's just me who's [retarded/a genius, take your pick].

Love always,
Clara

it's true. look at me, and you will see blondeness.

Robert
your blonder than you look
clara
i look pretty blonde

We're having a chat. As we tend to do.
I hate when people say things like that though. When you say "You're xxxx-er than you look," it's supposed to be something that they don't look! I look pretty blonde! How could I possibly be more blonde than I look?

In related news, Firefox doesn't think 'blonde' is a correctly-spelled word. I don't care though.

It snowed today. It was gorgeous big-flake snow at warm-for-snow temperatures. I loved it.

Natalia: I hate this weather I hate this weather I hate this weather I hate this weather I hate this weather
Me: I like this weather!

I like all weather though, with one notable (and annoying) exception.
Weather I like:

• Snow
• Rain
• Cold and sunny
• Warm and sunny
• Epic tunderstorms
  
• Warm and cloudy (especially when followed by epic thunderstorms)
  

Weather I don't like:

• Cold and cloudy

Weather Switzerland is notorious for:

• Cold and cloudy
  

What. The. Hell. This. Is. Not. Fair.

Love always,
Clara

balloons on the mountain

balloons on the mountain, originally uploaded by csb324.

I am tired. And I just spent like three hours doing physics homework and I didn't even finish the last problem, so I'm going to bed feeling incomplete. I hate that feeling but I've had it basically every night for the past month.
Schoolwork is a pain.

But tomorrow is another day, and the day after that is friday, and friday is ski day. And I'm definitely not as stressed out as I would be in America. I really can't complain.

Love always,
Clara

it's the only way to go

They've blocked facebook at school (in light of recent events that I'm really not going to go into. Just let it be known that the facebook-blocking is not justified.)

This annoys me.

But at least blogger still works.

Edward Burger: Let's draw a picture; it's the only way to go. No, that sounds didactic. It's the only way I go. You can do whatever you want, I guess.

The best part of this is that on the video, at the bottom of the screen (where 'tips' tend to go), it says, "Tip: Drawing a picture of the solid is the only way Professor Burger goes."

God, I love math.

Love always,
Clara

yesterday, in brief

I didn't blog yesterday and for that I apologize because I really wasn't doing anything more valuable with my time.

Yesterday was awkward. One awkward moment basically defined January 26, 2009.

I was in the computer lab working on yearbook. A class of ninth graders was in there. I gave them a survey ("What's your favorite thing about grade nine? What do you do on the weekend?") for yearbook purposes.

I was listening to music the whole time, by the way, which I feel justifies my actions at least a little bit.

Anyway, after a little while, the survey made its way around the room and back to me. I looked at it and realized, much to my dismay, that the ninth graders answered the "What's your best memory of this year?" question in the exact same way as the 8th graders. And the 7th graders. Apparently everyone loves Ski Days and Village Camps (which is their annual camping trip/bonding experience).

Me: Wow, you guys love ski days. [awkward pause] I mean, ski days are great, but y'all are just like the seventh and eighth graders! Except... older. Wow. I'm talking to myself in a very quiet room. I'm digging a hole for myself... okay.

Room: [silence]

It was awkward. Robert came up to me later like "Ooh, ninth graders are like eighth graders, but older!" and I tried to explain what was going through my head but I did not succeed in this, and now the ISBerne class of 2013 thinks I'm crazy.

I mean, it was only a matter of time.

Love always,
Clara

music binge courtesy of thomas

This isn't even all of the music that he sent me that I liked. There are a few songs that are only for people who live in England (silly U.S. iTunes store needs to keep up), so I'm going to make him send those ones to me.

For now, we have these.

You've Got the Love - Florence + The Machine
Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up) - Florence + The Machine
Cosmic Love - Florence + The Machine
On / Off - Snow Patrol
An Olive Grove Facing the Sea - Snow Patrol
Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons
Ghosts - Laura Marling
Blue Skies - Noah and the Whale
Unfaithful - Stornoway
L.A. - Amy MacDonald
My Delirium - Ladyhawke
Daisy Dares You - Daisy Dares You
Song for No One - Miike Snow (that's not a typo)
Machines - Biffy Clyro
Shark In the Water (Acoustic) - V V Brown
Stars - The XX
VCR - The XX
Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap
Running for Life - Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady reference! Hooray! Or it's her real name, in which case, that is also cool)
Skeleton Boy - Friendly Fires

I'm loving the overwhelming British-ness of it.

Love always,
Clara

intelligence test

dog, originally uploaded by csb324.

The online psychology course has decided to "simulate" an intelligence test.
Among the better multiple-choice questions and answers were the following-

How is a bird like an airplane?
Both cause problems for people.

Why do most highways have speed limits?
To annoy drivers.

When people say, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease," what do they mean?
Grease will stop the squeaking.

Online classes are cracking me up lately.

Love always,
Clara

so i totally was focusing but...

Edward Burger: We're going to fill in this area with stripes. People don't wear enough stripes. Or plaid! Would you be caught dead in plaid? I probably would. That's the difference between you and me. But I digress. Anyway, it's this region that we want, and I'll do plaid, in honor-- in case you golf. Maybe some of you are golfers! You know, a lot of golfing people take calculus... you know, to get the ball's velocity... into the hole. Hole in one? Where do you think that phrase comes from? Calculus!

Reasons I love math, #584

Also, I would definitely take fashion advice from this man.

Edward Burger: This probably isn't to scale... I can make 1 anywhere. Do you know how much power I feel, knowing that I can just mark down anywhere I want and call it 1? ... It's not that much power.

Edward Burger: We're going to work through this, but first I'm going to cough. *cough cough* Okay. You know, when you cough, one of two things happens. You either want to cough again, or you feel really great. I'm not going to tell you how I feel.

Love always,
Clara

i've been given an award? or something? lemonade!

I'm not exactly sure what this is. The person who gave it to me (who is a fellow blogger, by the way, and she is pretty cool, and here is a link) doesn't really know what to make of it either, but she was awarded it (lemonade?) and so she awarded a few other people.

Blogger appreciation? Cool.

Anyway, it's been a pretty boring day. Sundays in general are pretty lame in Switzerland. In America, Sundays were my errand-doing-days. Oh, I need new pens! Time to walk to CVS! And take some pictures! And drop off film! And buy more film! And go wander around the bookstore because this is a totally productive activity!

In Switzerland, almost everything is geschlossen. Which means closed, if you don't speak german like the cool kids do, you loser.

(I know that was a biting remark. I'm sorry if it hurt your feelings but welcome to my life. Living abroad is hard and I am taking it out on the people around me)

Which means there can be no CVS trips or RITZ-Camera runs or Books-A-Million wanderings. Also, there are no CVSs or RITZ-Cameras or Books-A-Millions.

Books-A-Million was always a sort of terrible bookstore anyway, to be honest. But it was close, and it was basically across the street from the RITZ-Camera, so it was a nice way to waste time. We used to have a better bookstore in Old Town but then it closed because it turns out people don't like books after all, and then I moved to Switzerland.

Anyway, Sundays are boring over here and so I've been spending most of the day watching videos on youtube, which is a pretty giant waste of time.

Super-productivity begins NOW (or in a few moments).

Oh, also, at Thomas's request, George is getting his own tag, so that you can locate his george-isms quickly and efficiently. And Thomas if you read this, I intend to look up your music recommendations tomorrow, because that would make sense in the grand scheme of my music-blogging-schedule.

Okay. Really. Working beings now.

Love always,
Clara

vlog vlog vlog

Song: 7/4 (Shoreline) - Broken Social Scene

Basically, I needed cereal and figured, there is a boring way to buy cereal, and there is a fun way to buy cereal. That, and Vivian showed me an awesome vlogger the other day, which has inspired me.

Love always,
Clara

ski days: episode two

Went skiing with school today. It was phenomenal. I love skiing.

The deal with having ski days on fridays though, is that I'm always too tired to do anything that night. And so is everyone else.

This tendency isn't really a problem. It fits in nicely with my introversion- a full day of social interaction, from morning to night, sort of tires me out anyway. Friday nights are movie nights for Clara.

It's great. I rent something I've never seen on iTunes at watch it by myself. It sounds way more depressing than it is, I swear.

Friday nights actually used to be the perfect television-catch-up nights, but then my favorite quasi-legal online television site shut down. I can't find anything even similar. And don't tell me to go watch hulu; it only works in the states.

Whomever owns hulu, I want you to know: You are withholding your data from the rest of the world, and it is leading us to lives of crime. Just fyi.

Yesterday, Thomas sent me a facebook message of music he thinks I would like (because I mentioned Vampire Weekend in the hallway once). He asked me about it today.

Thomas: So did you check out the songs I sent you?

Me: Well.... okay. Here's the deal. You know I keep a blog? I do. And whenever I download new music, I post my new music on this blog. And I just posted a music-related-post a couple days ago. So I really don't want to check out your music, enjoy it, buy it, and then blog about it, because that would be too many music-related posts in a too-short period of time, see? So I'm definitely going to listen to your songs... in a couple days.

Thomas: ... what?

Me: My life is complicated!

I think I make my life complicated on purpose.

Random fact: Today I discovered that there are zippers on the inner thigh of my ski pants, and the zippers reveal mesh. I think this is for if your inner thighs get too warm while you ski. I have never had that happen, but it's good to know that the ski-pants-makers are prepared for anything.

This has been, altogether, a very random post.

I'm tired. You know how I get.

Love always,
Clara

Again, not much to say

This is what always happens when my life takes a turn for the personal- I get less to blog about.

For that, I deeply apologize.

To compensate, here is a Real Conversation.

Percy: Look at this girl's teeth! Aren't they sexy? I love it when a girl has really nice teeth.

George: Not that I'm a pervert, but the first thing that came to mind when I heard the words "sexy teeth" was vagina dentata.

Me: *dies*

For those who are unaware, the movie Teeth was based on the (fictional) condition above.

George may or may not be a pervert, but he is certainly a character.

Love always,
Clara

it's been an interesting few days

I went to school again today. I'm glad I did. It keeps my head on straight (which is something of dire importance).

Tomorrow I have school at the usual hour, which will be less than preferable. I liked this whole roll-out-of-bed-at-whatever-hour-I-please thing. Alas; all good things must come to an end.

I just had a great music binge.

Two Is Better Than One - Boys Like Girls (feat. Taylor Swift)

Girlfriend - Phoenix

Little Secrets - Passion Pit

Sleepyhead - Passion Pit

Ghost Under Rocks - Ra Ra Riot

Got Nuffin - Spoon

Today Was a Fairytale - Taylor Swift

Heartbeat - Nneka

Time of our Lives - Miley Cyrus

Release Me - Agnes

A truly productive 24 hours. On top of all of that, I got some work done!

Not much... but some.

Love always,
Clara

that's impressive

Edward Burger: Well, now you know how to find the derivative of functions, and you know how to find functions whose derivative is a certain thing, but what can we do with this? Besides impressing your friends at cocktail parties, what is this good for?

I went to school today to work on some things (physics homework, yearbook stuff, having a life, not falling into a hermit-like state).

It was fun. I'm glad I got out of the house.

George: My goodness!

Me: ... My goodness. (sort of making fun of him)

George: Well you can't expect me to say 'My God' if I'm a nonbeliever.

This is true, I suppose. His rationale is just so funny though.

Love always,
Clara

definitely not okay

clara
this is me trying to be articulate
Mehdi
ok
clara
ok mehdi
Mehdi
ok clara
clara
ok
Sourabh
not ok mehdi and clara

I've figured out how to have a three-way msn conversation. It's vexing my family.

Dad: Can I read to you?

Me: Oh I'd love to... but I'm in the middle of like, five conversations right now.

Mom and Dad and I went skiing today. It was fun, except the only lifts were pull-lifts that drag you along. You sort of have to squat while you ride them, which meant between the lift and the skiing your legs got no break at all.

Then we wandered around Neuchatel and ate lunch.

Switzerland's not so bad.

Also, I am still looking for interview topic ideas! I've gotten a few good ones though...

Love always,
Clara

new thing!

I am feeling a little bit uninspired. It's probably all of this sitting-around-at-home that I've been doing (mostly against my will, for the record. I jump at any opportunity to leave the house).

Anyway, I have an idea! I am going to interview people about things.

I just don't know what things.

This is where you come in, blog-readers. Strangers, friends, whoever you are, comment below. What are you interested in? What would be a good interview topic? What question do you think would be really awkward (and thusly hilarious) for me to ask someone?

This is your opportunity to make me look like a lunatic!

As if I don't do enough of that on my own.

Oh, on that note, yesterday I went to go see Avatar with the gang. I need a name for the group of 11th grade boys. They're definitely name-worthy. During intermission (because movies have intermissions here), they were all telling jokes.

Danny: ... And so the blonde goes "T. G. I.F. ... thank god it's friday?" and the guy goes "S. H. I. T. ... sorry honey, it's thursday"

Matt: That's so stupid.

Me: Yeah... Oh something like that happened to me once!

Everyone else: [uncontrollable laughter]

They wouldn't let me explain either. It wasn't really me!

This was at camp. There was a weird tension between us nerds and the ballerinas that we shared the camp with already, but that tension escalates on Drag day and Goth/Emo day.

I could ramble on about the intricacies of Nerd/Rina relations at CTY, but the point of the story is that a little dancer was wearing a shirt that said "happy fourth of july!" everywhere... on July 3rd.

Of course, they did not listen to this story. Thomas heard the middle part though.

Thomas: Wait, what was that? I just heard something about goths and ballet. What are you talking to yourself about?

Love always,
Clara

five guys...

Chris and I were debating hamburgers. I assert that while we Americans may not have invented hamburgers, we pretty much dominate the market now.

He mentioned some kind of awesome German hamburger thing.

clara
okay but you have never had five guys
which is a burger place
in america
Chris
oh
i thought this story was going down a different path
clara
yeah as soon as i typed that i was like '...wait... that's going to be misinterpreted'

That story was going straight to the Five Guys off of King St. God I miss that place.

Love always,
Clara

just keep skiing, skiing, skiing

We went skiing today! It was fun! Hooray!

How long do endorphins last? I'm curious as to whether my mood is a physiological or psychological side effect of skiing. I guess in any case it's psychological. Never mind.

Anyway.

I had to get up earlier to get the train to Zweisimmen, so mom brought me breakfast, which was very nice of her. However, she clearly has no idea how I usually eat breakfast.

My standard breakfast is a cup of coffee (to keep me awake until lunch) and a bowl of swiss-brand Raisin Bran (for all of its fiber and protein and whatever else it is that keeps you full). This morning I had a croissant and a glass of orange juice.

Which was delicious and much appreciated.

But by eleven I was starving, and ready for a nap.

We ate lunch on the mountain, on picnic tables outside. There were little kids running around, because the whole school goes skiing on ski days. I mean like, second grade to twelfth grade. It's kind of awesome. Anyway, these little kids start throwing snowballs at each other, and the 9th grade guys join in, because 9th grade guys are really mature. So Robert-the-freshman invokes the wrath of some fourth grader and decides I am a good shield.

I end up covered in snow, and pissed.

Honestly, I don't get angry very often. Maybe it was just the shock of the cold (on my neck...), but something made me flip out.

Emily commiserated with me. She'd been hit too.

Emily: I usually don't want people to be afraid of me, but times like this, I just want these kids to have a little fear!

So, here is the lesson- Children, respect your elders. Especially if they're cranky because they didn't have coffee this morning.

I told Emily and Rashmeen my epic chair-lift nerdiness. If I'm on a decently long lift and the chairs have numbers (and the numbers go in order), you can ask me at basically any time how many chairs there are to the top or the bottom and I'll be able to answer one of those questions. It's a compulsive thing I think. I like to do math.

I also told them about these songs I know about the parts of speech. I only told them about the songs because I started singing one and I was afraid they would think I was weird.

... Wait. That may have backfired.

Anyway, there was some computer game where you got to explore a treehouse or something, and there were songs about adjectives and such. I remember the words really clearly.

An adjective is the type of word that describes things

(Which one?)

(Whose is it?)

(How many?)

(What kind of?)

See that little green bird?

She's smart and you can hear it!

She can say seven words.

My pretty pretty panama parrot!

That... Little... Green... Smart...

Seven... Pretty... Pretty... Panama!

I may be going out tonight. We will just see about that.

I mean, I might be too busy reliving my youth and singing songs about adjectives.

File this under: I am a bigger dork than you could possibly imagine.

Love always,
Clara

getting out of the house

That had been on my to-do list for a while. Thank god I did it today.

Here's my day, in a nutshell-

10 am: Wake up. Get on facebook. Harass the crazy Bible Lit. kids who are still awake at 4 am EST writing their essays. They need to get their priorities straight. Sleep trumps everything. Even school. I mean it.

11 am: Figure out math. Thank goodness. The second part of the fundamental theorem of calculus was trying to kill me. But I vanquished it!

Sometimes I like to pretend things like math and physics are little tiny battles. Huzzah!

12 pm: Get ready to go to school.

12:32 pm: Watch the 12:31 tram leave. Wait in the cold for the next one. Write in a notebook sitting on a snowy bench. Don't write about cold benches. Write about snow instead.

1 pm: Yearbook meeting! We didn't really have much to say. I brought my Potomac yearbook (from last year) in because I thought it was really good, and I'm secretly trying to turn this school into my old school, from the inside. Percy went through the pages looking for hot girls. He found quite a few, naturally. Margo, if you read this, you have a fan in Switzerland.

2 pm: Sit in the computer lab and work on yearbook by myself.

3 pm: Oren joins me in the computer lab. I try to explain what I'm trying to do. He doesn't get it. He asks me a question about enthalpy. I don't remember anything about it. So it goes.

4 pm: Leave school. Take tram. Meet Mehdi and Sourabh on the tram. They invite Oren and I to join them for chicken. There is one rule- we must eat with our hands.

We go to Migros and buy chicken. We eat it with our hands. I feel very unladylike, but I must prove myself. Using a fork is blasphemy in this crowd. I cannot afford to blow this opportunity to join the League of Extraordinary Chicken-Eating Gentlemen (which is their name). It's delicious, anyway, and my sense of dignity is pretty much used to being pushed aside by now. Then we gossip for a while. Guys pretend they don't gossip, but they do. I'm just reporting the facts.

I tell them epic stories of my life. They formulate a plan that I am definitely not going to carry out. They judge girls who walk by. Fun is had by all.

6:30 pm: I realize I never really told anyone where I was going, I forgot my phone at home, and I've been gone for like, six hours. I return. Mom is excited to see me. She's like Chili-dog sometimes.

And then I get back to my routine- do some work, waste some time, waste more time, get back to work, repeat.

Also, I just downloaded Contra (Vampire Weekend). I'm a fan. I'm really liking this buying-albums thing.

Favorite songs off of Contra- Diplomat's Son, Giving Up the Gun, Holiday, I Think Ur a Contra

Love always,
Clara

ooh la la

Turn your sound on.

Now click.

Now try to tell me your mind was not blown just now.

I've spent way too much time on the internet today. Which basically explains everything in this post. Also, I'm having a Lady Gaga moment.

Love always,
Clara

a little homesick.

I'm not going to lie. I did this to myself.

I have this playlist called "chronology" on my computer, and it's basically all of my songs that I've acquired since freshman year, in order. Patrick used to do this automatically, but then when he crashed last winter, the data was mixed up, so now I have to do it manually, which isn't hard, but is sort of a pain because I forget.

Anyway, I realized I hadn't updated it in like, months. So I put my songs in order of "date added" and dragged the newish ones into the playlist. Easy.

And then I started listening to the playlist.

The playlist came to the song "Avada Kedavra" which, you may or may not know, facilitated a nervous breakdown of mine back in May, which I sort of blogged about (in a mentally unstable way). So I had to go read over my blog posts from May to remember the context of these things.

And then I was just reading over May.

Despite my nervous breakdown(s), that was a great month. I mean, I was falling apart and my life was unraveling, but... I had Potomac. I hated it at times, and I wanted it to all disappear at times, but honestly I so preferred being at school to being at home. I wouldn't go home; I'd coffee. I would leave the house at every opportunity. It was a mess over there.

It's occurred to me that over here, I have nowhere to go. I have no one to text while I'm walking around in the rain. I have nowhere to walk to. I could take the tram somewhere... but where? I could go to Thun... what's in Thun? Some mountains or something? Whatever! I don't care!

Everything is just a little more hostile here.

I miss you guys like mad these days, you crazy america kids.

And I'm not going to school this week, because everyone else is taking trial exams (good luck, by the way, IB kids), which gives me time to think about it.

Going to school here is not the same, though. I always knew what was up at Potomac. I knew who was who and what everyone was like and who I could count on, and there were (and are) a lot of you.

Also, I miss my car. Zola, wherever you are, you might have been my best friend last year. You were always there when I needed you. You are the single best listener I have ever met. And yes, I know you think I'm crazy. You're probably right.

Love always,
Clara

parody hilarity

So yes anyone who stalks my last.fm knows I'm having a Ke$ha infatuation right now.

Despite this fact (or perhaps because of it), I find the above video hysterical.

Also, this doesn't deserve its own post, but it's worth noting: People say hilarious things in their sleep.

Love always,
Clara

some new songs

I've realized I tend to avoid downloading several songs from one artist at the same time. I'm not sure why I do this. If I like one song by an artist, I'm likely to like more.

It seems I do it in the name of variety. But now I feel like there are a lot of songs out there that I am probably missing out on because I think "Oh, I've already exhausted the possibilities for Broken Social Scene."

I'm almost sure I haven't.

Anyway, today I made an effort to break that habit, and I'm happy with it.

These Arms - Matt Costa

Astair - Matt Costa

Who am I to You - Schuyler Fisk

From Where I'm Standing - Schuyler Fisk

Afterglow - Schuyler Fisk

Paperweight - Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk

Suicide - The Raveonettes

They Bring Me to You - Joshua Radin

Winter - Joshua Radin

Two - Ryan Adams

Hooray for consistency!

Love always,
Clara

dictionary?

It's only recently really occurred to me how many nicknames (or in some cases, codenames) float around my head. People can't make statements about delis or early American history without my mind going all kinds of places.

So I'm going to tell a little story. If you understand half of it, you probably know me too well.

Once upon a time there was a middle name alliteration and there was a flower bird and the flower bird was penduluming with a key. At this point, the middle name alliteration was having dealings with vampires and ice cream.
The flower bird had dilemmas with animals, wheat, and the police. She was backed up (and sometimes sketched out) by bears, dresses, curly and mo. Among others.
Shortly thereafter, there was an Irish person who may or may not have really been irish, and this questionably irish person had dealings with mammals. Homework, backpacks, and highlighters were involved.
Oh, also, stairwells of the legitimate and non-legitimate variety. Sometimes, people couldn't make heads or tails of the issue.
The key turned into a potato. Somewhere after potatoes, the flower bird (sometimes known as P) and the aforementioned were no longer associated.
Then, someone went vegetarian. The vegetarian and the middle-name-alliterator were reunited for a substantial period of time. The vegetarian developed a taste for tofu. Everyone sort of half-wanted to become a breakfast pastry, because the police eat breakfast pastries. But the vegetarian and the middle name alliteration person and mo kept themselves from becoming breakfast pastries, although all of them enjoyed hanging out at the police department.
There was a weather god, too. And a tuna fish that no one liked.
Shortly thereafter, the vegetarian briefly became a breakfast pastry. It was a lapse in judgment but not a totally regrettable one.
Then things started up again. The vegetarian had stopped eating steak, so the vegetarian no longer went to the deli. This was a good thing, because the deli had changed its size of preference, and now steak was only being sold in 8 ounce portions. The vegetarian didn't like such portions of steak. But the vegetarian missed the charming decor of the deli so the vegetarian insisted that it was possible to go to a deli and buy a diet coke. The Irish person was dubious.
Grey areas became very cloudy. They would not be black or white. It was frustrating to everyone involved.
Chocolate ice cream became very seductive to certain types.
The vegetarian realized that eight ounces of diet coke isn't bad. And diet coke is generally a good thing. Except when it makes a vegetarian crave steak. Which would happen, on occasion. Sometimes, when you are a vegetarian, you see an advertisement on TV for some terrible chain restaurant and think "wow, that looks terrible but simultaneously delicious". The vegetarian was also developing a taste for grapes though, because grapes are wonderful fruits.
Mangoes were also deemed wonderful.
Jokes were made about melons.
Life went on as usual.
There was a college search. In said search there were, among others, Williams, Pomona, Princeton, and Community College of the Cayman Islands.
Much was made of a situation involving checkers.
And the vegetarian had another lapse in judgment. The vegetarian sort of wanted tea, because tea is very posh, but there was no tea to be had. But there were vegetables. Vegetables and tea really don't mix.
There were very posh dogs though, and two-way airplane tickets.
Meanwhile, the Aztecs were wreaking havoc on the New World what with their corn farming and sacrificial rites and such. There was a legitimate thought that the Aztecs would end up the predominant culture in the New World. However, a series of events gave the Aztecs smallpox.
Elsewhere, there were cookies served on airplanes, or perhaps the other way around.
Columbus showed up, and didn't find what he expected. The rest of that history has yet to be written but we will see.

Do you understand how hard it is for me to go through a normal day without getting distracted by the multiple meanings of everything?

Love always,
Clara

definitely not quality content

After my nice little content rant yesterday, here are some completely inane self-indulgent updates.

1. This is my 900th post, which means I'm really close to my 1000th post. Which is exciting.
2. 
   

Happy sunday, everybody.

Love always,
Clara

i loooove blowing bubbles!

I had a revelation!

This is what happens when I spend basically the whole day (all seven hours of it, since waking up) at home being antisocial (which was not quite my choice, by the way, and I am going out tonight, so I'm not a total hermit).

Anyway, I was thinking about facebook fan pages and how way back in the day, the days of my first blog, Watermelon Seeds, I joined a lot of (non-facebook) fan pages so that I could put their 'badge' on my website. I became fans of things like "Pink Polos" and "Blowing Bubbles" and "Rubber Duckies" and Jason Mraz and God knows what else.

And I thought, what was the point of doing that? I didn't even like rubber ducks that much. But I didn't know how to get people to pay attention to my website. And for some reason, this seemed like a viable strategy.

Heaven forbid I say anything about myself. How embarrassing.

It wasn't until later that I realized the best way to draw people in is to give them some kind of content (hence, real blogging).

And I'm thinking now: This is a lot like real life. When I was in sixth grade (the era of Watermelon Seeds) I really had no idea how to express myself at all. I didn't know how to even access things I liked. I only let myself listen to HOT 99.5, even though I knew I preferred Mix 107.3. We all liked Harry Potter and Lindsay Lohan and the Gossip Girl books (and yet maybe quietly we were all reading books off our parents' shelves).

And we did it because we wanted to be liked.

And then there comes a point when you realize that what people want is content. We're interested in the ways that people are unique, not the ways in which they're like everyone else. Everyone likes blowing bubbles. Who cares?

(This is getting cliche.

Damn.)

But anyway, that's the metaphor that came to mind a few minutes ago. And that's content.

My content is sometimes horrendously cliche. Yes. I accept this. But it's real, and I've been on an honesty-kick for the past week or so, so I'm letting it stand.

Love always,
Clara

i mean, get real.

Oren
ok, the psychiatrist is back. haha now what are the options?
clara
haha
hooray i definitely need therapy!
option a) get a grip
let's be honest: that is not happening

I hate drama. But I love enlisting other people to help me with my mental instability. Oren is great at it.

Oren
ok... will u be my psychiatrist for 5 min? haha
clara
i probably should return the favor...
haha sure
Oren
favour lol
clara
(psh americans spell it without the u)
Oren
i know haha, but were talking in english!! haha
clara
I SPEAK ENGLISH!
Oren
U SPEAK AMERICAN

Excuse me. I speak english.

... Sort of.

Love always,
Clara

if god is a dj, then i am god

Percy: When you die, you're six feet under! You're dead!

Sourabh: Where do you get your information?

Percy: Dude, I've died before!

We were talking about religion and the afterlife.

80's night was tonight. Epic and wonderful? Yes.

I mean, the ninth graders really enjoyed it, and I think the tenth graders had fun, and the interest level tends to go down as the age goes up, but that is to be expected.

After a bit of drama regarding the amount of 80's music we actually wanted, our DJ (day job: math teacher) got upset and left. So I grabbed Patrick the Macbook and took over. It was actually quite fun- I like to be a control freak (check!), listen to good music (check!), and move-while-not-quite-dancing (check!).

Very fun.

I also got to show off my knowledge of Ke$ha's new album (which I LOVE, by the way). The ninth grade girls were so impressed. And you know that's my mission in life. Impress ninth grade girls.

Favorite songs off of Animal: Blah Blah Blah (feat. 3OH!3), Take it off, Your Love is my Drug

Funfact: Between 4 and 10 PM tonight, I consumed seven red bulls. SEVEN.

Which is why my blogging is less-than-completely-coherent right now. At 12:30.

Love always,
Clara

i blame helvetica.

This is the newspaper I read. It's a great one, for the record. I really like it. (I also just really like newspapers. I'm sad that they're dying. Websites are more convenient but you cannot read them while drinking coffee in the morning. Or... I guess you could. But it's not the same.)

Anyway.

I just saw an advertisement for it on the New York Times website. And I realized I tend to expect that font and color scheme somewhere else entirely

American Apparel and the International Herald Tribune have something in common. That something is helvetica and yellow.

I feel like a hipster-by-proxy.

I'm basically okay with that though.

Love always,
Clara

chocolate+integration problems=success

Edward Burger: I just had a chocolate morsel and it was really good. You might need a chocolate morsel to get through integration problems too. You know when chocolate sort of lingers in your mouth? Isn't it great?

This guy is on a video, and yet he is one of the more engaging math teachers I've ever had.

Mehdi wants me to say that he's been nice to me today. I am typing this under duress.

Now Edward Burger is imitating Ronald Reagan for reasons I can't begin to understand. And he's not just imitating Reagan doing normal presidential things, no, he's imitating Reagan doing an integration problem.

Mr Burger: This is how Reagan would tackle this sort of problem, I think, if he chose to do so.

He basically does math, occasionally saying "We will not trade arms, I mean du/dx, for hostages" and "Well, that's what Nancy told me" and "I've got some jelly beans here."
It's pretty hilarious. I was captivated.

Mom and I were just talking about my crazy grandfather. We'd seen some really old home videos that he narrated.
Me: This is what makes me think, maybe he doesn't have alzhemier's, maybe he's just like this.
Mom: This is what makes me think, how was he ever a doctor?!

Love always,
Clara

it's true, i'm always lost

I turn around to find Mehdi flipping the couch over.

Me: What are you doing?
Mehdi: I'm looking for something I lost.
Me: It's okay. We all feel a little lost sometimes.
Mehdi: You're always lost.

That was mean. Mehdi is rude to me on a regular basis. He's not being rude to me at this moment. He can be nice. Depending.

English class, as always, was hilarious. George got confused about some things. That tends to happen.

Mr. M-T: So what do ants do with dead ants?
Mariam: Do they... eat them?
George: They study them!

Love always,
Clara

kinky

Mom: CLARA WHERE ARE YOU?

Me: Dad's office

[she enters]

Mom: Are you doing your physics?

Me: ... no...

Mom: What are you doing?

Me: It's a... I'm reading... you're too old, you wouldn't get it.

Mom: What?

Me: It's this blog where this girl re-reads Baby Sitters' Club books and talks about what everyone was wearing.

Mom: You're right, I don't get it.

Later...

Mom: You want me to ask them to set up a table in front of the fireplace?

Me: What? Why?

Mom: I don't know. It seemed like a kinky place to have dinner.

Me: *dies*

Edit because this thought doesn't deserve its own post- I was clicking through a blog (what else is new?) and this blog* has pictures of people on it. And in one of these pictures, a girl is wearing a shirt that I OWN. I saw it and got inexplicably really excited. I wanted to like, find a way to contact her, so that I could say "You and I have vaguely similar taste and both shopped at Target in 2007!"
Then I realized this was irrational.
But do you ever notice we get really excited when we have the same thing as someone else? I mean, I'm sure Target-brand made thousands of my navy blue waffle shirt that buttons down halfway, and there are thousands of people who bought them, and it's not like we should all get together and start a club... but what if we did?
That would be the greatest facebook group ever-

People who have THIS SHIRT.
It would be hard to find people to join though. Somehow, most of us only have one or two articles of clothing in common with our friends, or even people we know. So you couldn't really invite your friends to the facebook group. You would just have to hope.

I like the idea of it, for some reason.

*Okay, vaguely embarrassing confession: The blog I was reading is "Chicks with Stubbed Toes Making Sex Faces"... which explains the picture, doesn't it?

Love always,
Clara

waiting in line

waiting in line, originally uploaded by csb324.

Hi there.
I've been a bad blogger girl. My deepest apologies. I really can't even say I've been busy, because since the Americans went back to america I haven't done that much.

I did go bowling last night. That was actually really fun. I had anticipated sucking at bowling, because motor skills and I have had this ongoing feud since basically my birth, but I wasn't that bad.

Me: [knocks down nine pins]
Emily: How did you do that?!
Me: Um... I don't know. Go straight. Think about torque!
Emily: What is that, some kind of BOWLING GOD?!

Emily is hilarious. She told Thomas that if he beat her, she would make him a sandwich. He proceeded to unintentionally roll like, ten gutterballs in a row.
What is this fascination with girls making guys sandwiches, by the way? It's like, it's not that hard to make a sandwich. Guys can make their own sandwiches!
Although I will say I get a certain satisfaction out of making a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches in a short period of time. That's just a good feeling. The I-just-made-10-grilled-cheeses-in-20-minutes feeling.

Later last night, the other guys were pressuring Thomas to demand more sandwiches from Emily (because they are dating, and what else are girlfriends good for?).

Peter: You just need to be like, "Woman, make me a sandwich"
Thomas: It's not working! The sandwich making has yet to happen!
Percy: And not the square sandwiches. We want the long ones.
Me: But those take a lot of bread. You need like, a baguette to make one of those.
Peter: We're bordering France!

I love these kids. They are delightful and hilarious and they do not piss me off.
There are people who are pissing me off lately, but that is more drama than I care to deal with or discuss. Let it be known, though, that I am holding tight to my new philosophy of standards and dignity.

School starts again tomorrow. Wooohooo.

Love always,
Clara

i have a problem with firefox tabs

Tabs that have been in my tab-bar in the past few hours:

• Facebook | Bottle o' Messages
• Google Search Results: salami (Eleni...)
  
• Puppy Pictures
• How to type upside down
• Google Search Results: you cant say no to me tiger (see note)
• Paris Hilton and her Pic [PIC]
• This is why you're fat
  

note: I was looking for a song by a band with the word 'tiger' in the name, with the lyrics "You can't say no to me". Once I hit 'search' I realized the other possible interpretations.
Evidently, Tiger can't say no to many people.
(teehee, pop culture reference!)
(I guess that one's getting old though.)

Anyway, I just went and downloaded a whole bunch of music!

Countdown - Phoenix
Song for You - Alexi Murdoch
I Sing I Swim - Seabear
How Does It Feel - Monta
Oh Horatio - Tiger Lou
The Crane Wife 3 - The Decemberists
Fill My Little World - The Feeling
This Is the Life - Amy MacDonald
These Streets - Paolo Nutini
Resurrection Fern - Iron & Wine
Bad Romance - Lady GaGa
Gettin Drip - Wallpaper

Music makes me so happy.
What a cliche.
I always feel like such a little teenage-girl-joke when I say anything about music. I feel like someone is going to jump out of the closet and say "You're making that up! You're just saying that to sound cool!"
Especially because most of my preferred artists are on the fringes of fame, not popular but usually familiar. It's like I'm trying to be edgy or something, except when I have a Miley Cyrus moment.

These are some statements that are true, but I feel like everyone says, which makes them feel less true:

• I listen to what I like; I like what I listen to.
• I'm not really a fan of what's on the radio (especially here. In Switzerland, the radio is all bad 80s and 90s music. 'My Heart Will Go On' played in the car today)
• I would probably die without my iPod. Music keeps me sane.
  

It just has this terribly familiar ring of inauthenticity, doesn't it? I don't mean to sound this way. But it's true!

Gah. Caring what people think is such a waste of energy, and I see now that I've been caring too much whether people think I care what people think. How ironic and backwards.

Well, here's a confession: I don't get Animal Collective. I like 'Summertime Clothes'. That's about it.

Love always,
Clara

chili might actually have competition

Mom and Grace and I went to an indoor pool/spa this morning. I've been feeling sleepy since we got back. So I'll just post some quick interesting facts of the day.

This blog is sort of interesting. It's mostly about food. But the reason I like it is that its name is based on an idiom that makes sense in latin (sort of) that Catullus used.
Who said AP Latin Lit wouldn't be useful?

This blog is also interesting. I'm of the opinion that American diplomacy needs more of this kind of thing.
I've come to the conclusion that the only way to keep people from bombing/attacking us is to get people to stop wanting to bomb/attack us. Because, honestly, you can change the airline safety regulations all you want, but if someone is really determined to mess with America, they're going to find a way to do it.

I saw the second cutest dog in the world yesterday, by the way. He must have been a puppy because he was about as big as my shoe, and he was white with a little brown splotch over his eye.
I literally dreamed about it. So cute. I'm obsessed.

Love always,
Clara

snap back to reality

Everyone's gone home.
I don't quite know what to do with myself (except the obvious: work).

I'm feeling too self-indulgent to be very productive today, to be perfectly honest. Mom and I tried to go to the mall, because there are some pretty insane sales right now. But everything was closed.

Mom: Why is everything closed?
Me: Maybe it's Sunday.
Mom: I don't think it's Sunday. How do we check?
Me: I don't know.

I checked my phone. It's Saturday.

We had lunch at this awesome Thai place.

Mom: Why is everything closed?
Waitress: It's Sunday.
Me: It's Saturday! We had this debate!
Waitress: Well, it's not really Sunday, but it's like a Sunday. It's a religious holiday. In the rest of the world, it's Saturday, but at Westside [the mall], it's Sunday.
Mom: So everything was closed yesterday because it was New Year's Day, and today it's a fake Sunday, and tomorrow it's a real Sunday?
Waitress: Yep.

Switzerland is a really weird place, especially on Sundays (real and otherwise).

Love always,
Clara