stressin'

I've decided I'm stressed out and that's my problem.

1. Worry or anxiety
2. Confusion, and an inability to concentrate or make decisions
3. Feeling ill
4. Feeling out of control or overwhelmed by events
5. Being more lethargic
   
6. Mood changes:

• Depression
• Frustration
• Hostility
• Helplessness
• Impatience & irritability
• Restlessness

(via a link from my psych course)
I feel like all of that describes me pretty well right now.
What's frustrating is that on the very next page, it talks about "Optimizing Stress."
See, in my head, that sounds like saying, "Wow, those Nazis sure were efficient! Maybe we could put them to good use!"

Just no.

However, I am going to start trying to manage my stress. Goodbye, redbull at lunch. I'm going to start drinking more tea, eating more oranges, doing more cardio, and possibly seeking soy milk, which is hard to find in Switzerland.
Anyone else have any tips?

I find it ironic that at the moment I feel most stressed, my psychology unit is about stress management. Thanks, psychology!

Love always,
Clara

i really don't know what to do with myself

Between yesterday and today...

• I left the house a total of once.
• I took several naps.
• I spent approximately four hours on an amount of physics work that should have taken me two.
• I ate more than necessary.
• I despaired.

Why the despair? I have no idea.

See, this is my problem. I hate it when I get like this, but I do, occasionally, and I don't ever know what to do about it except blog, because when I blog I realize how annoyingly self-pitying I sound, and usually that makes me erase everything I've typed and bat out some post about what I discovered looking up Taco Bell on Wikipedia.

I like to write.

But I'm afraid I like to write because I like to talk about myself, and I don't think that's going to work for me, in the long run, if writing is something I want to do, in the long run. Most of you reading this, I would wager, know me, or at least have met me, so I'm hoping my thoughts (about myself) are at least a little bit interesting to you, but most of the world does not know me, and what to do about that?

Answer: Start writing about things that are more relevant to the rest of the world. Universal themes. Pillars of humanity.

I'm seventeen.

That simply isn't going to work.

So I'm stuck in this weird spot where I'm spending a lot of time doing things I'm not interested in doing, and I'd always assumed that time in my life would be my 30s or something, that era of required-career, but no, it's started already, and I can't put my finger on when.

Hell, I'd always assumed I'd be too good for that phase, and I'd breeze right through everything and find my calling and just do that for the rest of my life, and just be happy.

In retrospect, I've been pissed off about people wasting my time since the fourth grade.

I'd rather be pissed off than whatever I was today.

Apologies for the self-indulgent rambling today but honestly, you're reading my blog and this is what I have to say right now, and if you expected anything else then I'm sure there is higher quality reading material somewhere out there on the internet.

Love always,
Clara

a musical outlet

What I've been listening to, in a convenient easy-to-stalk format.

Love always,
Clara

apologies for my absence yesterday

Yesterday was supposed to be a ski day but it was cancelled due to high winds, so we had school. School was also windy. There was an epic rainstorm during German (right before lunch) and I was afraid I'd have to walk to lunch in the rain, but it stopped.

Very considerate of the rainclouds to wait until I'd gotten my lunch to open the skies again.

I went home, changed, and went out again, first to the marine house, then to Worb where some people were hanging out. It was a good time.

I'm so tired today though. And not really feeling very interesting.

I hate that feeling. Does anyone else ever get that? It's worse than feeling bored, it's feeling boring. It's the worst, and if you haven't felt it, you're not missing a thing.

I made friends with a cat yesterday.

It's getting warm in switzerland. I'm thrilled about it.

Love always,
Clara

sunrise in seidenburg

sunrise in seidenburg, originally uploaded by csb324.

This is what i look at when i take the tram. Can you believe I live in the city?
Except now, it's light out when I get up in the morning.
Which is nice.

Love always,
Clara

work work work can be fun

Edward Burger: So this term goes to zero, and this term goes to zero, and it looks like all the terms are going to zero but it hasn't! The -1 remains! And it lives on to tell the children about the massacre.

I like thinking of numbers as people. Sometimes I like those people. Sometimes, I want to massacre them. When I'm finding the limit of certain equations, I can!

Edward Burger: I'm going to pretend to be a calculus student. Not you, someone else. A bit of role play here. In fact, I'm going to use my calculus student nom de plume, which really just means I'll use a different color marker. That's a bit of french. I'll teach you french! I'll teach you spanish too. Hola! Me llamo Eduardo.

I'm doing german homework right now. It's great. I have to talk for three minutes about a picture, and make up a story.

This is what I've written so far, according to Google Translate.

Here is a sad mother.
it's a beautiful day in the small village. it is a Sunday and the church brings people together. But the mother, the very image god, she can not go to church. She has too many poor children and the children always make trouble. The church must always have peace.
Yesterday, the priest said to mutter, "My wife, her children can not come to church applied early morning."
The mother was very sad.
Today is the Sunday market. A man buys bread. You buy a different fruits. The children want to have fruits, but his mother says, "If they remained at home"
You say, "No!" and they run everywhere. They are very stupid. They have great pay and they are not so nice. There are ten children.
The mother says, "Come back to them!" and they say, "No, never! Ahahaha!"
The smallest girl runs from the village. Tonight, the mother will look for their children and she would find nine. The girl who is not so stupid, very intelligent, they would find another family. You'll be glad.

I feel like there's something almost poetic about using such simple language. Although that's not why I do it. I do it because I don't know enough german to get any more complex.

Love always,
Clara

wolves

Chris

did u know after mating, wolves stay locked together for almost 30 minutes?

me

really?

that is an interesting fact

haha

Chris

yeah

unless you see it in practice while eating dinner

its very off-putting

Umm okay then. I sort of want to ask. But then again... I'm definitely not going to.

I wish I could set up a poll on blogger. Math vs. Maths.

Also, Ass vs. Arse.

Commenters, I summon thee. Battle it out.

Love always,
Clara

please, do it for the shopping carts

Your Shopping Cart is empty.
Your Shopping Cart lives to serve. Give it purpose--fill it with books, CDs, videos, DVDs, toys, electronics, and more.

(via Amazon.com)

I've been poking around amazon.com looking for a used flipcam (Changecam/Obamacam broke! It's terrible), but for a lot of things on Amazon you have to put them into your cart before you can see the price. So that's how I got to that screen.

The reason I'm suddenly acutely feeling the loss of the darling Changecam is that I've started vlogging again! Or, it's probably too soon to say whether I'll continue with it, but I vlogged yesterday and enjoyed it!

My new computer, which is coming in a few weeks, will have better video-editing software than Patrick, so I really want to put that to good use. Which is better done with a functional camera.

I'm thinking of naming the new Macbook (pro!) Sandy, in keeping with the Spongebob Squarepants theme. After all, she'll be smarter than Patrick, and she's a squirrel living underwater, much like an American living in Europe, and isn't that a great metaphor for life?

Of course, I can't make this decision until I meet her. Or him. I don't even know the baby's sex and I'm thinking of names.

My god, when I have real children, it's going to be weird.

Anyway, you can see the vloggingness here as well, but yesterday's video was basically a restatement of the ass/arse musings yesterday. So it's a redundant vlog, if you're here already.

Regardless:

Don't worry, blog babies. I will still tend to you daily.

That sounded weird. I think vlogging makes me weirder.

Or not.

Hmmmm.

Sourabh: What does this word mean?

Herr M: Human. You know, like, made out of meat and bones? and mortal?

German class was weird today. Actually, it's always weird.

Love always,
Clara

stress is lame.

While studying the eating behavior of San Francisco Junior League women and their husbands, Friedman and Rosenman discovered that the women consumed as much cholesterol and fat as their husbands did, yet they were far less susceptible to heart disease. . . . The Junior League president thought she knew the answer: "It's the stress they have to face in their businesses, day in, day out," she said sadly. "Why, when my husband comes home at night, it takes at least one martini just to unclench his jaws."

Note to self: Move to San Francisco, join Junior League. I wish it were still okay for women to not-have-stress.

That sounds like a terrible postfeminist the-handmaid's-tale thing to say, but isn't anyone tempted to spend their adulthoods making cookies and serving tea?

Not that I'm against having a career. Careers are nice. But they're stressful. And I don't want to be stressed out my whole life.

I wonder how those men felt though, thinking that they had to be the stressed ones because their wives were too frail/stupid/whatever-fueled-sexism-those-days. If I'd been a working man in the 1950s, I would have been jealous of my wife.

Love always,
Clara

and I'm the dumbarse?

I'm talking to Robert while he writes an essay. That's always fun.

Robert
i'll need you for the limitations paragraph later on
me
i don't know anyting about heart transplants
Robert
you are admitted to a hospital right?
me
well yes
heart transplant is not something they can do in your living room
Robert
it was about the usage of the word admitted
dumbarse
me
hahahaha ohhh
and i'm the dumbarse?
at least i know how to speak english

You know what bothers me? People who say "arse." It used to seem sort of cool and british but a bit annoying. Then I discovered something. It's not pronounced "Arse" when people who are legitimately foreign say it. It's pronounced "ass". But they think the way Americans say "ass" sounds overly nasal, so they threw an R into the word.
So "Arse" isn't a word. And if you say "Arse" and pronounce the R, you're being silly. The 'R' is not supposed to be there. "Arse" is a word that people with accents made up so that they could say the word "Ass" and still sound a bit pretentious.

[Yes, I'm aware that to them, I have an accent, and I'm aware that there are about two hundred other flaws with my argument, but the basic point is, do not let me hear you say 'ARRse' because I will do this whole rant all over again, to your face, with feeling]

Love always,
Clara

wake up in the morning...

Feeling like Karen O or something. Or this girl:

Minus the random muscular display. Also, tired.

This post has two parts:

1. I overslept this morning.

My alarm went of at 7:06 as usual and I got up and turned it off and I might have even had a conversation with my dad. And then I went right back to sleep and suddenly it was 7:30 and I was still in bed and I had to be out of the house and fed by 7:54. So that was fun.

I threw on clothes and realized what I was wearing (a shirt-dress-thing that I bought at Fall Frolics in 10th grade [hey do you guys remember that? Isabella? Tree photos? Good times!]) really wasn't going to be sufficient in terms of covering-my-ass but I didn't have time to deal with that so I just wore it anyway. Which made this day a little more interesting.

I also had to sacrifice my morning coffee for the sake of time. So my oversleeping didn't make me energized or anything. It was such a waste. I'd much rather have coffee than oversleep.

2. Music!

I was randomly feeling hipster-ish today. So I ran around downloading 'hipster music' from all over the place. It is great fun.

Graveyard Girl - M83

Young Folks - Peter Bjorn and John

Dog Days are Over - Florence + The Machine

Just A Silhouette - Ex Lovers

Islands - The XX

Backyards - Broken Social Scene and Emily Haines (a.k.a. the girl from Metric)

Timshel - Mumford & Sons

So Far - Chris Garneau

Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes

Blue Ridge Mountains - Fleet Foxes (Yeah, Virginia is pretty sweet, we know, indie music world)

Swimmers - Broken Social Scene

Far Away - Cut Copy

Bluish - Animal Collective

Stillness Is the Move - Dirty Projectors

So yeah that's basically what I did today.

Love always,
Clara

can differential equations bring romance?

I love Edward Burger so much.

I couldn't just type a transcription of this little rant. I had to post a link. Go there. Click.
This is what I get to watch every day.

Love always,
Clara

talking to strangers

Procrastination to the max, yo.
I've been playing with Omegle.

Stranger
hi

me
you are beautiful

quit your job

run away with me

into the sunset

Stranger
first off

my job pays too much
im a guy so im not beautiful

im handsome and dashing

me
oh even better

Stranger
lol

me
i'll just move in with you then, you dashing man with a high-paying job

marvelous.

That conversation got pretty weird pretty quickly after that point.

Stranger
a wild abra appeared!
me
did it?
damn it, all i've got is one of those damn pigeon things.
scratch!
Stranger
the wild abra used teleport
[Stranger has disconnected]

Pokemon nerdiness flashback. I used to love that game. I had it on my pink Gameboy Color. Good times.

Love always,
Clara

nostalgia and internet radio

Ironically, this bout of nostalgia has come about because I'm noticing something remarkable. I've begun to feel the same way about ISBerne as I did about Potomac last year. I did not know that was possible and I'm still not sure whether it's allowed.

I miss you guys though.

So here's a flashback.

Mom and I had a hilarious conversation last night. I think she'd had a drink tonight, and she's like me in that one drink is quite enough.

Mom: [says something quite frank that I will not repeat]

Me: Okay, this is where the conversation gets too open. I'm going to bed.

Mom: Goodnight.... DON'T TWITTER THAT!

I've been sorely missing Pandora lately (which doesn't work outside the US) so I've spent the last few days exploring the world of online radio. I'd say my favorite right now is Jelli. It's cool because you can vote for the songs you want to play. But the experience would be better if more people used it. So... spread the word!

One thing though- If you're on a mac, there's a plugin you might have to download, which Safari doesn't tell you about. If it doesn't play, try using Firefox and it'll send you through the process. From there it's pretty straightforward.

Come vote for good music with me!

Love always,
Clara

yall, next time there's a party, play this game

*Mom enters the room*

Mom: You know what we used to do when we were in our twenties?

Me: ... what?

Mom: When we were having a beer-party or something... we would play hide and seek!

Me: What?

Mom: Or that other game, sardines. This house would be perfect for that. We should have done it at Christmas!

*Mom leaves the room*

Going to the Fasnacht festivities today. I'm excited.

Listening to some music that Katie sent me. It's free, and it's made by some Yale kids, and I respect people more when they're smart, so listen to this album!

Love always,
Clara

i need to get out more.

I'm on a music thing.

I basically had another terrible physics-filled day.

New Theory - Washed Out
White Lines & Red Lights - Between the Trees
Save - The Rocket Summer
Compliment Each Other Like Colors - PlayRadioPlay!
Don't Quit! Not Quite! - HeyHiHello!
Fuck was I - Jenny Owen Youngs
Natural Disaster - Alexz Johnson
2 a.m. - Alexz Johnson
Your Eyes - Alexz Johnson

Yesterday was fun, once I got out of the house. Wolfman was a surprisingly entertaining movie. Chris, Thomas, Emily, Matt, and I went to see it, and the guys were all enthralled with the blood and such and I was freaking out over the Romantic themes and symbols ("oh my god! The candle! It's like the lamp! Illumination! Knowledge! This is where the revelations are going to happen!" "Okay. Do you think there's going to be an epic wolf-fight at the end?"). It was great.

The movie let out at like, 7, so we grabbed some food and met up with people. It's Fasnacht. Which is a weird swiss holiday in which adults dress up in costumes and marching bands hang out and play contemporary songs (such as ABBA medleys). It was crazy but awesome.

And today I stayed inside all day long and it sucked.

There's a lesson here.

Love always,
Clara

awkward walk-by

This happened to me yesterday.

I was walking with my mom around town. We were hungry. We were looking for lunch. And I see Connor, a freshman at ISBerne whom I'm acquainted with, but I wouldn't say we're best friends or anything.

This is basically what happened:

1. We see each other (walking toward each other on the sidewalk)
2. I wave.
3. He says hi. I say hi.
4. He asks how I am. I say fine and ask the same.
5. We are still walking in our original directions.
6. I cannot hear him answer because I've walked away.

It was really awkward. But it was the sort of thing where I had two options.

1. Keep walking (as I did)
2. Stop and try to have a conversation.

The thing is, had either of us stopped, we would have been in the middle of a pretty busy sidewalk, and we wouldn't really have had anything more to say besides "Hey, how are you, fine thanks," etc etc. And then after about five seconds the mutual discomfort would get overwhelming and we'd have a really awkward "well.. see you monday I guess" (shouted over the noise of the city, obvi) and we'd go our separate ways again.

So what was I supposed to do?! What's the right choice?!

Inevitable awkwardness.

Love always,
Clara

ugh world exploding fail

Honestly, physics is going to kill me. This is a problem. I usually like physics.

But I just spent three hours doing the theoretically easiest lab on the planet (accelerations of things on ramps. Hooray for that).

I blame technology.

DID YOU KNOW:

• Microsoft Excel doesn't let you change the x-axis of your graphs? You can change the "labels" but it doesn't change the values. Your y-values are ALWAYS EVENLY SPACED, EVEN WHEN THAT MAKES NO SENSE IN CONTEXT.
• Microsoft Word doesn't like letting you shrink your charts a little, so they always take up a page and a half when it's wholly unnecessary?
• I need to check my email more often?
• I'M STRESSED OUT OF MY MIND RIGHT NOW?

I can feel the stress. Literally. It's in my neck. I need a massage. Right now. But no time for that. I need to do work!

But I've been working for three hours and I'm burned out and I just want to print this thing and we're out of paper anyways.

I'm seeing a movie with people tonight.

That'll be nice.

Love always,
Clara

the red light's really just a suggestion

Me: Mom, the light was red.

Mom: Only if you're going left.

Me: We're going left.

Mom: Well, we are now.

The only other way to go left was to turn straight into a building. I think mom has some trouble with traffic laws.

I'm going ice skating today! I'm so excited. I love ice skating. I'm not especially good at ice skating, but I like to do it, and that's what counts!

I wish I were in lower school again. My philosophy fits in so much better there.

Love always,
Clara

what do i want to be when I grow up?

I was hanging out with Matt the other day, and we got to this topic. He wants to be a policeman.

But what a terrifying question.

A list of things that I can see myself doing happily:

• I could own a business. Preferably something cute. Cupcake bakery. Bookstore. I'd love to be like that girl in 'Stranger than Fiction' with the anarchist bakery (although I'd have to become an anarchist)
• I could be creative. I love photography. I love writing. I love music (but I really don't see that going anywhere, unfortunately). I could write a column for a newspaper. I could write a book. I could write columns, and then put these columns into a book, accompanied by my original photography! So many options!
• I could teach. I like kids. I especially like smart kids, so I'd have to teach the advanced classes or something. I feel like I could pull off teaching english or math or something. There was a point in my life when I wanted to be a high school guidance counsellor but I can't remember why.
• Going into advertising could be fun, but it could also be frustrating. I'm not a huge fan of working with other people (or, rather, relinquishing control to the less-qualified-by-my-standards) (yes I know how terrible that sounds).
• Honestly, I'd be happy with a few kids, as long as I could write at the same time, teach them things, and possibly put them to work in my cupcake bakery. I'm really excited to nerdify my children.

All of this is coming from a girl who would have told you ten years ago that her favorite subjects were math and science.

Yikes.

Too many options.

Not enough clear choices. No sure-bets.

This is like the college search all over again. I'm probably getting started too early, and falling in love with a lot of great options, and having no safeties, because I refuse to settle for anything less than what I deserve.

It worked out okay in terms of college.

In terms of a career, I might be screwed by my high standards for my own happiness.

Oh well. Better than the alternative, right?

Love always,
Clara

just you and me.

Edward Burger: Let's see if we can do some fantasy math here. No one's around, it's just the two of us.

If Edward Burger were anything other than an online math teacher, I'd be sketched out by that comment.

Yesterday I went over to Danny's house with some people to watch guys play video games and then watch The Hangover. It felt very John's-Basement, which was nice. Danny's 9th grade brother even hung around, just like old times! Except no one else understood why that was a sort of nostalgic coincidence for me.

Emily (my fellow american, whom everyone calls a 'beaner' because she has some Mexican roots) went to the military base in Germany yesterday. She told me all about it.

Emily: CLARA YOU HAVE TO GO. It's the greatest thing! There's a Macaroni Grill!

Me: A what? Like, a grill? That grills macaroni? Whattt?

[Emily explains that it's a restaurant]

Emily: And there's a Chili's! And a taco bell!

Matt: Haha! The beaner is excited about taco bell! Food from her homeland!

Emily: Um I didn't even eat taco bell. I did have fajitas at Chili's though...

I really want to go to this base now. They have all these American stores and restaurants and such, and I'm sort of craving that at the moment.

Love always,
Clara

dinner with some canadians and brits

I went to Chris's house today. We had dinner with his family. His father has a cold. It's hilarious.

Mr. W: The thing about [redacted] is that he didn't travel well.

Mrs. W: That makes him sound like pottery shaking around in its box.

Mr. W: Well yes, and then when he got here he stopped shaking around so much. [redacted], on the other hand, was always just fine.

Mrs. W: Well you know why? He had packing peanuts! The other one just had bubble wrap!

Me: Of course!

At this point in the conversation, Mrs W and I were cracking up and Chris and Mr. W were staring at each other completely bewildered.

Mr. W: I'm an artist.

Mrs. W: Have you seen one of your drawings?

Mr. W: No, I think I... I transcend that kind of thing.

Me: I had a headache like that one time.

I always get a little artsy and metaphysical when I have headaches. That, or bitchy and unpleasant. Or all of the above.

Me: Desmond Tutu spoke at my sister's graduation. She went to University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. W: ... isn't that where the ferret is or something?

... later...

Mr. W: Nah, I really like Desmond Tutu. He's my main man.

Love always,
Clara

ski days video!

Song is Giving Up the Gun - Vampire Weekend

Love always,
Clara

patrick is freaking out

Here's a fun game (for some of you). I'm taking Patrick the white 13 inch Macbook (bought in 2006) to the apple store in Zurich.

He's sick.

If one of you can figure out what is wrong with him before I leave the apple store, I'll give you a prize and an awesome shoutout. (Note: the prize might be the shoutout)

• Patrick makes a weird clicking noise persistently when waking up from being asleep. He always made those laptop-opening noises, but these are LOUD and have led the boys in the student lounge to believe my Patrick doubles as a vibrator.
• The CPU has panic attacks every once in a while. I have the Activity Monitor icon on my dock showing me my CPU usage (Note: I have no idea what that even means), and sometimes the whole thing is covered in green and red and Patrick gets a fever.
• My battery lasts about ten minutes. It pretends it's not about to die, and then it dies. I've had to use Patrick plugged in for the past couple weeks.
• The disc drive doesn't work. It won't take CDs. It's like there's physically something blocking it at one point.

I did the software update which helped for like, a day, and I thought that would be the end of this story, but all of the problems came back. I'm really not a fan.

So that's my big mission for the day. Patrick may get a baby brother or sister, that's how dire the situation seems to me right now. It's been a good three years.

Yesterday was a funny day.

Lyna: Clara, I saw you!

Me: (confused) Um... I see you now, Lyna!

George: Hehe avatar. I see you.

Me: Ahahaha oh yes, I see you Lyna! I see into your soul!

George will always be there with an Avatar joke.

George always tips his hat.

Love always,
Clara

more music from thomas

I feel like such a musical anglophile right now, although I'm not sure all of these bands are British. Regardless, I just had an iTunes moment (at school, no less) and have downloaded the following, based on Thomas's recommendations.

I Felt Stupid - The Drums
Airplanes - Local Natives
Norway - Beach House
Black Wax - Dananananaykroyd
Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men - The Strokes & Regina Spektor
Someday - The Strokes
Laura - Girls
Rainbowarriors - CocoRosie
2080 - Yeasayer
Ambling Alp - Yeasayer
Little Shadow - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Skeletons - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Also just downloaded, on David's recommendations,
Paris Nights/New York Mornings - Corinne Bailey Rae

If you want more of David's music tastes, predictions, and insights, he's started a blog of his own that I highly recommend. Legit, it's in my bookmarks. And that's legit, yo.

In closing, let me share a quote from my psychology textbook.

Indeed, the more a person's baseline frontal lobe activity tilts left, the more upbeat the person typically is. (When you're happy and you know it, your brain will surely show it.)

Love always,
Clara

that closet is intense

A real conversation with the school P.E. teacher.

On friday we legit-student-council kids painted the smaller kids' faces on the ski train, in the name of school spirit.

Mr. P: Oh Clara, I still have the face paint from friday. What should I do with it?

Me: Um, I don't really know. I think it was Mr. C's. Rashmeen got it from him.

Mr. P: Oh yeah, that sounds like one of his party games...

Me: Yep, he's got a lot of interesting things in that closet.

Mr. P: [eyebrow raise]

Mr C, for the record, is the one who helped us set up for the 80's dance. He has this closet full of things like inflatable guitars and plastic cups and such. Just saying.

Love always,
Clara

some things to blog about

Here are some things I plan to blog in the near future.

• Thomas has sent me another truckful of music. I plan to preview all of these and probably download at least half, so you'll hear all about that.
• I'm going to do another interview, probably not with Percy.
• A review of the school Valentine's Day Sale (and festivities)
• I'll probably complain a lot about things I could prevent, like sleep deprivation.
• Random nostalgia (which has been hitting me lately. I've figured out that Matt D. reminds me of Samlet, and thinking about Samlet gets me thinking about america, and then we're back at nostalgia.)

Speaking of Matt D...

Today, during Art class, I made signs for the valentine's day sale. I'll post pictures of them tomorrow. I'm pretty proud of them. Thomas told me he wasn't going to buy anything for Emily but then he saw my awesome poster and changed his mind. I am so influential.

Anyway, I ran around hanging these signs after art, and Matt stole one and ran around with it for a while. I finally chased him into the D building, where I'd intended to hang that sign. And then he hangs it crooked and starts sticking me with tape.

I was like "You are so frustrating! You are just like Sam!"

And he was like "Who the hell is Sam?"

And I was like "Um... he's cool. Except when he's frustrating."

That was today.

I also discovered that there's a coffeeshop in Muri.

Love always,
Clara

that poem is such a whore

This is a 100% real conversation. We were in english class, saying how in order to do an oral commentary, it's more important to prove that you know about the poem than say why you like it.

Mr M-T: You don't have to like the poem, you just have to know how to talk about it.

Mariam: That feels like gossip.

Me: Yeah, but you're just saying facts. You're not like "Oh, did you hear what that poem did last night?"

George: Hmm, well... Did you hear what that poem did last night? ... It got lyrical!

I cracked up at that. I really did.

Tomorrow, student council begins our valentines day card/flower sale. I plan on sending a lot of cards (mostly anonymous). Can't say who I'll send 'em to though. Wait and see.

For now, I'm trying to help Robert figure out what to say to his potential lover on her valentine's day card.

clara

idk, don't use words like "enjoy" and "half term"

Robert

what's wrong with them?

clara

they're just not sexy

Robert

"It's sexy spending time with you. I'll take you to the movies when I return from Singapore"

clara

YES.

I like that wording much better.

Love always,
Clara

thanks, kiosk man.

This story of human connection is in two parts.

Part 1: last week I had some time before my morning tram, so I went to the Kiosk to buy some gum. I was probably stumbling through my German pretty badly, because the Kiosk man asked me, "sprichts du francosich?" or something like that, to which I (sheepishly) said "nein... English."

He smiled and told me to have a nice day.
That is part one.

Part 2: today, again, I had time before my tram, and I was out of gum, so I went back. That particular Kiosk is close to my tram stop, so it makes sense.
So I go and buy some gum and a diet coke and I pay and everything and at the end of the transaction, the guy says "Have a nice day!"
He then explained (in English about as bad as my German) that he recognized my headphones (which are pretty recognizable).

Highlight of my morning? Yes. I'm on the tram right now but I had to blog this. It was beautiful. People rock sometimes.

Love always,
Clara

rat sex.

Narrator: But first, he told me I would need a crash course in rat sex.

I'm watching a video for psychology. This week's chapter is on sexual motivation, and the aforementioned video is entitled "Homosexuality and the Nature-Nurture Debate."
The answer is pretty conclusively nature, by the way, even though identical twins can be different things.

Narrator: So does the fact that [twin] Steve is gay and [twin] Greg is straight prove that it's not in the genes?
Scientist: Well it proves that sexuality isn't entirely genetic.
Narrator: (pleased with herself) Well that brings us back to the mother and father!
Scientist: No it doesn't.
Narrator: Yes it does! That's the environment!
Scientist: No. We're talking about the environment in utero.

The narrator has an agenda, clearly. She's some trashy blonde aging woman in denial, in the late eighties (from what I can tell).

Anyway, one of the ways they know that these things are mostly influenced by biological factors is that they can manipulate rats' sexual orientations. And that's what brings us to the quote at the top.

[Edited because this narrator is definitely high]

Scientist: The more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay.
Narrator: Say that again!
Scientist: The more older brothers a man has, the more likely that man is to be gay.
Narrator: Is that true!?
Scientist: That is absolutely true.
Narrator: Absolutely true?!?!
Scientist: Absolutely.
Narrator: ..... Wait a minute....

Also, here's a funfact. One of the sexual-orientation scientists' names is Dr. Breedlove.

Love always,
Clara

this explains so much.

I'm talking to David. We're talking about Anaheim or something.

David
allstar game is in annahiem
(clearly i have given up spelling for this convo)
clara
oh who the hell knows how to spell anaheim?
David
we'll just pretend its for lent or something noble
true true
clara
wait i think it's antietem
or something
with random Ts in it
or is that something else?
David
clara, do i need to tell your mom to take away your crack pipe again?
aneheim does not have ts!
just looked it up
its anaheim
clara
damnnn
what am i thinking of then?
David
too much german if you ask me
clara
probs
reminds me of some civil war battle though
so lost in life
that is me
David
anteitem?
clara
not the same thing as anaheim?
totally thought it was an alternate pronunciation

I seriously had no idea that these were two different locations. I feel really silly.

Love always,
Clara

ski days: episode four

I thought the weather was bad last week. I was very wrong.

Today was sort of interesting though.

I got to stare into the abyss.

It snowed today, but more relevantly, it was foggy. I mean like, can-hardly-see-the-lift-chair-in-front-of-you foggy.

Skiing in that was exciting at best. You never knew when it was going to be steep or flat or packed snow or powder. And you couldn't go too slowly because you would lose the group. At one point, the people in front of me looked like ghosts. And all I could see was white-grey and some shadows in the distance, and I thought, "This is probably what death is like," because I'm morbid like that, and I was cold and sort of feeling like death anyway. I had a headache.

So that was interesting.

Me: I have never wanted to eat this badly in my life.

Natasha: Really?

Me: No, that's probably a lie.

Now I'm having about a thousand conversations on msn and facebook chat and whatever else, and it's getting complicated, so I'm going to go try to manage my social life.

Oh speaking of, I'm going to school to work on yearbook tomorrow!

The fact that this qualifies as "social life" is sort of sad, but I don't mind because I really like working on yearbook.

Love always,

Clara

in a rock-ish mood

Probably has to do with walking around a music store that sells almost exclusively hardcore metal. I didn't really run into anything there that I liked... or even recognized.

Well, that's a lie.

Me: "Anthrax"... "Anorexia Nervosa"... It's like they go through the dictionary looking for words with negative connotations.

Chris: Oh hey, that's a good band!

Um, who is this kid?

Anyway, I was feeling adventurous and tried to check out some of these bands that I was told I should know of. I didn't like most of it, so I went back to my Jack's-Mannequin-comfort-zone of rock-type music. But it's not British, so I'm considering it a change from my last music episode.

Cell Phone - Jack's Mannequin

Sand In Your Shoes (acoustic) - This Providence

New York (Saint In the City) - The Academy Is...

Magnolia - The Hush Sound

Paper Chase - The Academy Is...

Do You Feel - The Rocket Summer

The Running Free - Coheed & Cambria

These songs are reminiscent of my ninth-grade music obsessions, actually. Ninth grade was when I discovered Jack's Mannequin and The Academy Is... and The Hush Sound. The first two I was introduced to on the field hockey bus. Isabel and Jenna listened to them (hey guys, not that I stalked or anything, but we all do crazy things freshman year), so it was the cool thing to do, and then I realized I liked both bands a lot.

And The Hush Sound was my own very independent discovery, probably with the help of Pandora or something. Same with The Rocket Summer.

My favorite song in ninth grade was "Brat Pack" by The Rocket Summer.

This ain't where it's at

My friends will second that

And I gotta admit, sometimes it's pretty sad

But it's like we're our own brat pack,

We're always kicking back,

Nobody can take that, that's that,

It's like it's all we have

It reminded me quite vividly of the time spent under the stairs in the East Building. We were sort of lame. We knew we were sort of lame. But we were playing Extreme Heli Boarding and listening to the mango song and laughing our asses off all the time, and it was a good place for me to be.

That song still takes me back. I very distinctly remember jumping around to it in my room one June evening.

So maybe later today I'll know

What I will do with my life as I know it

Maybe for now I'll drive back

to that place where I belong

And hope to god it hasn't changed...

I remember that night so clearly. It was shortly after Darfur Night, I think.

What a crossroads of life that was. I am just now realizing how interesting ninth grade was. I feel so removed from it, but it was only three years ago. I feel like a different person. But also the same person.

I mean, I'm still loving The Hush Sound and The Rocket Summer. I can't have changed much.

The way I act has changed a bit.

Who I am has not changed.

My core is my core.

But my life is a completely different animal.

Love always,
Clara

creativity-action-service

The CAS things are due tomorrow. Everyone is freaking out about signatures and supervisors and hours and reflections and such. I literally just started using the online-manager today. It's dandy.

This blog is "evidence" in several cases.

Honestly though, I have an issue with CAS. I don't like the idea that you have to have a supervisor for everything. I would have thousands of creativity-hours if I didn't need a supervisor. National Novel Writing Month? I think that's creativity. Holgapics? Definitely.

Although creativity isn't my issue. My issue is service. That's my own problem, I suppose, and I'll accept that.

I still hate the fact that the system assumes we are incapable of being productive unless someone signs off on it for us. It's all so condescending. Another flaw of the IB system though- Ms C could probably take our words for it that we don't just sit like potatoes all day after school, but the International Baccalaureate headquarters don't know us.

Everything is so impersonal.

One of the things I've realized I value the most about Potomac is that we're judged in context. Improvement is noted. Circumstances are u|nderstood. The IBO just looks at your paper and says "Well, that isn't good enough. Criteria!"

I hate the word "criteria." It's everywhere here. And it's generally some kind of nebulous thing pretending to be specific. "Understanding of Key Terms."

... What?

Gah. School. Life. Whatever.

Love always,
Clara

interview #1

I interviewed Percy tonight. It was enlightening. I plan to ask other people this question as well, just by the way. And this all took place over msn.

clara

oh hey can i interview you briefly?
Percy
Yea alright
Go ahead
clara
okay
this is for the blog btw
Percy
Alright
I like sex
Its nice:P
clara
hahaha okay
that's not the question though

Although it's an interesting point to note.

clara

what's been your most embarrassing/stupid moment?
Percy
Hmmm def yesterday when Tessa told me she has a lil crush on me
clara
okay yeah that was hilarious/awkward. ummm okay did that make you feel connected to the larger world?
(I guess that follow-up question fits better with other people's embarrassing moments)
but if you ahve any insights, feel free to share
Percy
No... actually not
Wait
Thats a lie
Now i know how it feels to be liked be tessa. Whne other guys told me they were traumatized i laughed at them. Yesterday was traumatizing for me as well
Haha

So there you have it. Percy likes sex, unless it's with Tessa, in which case the mere thought is traumatizing.

None of these revelations are especially surprising. But in our next installment, maybe we will find more nuggets of wisdom.

Love always,
Clara

lockdown, and a bad mood

We just had a "lockdown" at school, in which we simulate some crazy person with a gun and a lot of anger coming into the school. We have to close the windows (?), shut the door, and hide under the (bulletproof, clearly) tables.

We managed to survive. Somehow.

I'm in a bad mood this morning. My class is loud. The student lounge is essentially a zoo. The school doesn't respect us and we don't respect it and when our computers are broken, no one fixes them. And because our computers are broken, people feel like it's okay to throw keyboards across the table, because, hey, it's not working anyway. And then the school says "Oh look how little they respect technology! Let's not fix their computers!"

And they don't fix the printer either, and going down to the library to print is a giant waste of time, as I learned this morning. It takes ten minutes to sign in, another five to pull up what you want, and then another five for the computer to tell you that something is "unconfigured", at which point you are already late for english and will have to wing your presentation without notes because this is not going to work.

And then after english you go to the student lounge and everyone is shouting and such and you play Bejeweled for an hour because you don't want to deal with it. And people complain about Mr B for whatever reason, when they don't realize that he's one of the few teachers at this school who actually respects our opinions.

(Although he could pay a little more attention to them.)

(Or make an effort to change the general attitude toward us. Maybe he's trying. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.)

Also, facebook is blocked. This is not okay.

I'm really frustrated with the school and the class and most of the people I interact with. Maybe the problem is me, maybe I'm just in a bad mood lately. I don't know.

I'm trying to keep my sanity. I shouldn't be freaking out. there really is no need. But it's one of those days where I feel overstimulated and everything needs to stop.

Now I'm listening to Tegan and Sara.

Sigh.

I haven't done my German homework either.

I should get on that.

Love always,
Clara

das* haus ist eine polizei-staadt

We're practicing oral exams in German, now that the mock written exams are done with.
The oral for Ab Initio (otherwise known as idiot-german, otherwise known as my class) is to tell a 3-minute story about a picture. You have to use all of the tenses and appropriate grammar and complex sentence structure and the like, which means the story needs to be vaguely interesting.
(Related: I like being a show-off in German)
The picture I had to talk about was of a family in a kitchen. The father was coming in from playing golf and the mother was baking things and the daughters were ironing and doing dishes, and the son was writing something.
I turned it into a crazy horror story of a family in dysfunction. The father was a business mogul who firmly believed that women ought to stay in the kitchen. The wife wanted to start a bakery, but it was forbidden. The older daughter had a boyfriend, whom she was going to sneak out to see at eleven (future tense!). The younger daughter wanted to set the house on fire. It was madness.

Herr M: [Laughs] Okay... any comments? Tips?
Boyuan: She talked a lot.
Herr M: Yeah, she tends to do that.

Um... thanks.
Now he's probably reporting my family to the authorities. I'll be in foster care by the end of the week.

Victoria comes today. Or rather, she's already here, but I'm at school, so I haven't seen her yet.

*Edit: This post was originally entitled "der haus ist eine polezei-staadt." A reader pointed out that I even got that sentence wrong. Houses are not masculine or feminine. Obviously, a house would be neuter. Which means the pronoun would be "Das."

I mean, clearly.

I really need to get better at this language.

Love always,
Clara