surreal

Snowboarding was fun but I fell on my ass about a thousand times. Andreas the snowboard teacher said it was good for the first day but I don't know how that's even possible, because I can't imagine someone falling more than I did.

Regardless, a good experience.

Came home, had lunch, and decided to go to school to get some work done and go to the student council meeting. Getting work done didn't really happen, because almost as soon as I got there, I was reminded that there was a rare assembly today, so I went to that. I saw Mr. T taking pictures for yearbook and stole his camera. It was nice, a nikon D3000. Spent the rest of the time running around taking stalker pics of various divisions of the student body. I'm probably going to do more of this tomorrow. DSLRs are fun.

Also, we watched a video by the same woman who did that "The Story of Stuff" presentation at Potomac last year. It was about the evils of bottled water. I found it, as I found the first presentation, patronizing and not very informative. Yes, we know bottled water is bad.

It's a point especially wasted on people who live in a country with some of the best tap water in the world. This shit is Evian. That's almost not even an exaggeration. If we lived in Lausanne, it probably would be Evian.

Then, student council. I don't remember what was said. I remember joking with Robert about bottled water "seducing" us, and how I'm glad tap water keeps our relationship platonic, where it should be. I also remember Mr. B saying everything got a little more "legit" when I got here, which I've decided to take as the highest compliment.

(I'm not sure why my memories of this are so vague, because it was like, an hour ago)

And at that point I got on the tram to go home. And something surreal happened.

I got to talking to this girl in 10th grade who I don't really know that well. We were just on the same tram, so we started talking about school and such. We both got off at the end stop, and wound up on the same next tram as well (I take one tram from school to town, and then another from town to get even closer to my house).

Girl: Are you on this one?

Me: Yeah.

Girl: Me too. Mind if I join you?

Me: *laugh* I'm not going to like, throw you off! Like, "No, this is my tram. Take the next one"

Girl: *giggles* You never know at this school!

So then we start talking about this school, and how she's right, things like that happen sometimes, when you get on a tram and you have a weird feeling that the other people on the tram don't want you there, or you run into someone in the hallway and they don't say hi, or you say hi, and they give you a look like, "why are you talking to me?"

It happens.

And I hate it. I say hi to everyone.

I'm also not-good at not-having conversations. So of course I talk to everyone as well. And somehow I've gotten a reputation as talkative. I guess I've had that since Mr C started calling me "loquax" (which, for the non-latin-nerds out there, means "talkative").

So then this girl says,

"Were you always as... present as you are here? Like, people are always like "Clara's doing this" or "Clara's doing that" or "Clara's so cool"... were you always like that?"

To which my first reaction was, "I'm like that?!"

I told her the truth, which was that I was invisible to the max in 9th and 10th grade, intimidated by the upperclassmen and all, and finally came out of my shell around 11th grade. I told her that there were a lot of things I'd wanted to do at my old school but either hadn't had time for, or had been intimidated by, and when I came here I sort of threw caution to the wind.

But the best part was this-

Girl: I think it's that... you're so accepting of everyone, you know? You're always nice. This school doesn't have that. This sounds so cheesy, but you're like, the missing piece of the puzzle.

I wanted to give this girl a hug. It was flattering to the max, and I tried to defer whatever of it that I could.

The summer before 11th grade, I was determined to be different. That was partly the reason I started this blog. I knew I'd spent two years basically hiding under the floorboards of the school. The class of 08 had just graduated, and they were awesome, so I knew there was going to be an awesomeness void in their place.

And I wanted to change.

I had a specific model: The platonic ideal of Zoe Williams. For those unaware, she was in the class that graduated when I was a freshman, she was in the musical, she was an editor of the cooler (but less informative! I try not to pick sides) student newspaper, and she was chill with the faculty. I wanted to be her. Or, I didn't know her well enough to want to be her, but I wanted to be what I thought she was.

And now, it's two years later, and... I think I am. Or at least, I come off the same way.

I'm not perfect.

But... according to this girl, people see me the way I wanted to be seen.

It's surreal.

I've got to go eat dinner.

Mom: Sarah's serving that soup we like!

Me: Awesome. It's a shame I don't have a hangover.

Mom: There's time! Tequila!

Love always,
Clara