jackfuck

Stefan isn't very nice to Alvina. I don't know why she's dating him to be honest.

Alvina: You make a better pillow than my actual pillow.
Stefan: You make a better girlfriend than that sex doll I used to have.

There was, in fact, a sex doll. I seem to recall her wearing a lab coat at one time. College is a strange place.

Alvina: You called me something weird this morning. A jackfuck.
Stefan: Yeah! A jackfuck! I just put words together.
... later...
Alvina: You're a jackfuck and no one loves you except your mom and she's lying!

Harsh words, but I'm absolutely certain he deserved it.

Ken: Your butt is ticklish.
Valerie: I will punch your johnson.

Basically all of the Jameson couples are really weird. That's the only conclusion I can draw from any of this.

Love always,
Clara

out of order!

Last night, it was Audrey's birthday, so we sat in her room and discussed sexual practices in parliamentary procedure. If you want to stalk my twitter feed, you may find it entertaining.

Now, I'm trying to motivate myself to do anything. My first class today isn't until five (Syntax was cancelled -- PaulyJ is going to a conference or something), so I have a large window of time that I could theoretically be sleeping.
Except that I have a cogsci exam in six days that I don't feel half prepared for.

The best thing to do, it appears, is to post my schedule online here so that I can be held accountable if and when I don't hold to it.
I will hang out in my room and waste time however I please until one, at which point I will go to the ratty and have lunch (vegan nuggets! Steamed broccoli! Potentially a slice of eggplant ricotta pizza!). Then I will go to the SciLi and work on my Brain Damage outline until four. At four I'll go back to my room, recollect myself, and get ready for the last fiction class.

I may shed a tear for fiction class.

David
i mean, who wants to date a european male model anyways?
(don't answer that)
Me
(wasn't going to)
David
alright, well I'm over it. turns out she is kinda a whore so i hope she gives his sophisticated hipster ass herpes

I really love David's stories. Princeton sounds like Narnia or something.

Love always,
Clara

bloodless

Cara: Where's your twitter, Clara?
Me: It's on the internet.
Cara: Thanks for your help.

I gave blood today and now I am feeling woozy and helpless with my blood gone. Obviously they left me a fair amount to work with, but I still feel a little like a slightly deflated balloon.

At least I didn't nearly pass out like last time I gave blood.

Now I'm at starbucks with Cara and we're writing, theoretically, but I'm just sitting here (definitely not staring at my phone like a sociopath) and trying to remember what it is that compels someone to set someone else's bed on fire.

I've decided, at last, that my fiction needs more arson. Nothing like open flame to keep things interesting.

Love always,
Clara

sunshine

Yesterday, it was sunny and warm. I had almost forgotten how much I like sunny and warm.
Val and Nicole and I lay outside on the quiet green for a while. They had told me they were going there to study, but I don't think any studying actually happened.
That's fine by me.

Val accidentally pulled Nicole's hair.

Val: I'm going to use this to clone you.
Me: We could have an army of baby Nicoles
Nicole: I would not trust a baby to be raised here. They would all become alcoholics.
Me: They could use the "It's freshman year!" excuse though.
Nicole: "It's freshman year... of our lives!"

We discussed all kinds of things, including but not limited to my mother's history of dating gay men, what kind of sexual acts are permitted on wednesdays, and how to keep a secret.

I'm a big fan of sunshine.

Love always,
Clara

england?

I firmly believe that one should learn something new every day.
It's sad that I literally only now have begun to understand the below.



Love always,
Clara

as productive as ever, really

The kids are playing risk. I'm sitting here trying to read about the international comparisons of health care systems. Focus, though, is a hard thing to gather.

Hannah: Did we win?
Andrew: Yes. By the skin of our trousers.
Hannah: Trousers don't have skin!
Dan: They do if they're human trousers.
Mark: They're skintight.

I've had all kinds of epic productivity plans today, and in fact I have done the following:

• Gone to Easter services.
• Eaten.
• Taken a nap.
• Walked to Tea in Sahara and then turned back.
• Discovered the new frozen yogurt place.

It's been a really good day.

Hannah: We should attack Iceland. Boop boop boop, pow!
Andrew: Those are noises.
Hannah: I think I made it perfectly clear what I want to do!

Love always,
Clara

nom nom nom

Audrey: Nom nom nom nom nom!
Me: What?
Audrey: I saw a dog! I love dogs!
Me: Me too! Why would you nom on a dog?
Scott: She's from China.
Audrey: You're Indian!

The reason that is funny is that Scott is not in fact Indian. Scott is black and white and not Indian at all. Although he does have some native american heritage.

We all discussed our ethnicities today, sitting on the green in the all-too-familiar humidity.

Love always,
Clara

good christians

My mother used to tell me that her parents would go out on a saturday night, have a wild time, and stay out late enough to stumble into church on sunday in the same clothes.
I'd like to say that I have made time to change my clothes.
Therefore, I'm not quite as badass as my grandparents.

Yet.

Last night was pretty fun though. I'm getting better at beer pong.
The turning point, for me, was beginning to use the Stefan method, which is rather unlike most other methods. I couldn't describe it because I don't know the right words to use (flicking? backhand? topspin?) but he should definitely make instructional videos sometime. I held my own last night, which is a first.

This has been tales of debauchery on Easter Weekend, with your host, Clara Beyer.

Love always,
Clara

klingon

Aaron: Generally, text. On a page. I mean, if you want to build a mechanical robot that... breathes fire... let me know. But yeah, usually people do stories.

Yesterday was an average day in Fiction class and by that I mean nothing made sense ever. We watched the first twenty minutes of Wizard People, Dear Reader, though. I'm half-convinced that Aaron is just trying to turn us into cool people.

Brigham: Why is there a 69 and 1/2 Brown street?
Aaron: Um... hard to say.

After fiction, I went to a lecture with the linguist that the Star Trek people hired to invent Klingon. He was surprisingly charismatic, and I think he had the most interesting career possible for a linguist. This saddens me and makes me wish there were more science fiction movies in need of otherworldly languages, because if so, I would make linguistics my major right now.

Aaron: I hope graphic sex scenes also inspired you to not write about sex ever.

Today has also been fun. I just woke up from that nap that's been three days in the making, which was actually quite nice, and I woke up to a text from Dan.

Dan
I have procured some sir kensingtons ketchup-we now need a tasting party immediately!
Me
Good heavens! Bring on the space disco!

It's been (and, I suspect, will continue to be) a very good friday.

Love always,
Clara

sophomore

Mr. Cox once told us that the word "sophomore" comes from the greek words for "wise" and "fool". That sounds about right. I really don't know what to make of the whole idea of a second year of college in which one must decide what one is to be studying.
This is relevant because I preregistered for next semester this morning.

At the moment, I'm signed up for (or planning to sign up for):

• CLPS0610, Children's Thinking, because I am considering being a psych major, and I want to be able to go home and psychoanalyze little baby Ava.
• ANTH0300, Culture and Health, because it sounded interesting. That's really my only rationale.
• ENGN0090, Management of Industrial and Nonprofit Organizations, because I've heard it's a fantastic class, people are obsessed with the professor, and knowing how to run a business just seems like a practical skill to have*.
• HIST1460, History of the Modern Middle East, because someone told me this weekend that the professor is great, and it seems like one of those classes that helps you read the newspaper.
• VISA0100, Studio Foundations, because I want to be artsy, damn it (I'm in the lottery, so that might not happen, but I'm hoping it will).
• ITALXXXX, Italian of some kind, because I don't want to lose the italian that I learn this summer.

So, that's a lot of classes. This is the first semester that I've really gotten to take advantage of the fact that I know people who have taken certain classes and can ask them whether they're worthwhile. My mom used to say that she would just follow the good professors around, and that seems like a solid strategy.

Anyway, who knows what I'll actually end up taking. I didn't fully expect to find myself in Syntax this semester, and yet, that is where I will be in an hour, and I have not yet taken that nap... I should do that now.

Love always,
Clara

sleep is something i should get some of

Some people can function just fine on five hours of sleep. I am not one of those people.
However, when Post- goes on until three thirty because we have to beg Lucas to draw a last-minute cover since our original illustrator disappointed, and then I call Daphna, because I told her I would and it appears that her life is completely insane right now, and I have scheduled a meeting for 10 am Thursday morning, I have to try.

It's not going well. I've already forgotten what building I was in and pretended to celebrate Easter. It's a day to believe things that are not true.

I think I will take a nap.

Love always,
Clara

saltines and michael buble and this is my life

Billy is eating some saltines.

Teddy: Mm, those look good. I'd do anything to get one of those. I'd even show you my genitals.

They're trying to convince me to do all kinds of things for these saltines. I don't know where they even got the idea that I want any of their saltines. I'm not even hungry.

Me: Where is the incentive here? I don't really want your saltines. Or to see Teddy's genitals. Sorry Teddy.
Billy: Why not?
Teddy: This is all just an obvious ploy to for Billy to see my genitals. You could just ask.

Now they're telling me that my life is not quite as sad as it appears.


Billy: Some Michael Buble to get you through the lonely nights.

I love hanging out with bros. Honestly, they are some of my favorite people.

Teddy: DTF? Delta Tau Fraternity?

The DTau boys bought shirts that say that on them. I was impressed. I didn't realize that they were so clever over there, but in retrospect I shouldn't be surprised. They're banterous lads, after all.

Teddy: Word! I love saying word. It's my favorite word.

Love always,
Clara

spring is a waiting time

That is what I think. I think that summer flows, and autumn happens whether you like it or not, and winter is a dreary thing that one must make interesting on one's own (you know how I do), and spring is a weird time that has a lot to do with waiting for summer. It's kind of warm up here, but not warm enough, and I've basically resigned myself to the fact that time is just going to tumble forward largely uneventfully for the next month, and then I'll go home.

Then it will be summer and I'm going to Italy and I have a feeling I'm going to get really into the sort of hip hop that suits me (this happens when it's warm out, almost exclusively) like Childish Gambino.

Right now, though, I'm feeling the types of songs that I could fall asleep to, because to be honest I'd be just as happy if I slept for the next month (besides the small fact that my finals do in fact have to get done, and I don't trust my sleeping self to do as well as I know my wakeful self is capable of)

The Moment - Boris Smile
New Romantic - Laura Marling
What Will Become of Us - Passenger
Take Me Home - Germany Germany
Working Poor - Horse Feathers
Girl U Want (DEVO cover) - Freelance Whales
Thousand Ways - The Tallest Man On Earth
The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot - Brand New

Love always,
Clara

my next tweet

In 1989, Robert Provine* determined that people are thirty times more likely to laugh in a social situation than alone (indicating that laughter may primarily be a form of communication).
With that in mind, consider the fact that I just laughed out loud, alone in my room, at this website. Several times.

What it does, it appears, is take snippets of your old tweets and paste them together into new tweets. It's an enlightening process.

"You see my kids will find one of your sex playlist, he had to... pour water all of people explode!"

See? So now we're going to play a game, and no cheating is allowed. This game is called "Guess which tweets are made up and which tweets are real." I'm taking away any quotation marks because those are like hints.

1. April sunset over Val really? You're like fucking classy ass ketchup website...
2. Moleskin was the rabbit? it was awesome. i tell everyone about feudalism.
3. And when I say bottle of course i mean lesbian sex tape.
4. Oh yeah one of the aliens started petting billy
5. I dance like fight club?! I'm all kinds of class happening here. I love keeney!
6. AAAAH got em. trying to rape small children with that i'm coming at you. Run!
7. I'm all day. Why stop now?
8. I buttered no one. val needed to season no sex.
9. Wow we have to live with zapped hippocampi sucked at dinner. We so that's not in the library.
10. Is it... space cooties?
11. I'm going to start a masquerade. I've made this weekend. Hope you're one to a relaxing nature cd!
12. Everyone got so much. Prepositions are gross generalizations. all before and willing. For pizza.
13. I love dystopian novels! ... My boobs feel hot.
14. Hot afternoon sun, I buttered no santa claus in music! see? yep, none. yeah, well acquainted with that!
15. Living the life. Rockstar lifestyle. White chocolate bread pudding. This is a vignette.

Five of those were real. I'm of the opinion that all of them were hilarious. It must say something about the absurdity of college that any of these exist.

Love always,
Clara

*For some reason, Robert Provine's wikipedia page only exists in spanish. Google translate does a pretty good job sorting it out though. Anyway, that is neither here nor there.

it was far from over!

My last post was indeed a premature retrospective on Spring Weekend. The best, in fact, was yet to come.
There is a man named Dave Binder, and apparently every year the Greek Council gets him to come play a final Spring Weekend concert on Wriston quad.
Everyone is exhausted and drinking at two pm... and then he makes us do the hokey pokey.
I'm not even joking.

Everyone goes out onto the quad, and the nearby frats have cookouts and such. I made some new fratty friends (this has basically been my primary nighttime activity for the last month or so) which was superb. Then Benny and I went with some guys to dance (or, specifically, to twist and shout).

Binder also played Time of Your Life by Green Day.

Me: This song made me cry at the end of eighth grade! Oh my god!

I made the wise decision to bring out my diana mini. One of my new friends said that with my analogue camera and roundish sunglasses and such, I must be a dirty hipster. This, of course, isn't true; I listen to Taylor Swift in the least ironic way possible. There's no way that those two facts can coexist.

I'll have photos soon though. I need to schedule a trip to the CVS that develops film.

Love always,
Clara

spring weekend

I skyped Sam at three in the morning last night.
At that point I had been at least a little tipsy for fourteen hours straight.

Welcome to Spring Weekend.

Last night I actually stayed in Keeney. I had sold my concert ticket (realizing that my interest in Diddy was negligible), and had planned on going out and running around afterward, except that the sky opened and started dropping water on everything.
Every time someone would come in wet I would ask whether wherever they had been was worth trekking to, and I don't think a single person said yes.

However, I made friends with Teddy's prefrosh friend, discussed socialism with Ken, and ate tons of rice cakes. And skyped Sam.

It was low key, but it was actually pretty great. I don't think I had the energy or the right mindset last night to go out and party hard. I've been in a weird place lately, and sitting around with friends is exactly what I've been in the mood for.

There's one last concert today. Someone named Dave Binder who sings old classics like American Pie. I'm always down for that.

Love always,
Clara

i need to write about this with a clear head.

I've been writing about it, of course, in the moleskine I bought last december, quite a bit, and that's been getting me absolutely nowhere. So today I put on my thinking cap.

Everyone is coupling up and I'm tired of it because I'm jealous and insecure. This, I think, is the fact that has been coloring my days lately. I'd rather it not do that, but I'd also rather it not be true, because all of it is depressing and frustrating.

I'd be okay with everybody else's couples if I had some kind of boy whose jacket I could steal to stay warm as well, but I don't and that's the fact of the matter. On one hand I know I'm a bit too picky to go around saying "Oh I just want a boyfriend!" because I instantly deem 95% of the guys who approach me  unworthy (creepy, dumb, has obviously misinterpreted my absentminded swaying on the dance floor for something sexy, although how that might happen is a mystery). I don't want someone whose greatest merit is their willingness to date me. At the same time, though, if there were someone who wanted me me, who at least I could hold as evidence of my potential to be wanted, I would probably feel better about the whole situation.

If I think about it long enough, the wormhole of irrational thoughts opens up and sucks me in. It would be easy to say that it's freshman year and no one is looking for a relationship, but evidence to the contrary is mounting. I at least thought I had this excuse for when my personal attempts at human contact fell through, but that doesn't seem to be the case either (it seems a boy I had a thing with is now with someone else in a way that is more legitimate than the way in which he had that thing with me. Also, college hookups need a new vocabulary).
So that begs the question, what's so wrong with me?

There are a thousand answers to that question (I'm weird, sometimes I stutter, I don't care much for quiet dignity, I can't dance) but none of them suffice. As David and I discussed yesterday over our world-domination plans, we both have pretty big egos. I actually think I'm pretty fantastic (and beautiful and smart and interesting and worth being around, goddamn it).

It's just that it's hard to remember all of that when I'm at the spring weekend concert, and to my left and right there are friends of mine making out with their boyfriends/girlfriends, and in front of me is a boy who is looking for his new ladyfriend, trying to see over my head, and I'm just standing there.

I woke up this morning with these ridiculous thoughts in my head and couldn't go back to sleep, so now I'm getting them out in hopes that they'll stay out, or open a dialogue between myself and the world about these matters, and maybe the world and I can sort some things out.

Love always,
Clara

the world. it's global.

David: I just found out that New Zealanders like to be called kiwis.
Me: Oh yeah! I have some kiwi friends!
David: I love kiwis! They're so... juicy!
Me: Very.
David: And sometimes, when they're inappropriate, they can be seedy.

Those seedy kiwis. I haven't skyped with David in way too long.
We're going to take over the country later. It's just simpler for everyone. We've already got the necessary egos to be dictators.

Me: Oh! I've never been to Hawaii! Can we go to Hawaii when we're president?

It always catches me off guard how much better I feel about life when I catch up with my old friends.

Me: I mean, we should have a secure border, but who can blame people for wanting to get out of Mexico?
David: Yeah. I can attest that unless you're being chaperoned around for eight days by the Mexican Kennedeys, it's not a great place to live.

Our lives are ridiculous. We are the Serena Van Der Woodsens of our campuses and future leaders of the free world. I actually half believe this.

Love always,
Clara

i feel like i'm scrapbooking the strange things in life

Today, in Health Care class. Guest lecturer is using clickers to take a poll.

If you were the Omnipotent US Health Czar in 2011 and could be granted 1 wish, what would it be?
a. Institute a single payer system to control costs and re-design delivery system?
b. Make costs and quality completely transparent, then provide everyone vouchers for private insurance?
c. Assign every American to a primary care medical home and pay for care coordination?
d. Make everyone move to Utah?

Lecturer: All of the answers are valid. Even the last one. My sister lives in Utah. It's a lovely place.

... I am still probably not going to move to Utah.

Love always,
Clara

stories by lonely christopher

A book entitled, The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse.


The back cover:

TWO BOYS LIE ON A BED, ONE OF THEM IS ALREADY DEAD; they listen to Glenn Gould playing Back and talk about suicide and love. A lonely narrator mourns the end of a relationship and the disappearance of a mysterious object as a frustrated artist jumps out of a moving car on his birthda and runs for the last streetlamp in the universe. Awkward parents and angsty teens negotiate a dark suburban landscape, searching for something they can't name, spelling out balletic sentences of failure and shame. Helicopters menace the night sky, a horse is murdered in a kitchen, victims go missing in swamps of ambiguity, and everybody waits for what the construction of a new road into town will bring: the end of the world or something worse.

Someone somewhere thought, "The writers and editors of post- at Brown University would have a lot to say about this. I will send it to them."

The world itself startles and perplexes me.

Love always,
Clara

nineteen

Today was awesome.
This whole weekend, actually, has been awesome.
Totally awesome.

I met my niece today. I held her and everything. She was sleeping. She is awesome.

I went shopping with Grace and a friend of hers. She was largely disagreeable, but by the end of the day I'd convinced her to try a little mascara once in a while. Success is awesome.

Then I taught Merritt and Wyatt and my dad how to play Bananagrams. Bananagrams is really awesome.

That's basically it for today. Awesome.

Love always,
Clara

monumental

On my last day as an eighteen year old, I am going to produce an entirely mundane post about the music I like.








(I never thought I would like dubstep, and then suddenly I did.)



Also, I played catch outside for about an hour today. Andrew picked up a softball glove for me at WalMart. File this under: unlikely but enjoyable college activities.

Love always,
Clara

brighter

Somehow I was not fully aware that Bright Lights, the repackaged and extended version of Ellie Goulding's Lights, had been released a while ago.
Now, I am aware.

And I am pleased.

Believe Me - Ellie Goulding
Will Do - TV On The Radio
Animal - Ellie Goulding
Home Is a Fire - Death Cab for Cutie
Home - Ellie Goulding
Break - Childish Gambinio
Little Dreams - Ellie Goulding
You Are A Tourist - Death Cab for Cutie
Human - Ellie Goulding

You can tell I'm OCD because I couldn't have two consecutive Ellie Goulding songs on my Recently Added playlist. Whatever.

Love always,
Clara

scooping ketchup and space disco

There is something that all of you need to know about right now, and it is Sir Kensington's gourmet scooping ketchup.

Seriously. On their website, you can learn about the difference between Sir Kensington's and Heinz (hint: Sir Kensington's uses agave nectar and honey to sweeten their ketchup, Heinz uses high fructose corn syrup). You can learn sandwich recipes such as The Top Hat and The Wild Duchess. Sir Kensington himself is a noteworthy character, holding degrees in Industrialism, Philanthropy, Culinary Arts, and Exotic Financial Derivatives.

The best part, though, is that Sir Kensington offers you the opportunity to throw a party in honor of Sir Kensington's gourmet scooping ketchup. They even provide you with a space disco track to play in the background while you spread ketchup on a hearty bread and sip gin and tonic.
It's not bad.

Andrew: If you'd asked me a year ago whether I'd be sitting around in my room on a thursday night, drinking beer, listening to space disco found on the website of a gourmet spooning ketchup company... I'd have said yes.

Next time you're at the grocery store, just consider this.

We're going to have a ketchup party.

Love always,
Clara

the world in front of me

So, a couple days ago, David sent a fax. I was standing in the mail room waiting for a package and I looked down at the names of the people who had sent faxes that day, and David's name was on the list, and I want to know why.
Not because David sending faxes concerns me in the slightest. It is of absolutely no consequence to me what this fax contained, or to whom it was sent.
I just want to know.

Do you ever get the feeling that there is just so much happening in the world that we don't see? Every once in a while it occurs to me that this morning, someone in Denmark probably dropped their toothbrush into the sink, and at least one truck driver is on the road at this very moment, and maybe he's hungry for lunch, and even the people I know do things that I don't know about and have no reason to know about, like sending faxes.

If we split the facts about the world into the ones that I know and the ones that I don't know, the ratio is 1:19204839032847289.

It's a little unnerving.

I think this thought has come about more often as I've gotten older. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my family lives in two parts of the globe, and I am in neither of them at the moment. When I was younger, all of the things that might concern me were right in front of me. Now everything's all over the place.

Love always,
Clara

it's too early in the morning and i shouldn't be allowed to blog

This may be rambly. To think that at one time I was actually sitting in Latin class at this hour of the morning. It's completely preposterous.

Stephanie had her baby yesterday! I'm an aunt! You can read about it in Politico if you want to.

That was the event of greatest consequence yesterday. Other than that not much happened. I have this healthcare essay that I keep asking to finish itself, and it keeps on refusing.
Today I'll go to Starbucks though and show it who's boss.

I'm up this early, by the way, because Spring Weekend tickets went on sale at eight this morning, so I've been trying to get the internet to work to my liking for the past twenty minutes. I'm beginning to suspect that no tickets were actually available until 8:15, but I managed to get some, so I'm happy as a clam.

Spring Weekend is next weekend, and it is said to be an epic event. We shall see.

Love always,
Clara

the last few days, in a nutshell

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last couple days. I've been back at school, and very busy being back at school.

That said, the past few days have been uneventful. On Saturday I took a seven hour train ride from Washington back to Providence, watched a bunch of the first season of Greek, and read a ton. Upon getting back to school, I found myself more or less alone for a little while. Around 11, other people appeared, and we went to get crepes.

Yesterday I woke up, had breakfast, read The New Yorker (I love having time to just sit down and do that), cleaned my room, basically did mundane but relaxing things. A bunch of us went to Johnny Rockets, and both Ken and I spilled something on Valerie. It was all Ken's fault. I swear.

Now I'm sitting in class. It's Health Care, and today's lecture is an introduction to the regulatory system. The professor literally just said that there is no topic that sounds more dry than an introduction to healthcare regulation.

Of course, now we're talking about wrongly removed limbs and metal parts left in patients' brains. It's a bit like a horror film.

Love always,
Clara

the start of a new month

I was only fooled once today, and it's not that I was fooled so much as that I was a little confused. I'm counting this as a success.
I used to really love April Fool's Day, I think because I used to really love fucking with people when I was younger. Now I just like seeing what Google comes up with.

If we were at school, I bet Brown would have a healthy number of carefully orchestrated April Fools jokes. No such luck though.

Tonight I came home to Claudia (my host) making dinner. We sat around and drank champagne and she made some fish and vegetables for the both of us, and then we had some cheese and bits of a pear, and red wine, and tea. It felt very european.

We had a very good time, talking about the various differences between my generation and hers, and America and Europe (which is, of course, a pretty big place). Both of us have had the experience of being from one place and living in the other, so it was an interesting conversation.

I love being treated as though I am a big adult*. It's a very particular feeling and it's one that doesn't come as often as one might hope.

Love always,
Clara

*Apparently this is the expression I used to use when I was a small child.
e.g. "Mom, when I'm a big adult, I'm going to order pizza all the time" or "Why do the big adults sit in the front seat?" (Also, I have no idea what kinds of thoughts went through my head when I was a small child so these are mere approximations for the sake of the example.)