shadowfax

I realized today that the reason I've been avoiding the blog is that I've run out of creative ways to apologize for my absence of late. To hell with apologies though. I've been busy.

Today I realized almost everyone in my english class was at some point in their lives really into Lord of the Rings.

Russom: What was the name of Gandalf's horse?
Class, in unison: Shadowfax.

This was relevant to something involving Old English and the conversion of the heathen Anglo-folks to Christianity. St Gregory and whatnot. The usual.

I never got into Lord of the Rings. I'd say maybe the fans were too fanatical for me, but I was definitely into Harry Potter for a long time there. Hell, I've read every Twilight book. I like bandwagons.
Maybe it was because LOTR wasn't about humans, specifically. Wizards and vampires and whatnot all at least existed in a world with regular humans walking around too, in a world that looked familiar to me.  Middle Earth was too far removed from the daily trials of fourth-grade Clara.

Speaking of fourth grade, maybe I was just too young and had too short an attention span for a series of books that screamed "FOR BOYS" to me. It was all swords and fire and people riding around on horses. Harry Potter had enough middle-school drama unrelated to saving the world to keep me entertained.

Because, of course, saving the world does not interest me nearly as much as whom Ron has a crush on these days.

Love always,
Clara

hello children, please chill out

Why is it that I find myself reading things that make me frustrated with the world? And with such frequency. I should be ashamed of myself.

The thing is, I wind up feeling like girls my age are condescended to. (I do not think there is a readable way to make that sentence not end in a preposition, but fuck prescriptive grammarians anyway). The advice we get is flawed fundamentally, because it's always prefaced with, "I know! The world is so scary, right?!"

It's worth mentioning that guys don't seem to get this advice. Don't ask me to back this up with evidence, because I'm too lazy to find any, but it seems to me that the college advice targeted at guys is prefaced with "grunt Beer grunt Girls grunt No Parents grunt Sex... College!"

Of course, the advice-giving media has a vested interest in our continued need for advice. If the world is as big and scary as they say it is, and they're the ones with the answers, we're going to keep coming back. In real life, the best college advice I can think of is, "It's easier than you think."

• If you had any friends in high school, you'll have friends in college. If you didn't have any friends in high school, you'll probably still have friends in college, because college is bigger.
• If activities call out to you, you'll join them. If you find yourself having not joined any clubs or anything, either none of them have called out to you (which is fine), or you'll probably keep your eyes open for new stuff to join.
• Parties are fun and generally not scary.
• Classes in college are harder than classes in high school, but you're ready for them.
• You'll be so fine.

I hope that just one person frantically googling "How to transition to college" or "college freshman advice" or some nonsense like that (that I totally googled myself back in the day) happens upon me here and takes a deep breath and calms the hell down.

Love always,
Clara

cupcake ipsum

Caroline copy-edits for Post- now, so she and I hang out sometimes while I'm over there doing my chief-layout-editor thing.

Tonight, an article hadn't come in, but the two other pieces of that page were ready for the second round of copy editing, so I filled the empty box with placeholder text.
This was not ordinary placeholder text, of course. I read about something called Cupcake Ipsum a little while ago, and thought it would be more fun than the normal quasi-Latin gibberish. The section of the magazine usually reserved for our wonderful advice column read something like this:

Cupcake ipsum dolor. Sit amet pastry liquorice danish. Tiramisu sweet chupa chups. Cupcake gummi bears faworki. Tart jujubes pastry cupcake candy I love carrot cake ice cream. Icing powder gummies cotton candy wafer jelly toffee bonbon. Chocolate bar faworki macaroon croissant tiramisu halvah sweet gummies. Cotton candy lollipop caramels brownie. Biscuit croissant ice cream. Oat cake sweet fruitcake. Oat cake gummi bears muffin dragée pastry tootsie roll dragée I love. Candy canes ice cream oat cake. Faworki macaroon chocolate cake cookie I love chocolate bar. Powder topping carrot cake. Faworki jujubes danish jelly marzipan tiramisu candy canes croissant biscuit. I love lollipop sweet roll cupcake cotton candy chocolate bar cake brownie. Cupcake bear claw I love pie dessert cake. Gummi bears dragée caramels jujubes. Muffin pudding I love chocolate cake I love powder I love brownie. Jelly-o lemon drops gingerbread powder. Cookie jelly-o apple pie tootsie roll bear claw jujubes pie. Chocolate bar sesame snaps icing pie macaroon. Danish I love tiramisu chocolate bar jujubes brownie topping. Macaroon cookie gummi bears chupa chups chupa chups cheesecake tootsie roll oat cake sesame snaps. Danish danish candy canes cookie. Candy canes sweet donut. Caramels gingerbread pie sesame snaps. Jelly beans macaroon jelly-o tart I love danish. Gummi bears I love sweet roll marzipan tiramisu jujubes marshmallow. Topping I love muffin caramels cheesecake ice cream apple pie powder tiramisu. Marshmallow pastry pie I love jelly-o candy candy canes. Chocolate bar tootsie roll halvah gummi bears. Dragée lollipop carrot cake dessert cotton candy wafer. Biscuit topping tootsie roll chocolate cake halvah gummi bears. Tart jujubes icing gingerbread brownie dragée jelly beans. Chocolate bar bear claw I love marshmallow cupcake icing tootsie roll sweet. Caramels gummies marshmallow fruitcake jelly beans. Lemon drops gummi bears pie oat cake apple pie chupa chups. Soufflé marshmallow bear claw fruitcake caramels halvah. I love I love brownie soufflé liquorice tiramisu muffin cotton candy. Wafer tart powder cheesecake bear claw I love oat cake pastry sugar plum. I love tiramisu chocolate cake wafer tootsie roll cupcake biscuit topping muffin. Caramels chocolate bar tootsie roll jelly I love pudding I love. Cotton candy chocolate bar cotton candy caramels sugar plum. Gummi bears fruitcake marzipan wafer tart tiramisu.

I assumed this would all go over without incident and went back to my duties (read: Angry Birds). The following conversations went on behind me.

Caroline: I don't think I get this article.
Alexa: Jenny, are you aware that Emily Post- right now is just a list of things?
Jenny: Um, the real article isn't finished yet.
Alexa: Okay.
Caroline: This still doesn't make sense.
Me: OH! Ignore that! That's cupcake ipsum!

Caroline was checking its spelling. I really should make these things more clear. But someday I do want to publish an article like this in Post-. Then we'll be more avant-garde than the Indy.
That is my new aspiration.

Love always,
Clara

weird habits i've picked up lately

1) I've started working out again (that is not the weird part) (okay yeah, it's also kind of weird). I've been doing so in the Buxton workout room, which is much smaller, and I've never not been the only person in there. So now when I'm running (walking? fast?) and listening to music I sort of wave my arms about like a composer. No one can see me! Except when someone comes down the stairs and I have to make it look like I was reaching for my water bottle.

2) My new favorite food at the ratty is Lucky Charms, but I only eat the marshmallow bits.

David: What are you doing? It looks like you got two bowls of Alpha-Bits and ate none of them!
Val: Not Alpha-Bits. Lucky Charms! That's just what's left of them!

Val is opposed to this because I have to relocate the gross pieces to another bowl usually so that I can find the good pieces without making a mess. Obviously everything I do is in the interest of not making a mess.

3) I have become entirely dependent on the Providence Coffee Roasters' truck. It is dangerous to be so dependent on something that is inherently mobile.

Love always,
Clara

things i have learned in human development

On Peers: "Peers! Can leave! Lifelong! Lasting! Scars!!! On you!!!"


On Unwanted Infants: "But you change your mind! It's like when you have a pet! You get the pet, you don't like the pet, you live with the pet, and then you like the pet!"

On Careers: "If I could do it again, I think i'd go into primatology because I think it is fun to play with chimpanzees."

On Animals who are Independent at Birth: "Have you observed the chickens that hatch out of the egg? It's so cute! They peck peck peck out of the shell!" 

On Hospitals: "Have you been to the hospital? Don't go there. Ever. But you never know."


On Temperament: "I'm well known in my family as OH too much arm moving around."


On Human Nature: "Luckily we're not like goats. We're not that simple."


On Vulnerability: "I thought, before i got rash, that I was immortal. . . . NO. It can strike anyone."


On the End of Times: "Particularly rats. I have no doubt that after humans are long gone, there will be rats on this planet."

Love always,
Clara

spooky leggys

This is all I have to say right now. This weekend is a three day weekend though, so that will be fun, and hopefully I can accumulate some fun stories to tell. For now, who is naming the daddy long legs?

Love always,
Clara

spotify, and my feelings

So you may have noticed I haven't posted any posts about songs being great lately. Songs have not ceased to be great, I promise, but I have a new way of going about listening to them. No longer must I commit to downloading songs to listen to them nonstop. I can listen to whatever I want. I'm using spotify.

I like Spotify a lot. I do. I'm listening to St. Vincent right now, and I'm not sure whether I like her or not, but I can get a better sense for whether I do by listening to her whole new album than listening to a few one-minute simples of her most popular tracks. Which is what I would have otherwise done.

About a month ago I rediscovered Frightened Rabbit, and that rocked my world for a few weeks, and I would have told you all about it except
A) I was still on my blogging hiatus and
B) I didn't have to download any songs!
What would I have even done? Wrote a post saying "Hey guys, Frightened Rabbit is great, in general, and y'all should listen to them"? That seems like it makes less sense, for some reason, although I guess in the grand scheme of things the idea of posting the songs I'd downloaded didn't make a ton of sense either. At least it was concrete though.

So Spotify is great, but I sort of feel nostalgic for iTunes (which I do still use occasionally). I can still go back and see which songs I was downloading a year ago, which is exciting, but there will come a time when I can't do that, and that's going to be weird (although I suppose we'll always have Last.fm).

Love always,
Clara

how to go to a frat party

I'm like, a super expert now.

• Think about what you're going to wear. Is there a theme? You want to look "in the theme," but you also want to look "sexy" and "not trying too hard."
• Pregame. Sit on your friend's room's floor and play bananagrams, and drink when you have to draw a tile. Alternatively, play a drinking game based on the Vietnam War. Make sure you are at least buzzed before departing, because otherwise you'll get cold. These drinks "don't count."
• Walk to the party in a group of seven or more people. No more than three of them should be pretty girls. 
• Blink at the line. Decide there must be another option.
• Try to get in through the back door. Argue with a brother named Dan about getting in. Dan is not having it. If you shotgun this beer, right now, will Dan let you in, you ask? No, Dan says, but he will give you a high five, and then tell you to get in line.
• One of your friends just remembered that her older sister used to hook up with the ex-president of the frat. You're in!
• Wow there are a lot of people in here.
• Decide you want a drink. Spend ten minutes trying to wiggle towards the bar. Accidentally grope no fewer than four strangers. Spill some of your drink while trying to escape the madness. You will do this several more times.
• You have lost your friends. Dance. 
• Find your friends. This is the most exciting thing ever to happen! You thought they had all died!
• Lose your friends again. Repeat.
• Find that guy who used to be in that club that you're in. Talk about the current state of that club.
• Find that girl from your English class who is really very drunk and talk to her for a little while. Tell her that you know that her ex is a douche, because your ex was also a douche, and that's exactly how logic works. She will be so glad that someone understands.
• Realize that it's hotter than the sun on the dance floor. Step outside for fresh air, but end up standing in a crowd of people smoking cigarettes.
• Go back and dance. Feel sweaty, and consider the fact that sweat is neither "in the theme" or "sexy." 
• Sweat could be sexy, right?
• Leave around 1:30, so that you have time to get mozzarella sticks before the diner closes. See other sexy-sweaty-theme-dressed people. Nod knowingly. You are all cool party-attending people now.
• Tomorrow, when people ask how it was, say, "It was fun. You know, super crowded, but it was a good time." 

Foolproof.

Love always,
Clara

texts that i have received in the last six months

• J.lo needs to not wear bodysuits, lesson
• im reading plato and socrates says "being filled with things appropriate to our nature is pleasurable" and all i think is I WANT SOME DECENT SEX.
• Poop girls are here
• b a   yyyyvi loveeeee yuou yi88 al so in with tyouyre firend juackl
• Did you get gummi bears? I see that we have more vodka.
• Affirmative. The rooster is in the hayloft.
• Fertile and ready to impregnate you both.
• Sahir got here, Godot has not. We've abandoned our faith.
• I am genuinely sorry I was sleeping when you sent these. Please tell me you were at a strip club.
• !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• You have disappeared. Is this permanent?
• I just sent a text that said: "I think my earring fell off when I took off my cape to breakdance"
• Come! Now! Feminize our decor!
• I just woke up from a dream in which I visited you at brown ... and the brox zoo cobra was there bc brown is so tolerant and progressive.
• I hope we have the opportunity to speak sometime outside the constant cesspool of teenage insecurity we find ourselves joyfully parading around in every weekend. :)
• Doppler effect in astronomy right now!!!
• I have procured some sir kensingtons ketchup -- we now need a tasting party immediately!
• Haha and here I thought my travel plans hinged on your eating habits! :)
• Hat the duck ever?
• As a separate note, you should be informed that the lord's day would also serve satisfactorily as a day of our meeting, my radiant princess.
• I'm required by sharia law to tell him.
• yeah, RANDIAN logic. Objectivist psychobabble.

Conclusions
1. People are rather affectionate via text.
2. I have weird friends.

Love always,
Clara

english, it turns out, is interesting

I have vivid memories of disliking English class in middle school. We had to read dumb books and underline uses of symbolic language and do awful vocabulary worksheets (It's actually really hard to come up with a sentence using the word . It all seemed silly and redundant and a waste of time.

English teachers were often targets of my animosity. I very specifically remember learning that Ms. Scott, my seventh grade english teacher, hated click-pens -- so I bought a ton of click-pens. (I might have been the worst seventh grade girl ever.) (For the record, about a month later I decided Ms. Scott was my favorite teacher.)

Fast forward six years or so, and I'm spending my lectures learning the alphabet. Linguistics, I've decided, is totally my jam.


I'm taking History of the English Language this semester, and it's pretty much the most awesome class I've ever taken, and I'm not exaggerating at all. The professor is a boss, and he's been teaching the course for the last thirty years or so, so he knows his stuff and tells it like it is.

Professor R: Determinism is the theory that you could predict the future by closely observing the present. Nobody ever made any interesting discoveries based on this theory. Ever.

I think what I'm enjoying most about the class though is that it raises all of the questions that I raised in my English classes (right after I bought my clicky pens, all for the explicit purpose of being a pain in the ass). Like, why did we have to answer the questions on homework sheets in complete sentences, when a word would do? That's not what we do when we speak. If someone asks you, "Where are you going this weekend?" you say, "Boston." If you feel like saying a lot of words, you could say "I'm going to Boston," I guess.

Professor R: 'I am going to Boston' is just wrong! It's weird! It would raise a titter!

That's what I tried to explain to Ms. Pronko all those years ago, but of course she would have none of it. Maybe I just like linguistics because it means I was right all along about English teachers. Some of their rules are totally arbitrary.

Professor R: As if colloquy were an evil thing.

I, for one, like colloquy. I mean, read this. Do I seem like I'm into the formal writing style? I've almost made a conscious decision to ignore it.

And on that note...

Vivian: Actually no, I don't make decisions, I just sit around and rap about philosophy.

Yesterday, that happened.

Love always,
Clara

look out, world!!!

I'm going to start cat calling men.

Why? Because I can. Not because I want to bang them or go on dates with them or whatever, but because I kind of think it's hilarious and flattering to be cat called and men need to get this experience as well.
Isn't that their goal when they do it? To give me a hilarious and flattering experience?

Anyway, I'm going to start off campus, I think, so that I don't get a reputation as "that crazy girl who keeps sexually harassing strangers." I mean, maybe that will be inevitable, but I want to give my fun new experiment a test run beforehand.

The eight crazy strangers of August '11 inspired me, to be honest. When I write about them (inevitably), you'll see how truly flattered/pleased/etc I felt after all of these experiences. They were just so friendly! They totally validated my existence as a woman! (If one is not attracting strangers on a daily basis, one is failing.)

So, guys of the Providence area, you should start looking nice. If you don't, I won't cat call you, and then you won't be worth anything.

Love always,
Clara

P.S. Mom, I'm being sarcastic. Except I'm really going to do it because I think it will be funny and interesting.

clara reads magazines again

Once again, I find myself reading Seventeen magazine. Why do I let this happen so often?

(Because it’s summer and I’m bored and I keep secretly hoping it will tell me how to really “LOOK PRETTIER THAN EVER!”)

Here’s what I’m absorbing instead.

Kidnapping boys is a good idea:

Good, because I’m guilty of this one. 17 says, “Just offer your guy a ride home. Once you’re in the car, you can slip into a way to extend your time together: “I’m starving! Want to go to Steak ‘n Shake?” Suddenly you’re flirting over french fries!”

Alternatively, you can say “now that I have you in my vehicle, you might as well surrender.”

Sex is the worst thing in the world:

I get that if 17 suggested anything other than putting careful thought into sexual decisions, they’d be faced with mobs with pitchforks and torches and such (people still do that, right?), and I completely agree that people shouldn’t run around putting zero thought into their actions, but this is too much: “… the bottom line is that sex is a big deal. All types of sex are a big deal. And just like you’d think long and hard about losing your virginity, you should think carefully about every hookup—and every step you take, sexually. Because whether your actions affect that virginity label or not, they still affect your heart, mind, and body.”

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it sounds like they’re saying anything beyond kissing will make you want to go home and cry. Not that I would know, because I’m a good girl who cuts things off at hand-holding. Am I doing it right, 17?

Boys are lying to you:

They don’t love you. They don’t like cats. They’re not in business school. They’re all virgins. And they’re all cheating on you with a girl named Jessica.

I am way not preppy enough to go to Brown(?):

People who go to Ivy League schools dress like every day is 4^th of July on Daddy’s yacht. What have I been doing without plaid Tommy Hilfiger bedding? Luckily, 17 offers me “preppy pieces [that] will turn your room into the most polished and organized study haven.” I don’t think even Princeton kids would decorate with this shit.

The tampon wars are getting ugly:

I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. Anyway, Tampax vs. Kotex. Tampax says it “protects BETTER than U by Kotex.” There’s a picture of a girl in a white bikini who’s saying, “At a moment like THIS, I don’t care if my tampons came in a little black box.”

I am cringing right now, for the record.

Girls are crazy people who hate themselves:

Seriously, we’re mentally unstable all of the time. “Sheila*from Antioch, Illinois, says, “I was feeling bad and decided to diss myself on Formspring. I hid my name and wrote that I was ugly. It only took a few minutes for my friends to respond that the person was wrong, that I’m beautiful and shouldn’t let others push me around.”” Someone please tell me this isn’t a trend?

Literally throw yourself at boys:

Samantha, a nineteen year old from California, says, “I use the crowd to ‘accidentally’ bump into a hot guy. Once you’re talking, it’s natural to step closer and talk into his ear because it’s so loud. In the middle of a crazy part, a quiet conversation can easily lead to a hookup!” Just remember to think carefully about every hookup, for the heart, mind, and body, remember?

Your friends suck:

You pretty much hate your friends, right? They play Egyptian Ratscrew at parties, when you really want to talk to boys! The solution is to invite boys into your game of Egyptian Ratscrew.

I hope we've all learned a lot.

Love always,
Clara

italy in stop motion

Also, girls at a park.
I miss you guys a ton.

True story: Today I have a billion things to do and all of them are making me want to hyperventilate. I just came back to my computer and thought, "I have simply not been making enough lists." Erika has influenced me in so many ways.

Also, the other day I ate a Magnum Gold(?!). Now that Michelle can confirm that they exist, you guys need to find some pronto.

Love always,
Clara

names by which I have gone on the internet

clarabeyer
1998 - 2000. My dad set this email address up for me for some reason when I was like, six. I sent emails to my grandfather at F666666 and experienced Instant Messaging (tm) with CeCe Conner. (On that note, IMing is hard when you're not even sure about how to spell things.) This was back in the day when people didn't think their email addresses should have anything to do with their real names, so I was really quite progressive.

roklime104
2000 - 2003. I decided my real name was boring. Also, I liked the color lime green and I liked going rock climbing with my dad on sunday afternoons and I thought it was a subtle thing to imply that I "rokked," as it were. This was the same time that I developed a fear of heights, actually, and would climb up the wall with no difficulty only to have a panic attack at the top.

klairahgal48
2003 - 2007. I decided my real name was so boring that I couldn't even bear to use it in real life. My friends had names that started with the letter K and so I wanted to conform while making myself cool and different at the same time. At this time in my life, I tried to write novels that mostly focused on a girl named "Elizabeth" deciding to go by "Liza" when she moved to a new town. Also, my two first relationships developed on this IM account. In fact, they almost entirely existed on this IM account.

clarachick44@yahoo.com
2006. For some reason AIM was not enough. Victoria Thomas told me that Yahoo was the cool thing to have and we posted song lyrics as our away messages. I don't remember ever talking to anyone on this account.

clarazzle44
2007 - 2008. CeCe convinced me that this was a good idea. I was in that awkward phase where I realized that I do not spell my name with a K, but wasn't sure whether I wanted another fun handle or a "serious" email address. Also I had a thing for the number four, it appears. This was the time that I'm pretty sure all of us were "invisible" online all the time, just waiting to see.

@clarabellum
2008 - present. Twitter is the best. Mr. Abbott, my seventh grade advisor and American History teacher, used to call me that, because I was smart, I suppose. When I was constructing my new clever mature internet identity, this seemed like a way that I wanted to portray myself.

csb324
2008 - present. When I set this up, I knew I needed a gmail account but wasn't sure for what. I was in the mood to be cryptic (a la F666666) when most people on the internet were using their real goddamn names. Clara is countercultural as shit. You know. The standard.

Love always,
Clara

basil battle

Erika: Have you blogged about your day of nothing?
Me: Not yet. That's the thing about nothing days. There's nothing to say, really.

The most exciting thing I did today was search for basil, but let me start from the beginning.

I've been feeling gross lately, with a sore throat that hadn't gone away for a while, so yesterday I decided it was time to call a doctor and find out what exactly was wrong with me. I more or less had diagnosed myself with viral tonsillitis, but I don't exactly have the medical authority to make that kind of call.

I called the doctor that we'd been told to call this morning, and he said he'd come over and do a house call (why don't we have those in America, by the way? Do we? Have I just never found a doctor who does them?) in about an hour.

In that time, Erika and I decided it would be a good idea to clean the kitchen, so that he would not be shocked by the conditions in which we live. We're really not bad. We do spend a lot of energy on kitchen-cleaning. During this cleaning period, I took a box of fresh basil off the kitchen table and put it somewhere.

The doctor was wonderful (and confirmed that whatever I have is a virus and therefore all I can do is pop ibuprofen and sleep). He was actually from Alexandria, had worked at the hospital at which I was born, and knows my grandfather. There's something very comforting about being in the presence of someone who knows your grandfather. Anyway, then I went back to sleep for a while.

Fast forward to a little while ago, when I realized it was almost nine thirty and I hadn't had any dinner. Caprese salad seemed like a quick and easy thing, so I got to chopping tomatoes and mozerella. And then it was time to find the basil.

The basil was not in the refrigerator. The basil was not in the part of the cabinet where I tend to put things. The basil was not on the couch. The basil was not in my bedroom. The basil was nowhere to be found.

Me: Where would basil go? Where does Clara put the basil, when Clara does not put the basil where she should put the basil?

It has yet to be seen. I ended up using dry basil from our spice cabinet instead. Take that, basil bastard.

Erika: Say hello to the eggs!
Me: Hi eggs! Oh they're cute.
Erika: Aren't they? They have no idea they're about to be charred...
Me: Hey, we're going to put you in very hot water, and then eat you!
Erika: Don't tell them! They'll run away! Like the basil! My god, Clara, what did you say to the basil?!

Love always,
Clara

show and tell

Sometimes I get excited that I'm somewhat able to communicate in italian. Then I remember that my abilities are about on par with your average first grader.
Your average first grader who has some very particular language-related learning deficits such as a spontaneous inability to conjugate.

Today we were hanging out with our language partners (some wonderful Italians from the University of Bologna). This point was abundantly clear.

Lusine: Ho comprato un grande limone! [I bought a big lemon!]
Marco: And?
Lusine: That's it!

Our stories have the sophistication of a show-and-tell in elementary school. "Um... my favorite movie is Elf... it is very funnier... yeah... I love Elf."

Ich liebe Bus*, basically.

Love always,
Clara

*If that didn't make sense to you, roll with it, because it's sort of an inside joke that I have with myself regarding my own inability to speak German when I was fifteen. Literally translated, it means "I love bus."

nutella. bruschetta.

Today we learned imperatives and Anna Maria got high on power.

Anna Maria: Don't sit that way! Don't eat! Listen! Sleep! Sit down! Stand up! Give me that strawberry!

We're sitting in the kitchen and making dinner. By "we're making dinner," I mean Erika is making dinner, some of us (Caroline) chopped stuff, and my tomatoes were contributed.

Me: I wouldn't even mind being covered in nutella.
Erika: I'd just snack on myself.
Me: I would love to snack on myself.
Stephen: [gives me an inquisitive blink]
Me: ... if I were covered in nutella!
Stephen: [gives me another inquisitive blink]

Our first appetizer was bruschetta. Our second appetizer was nutella on bread sticks.
There is, in fact, a dedicated nutelleria in Bologna. By that I mean a nutella-owned nutella-based cafe. I got a nutella piadina after class today. That's a nutella sandwich.
Today I ate a nutella sandwich.

I'm just going to let that set in.

Matt: Do you bruise easily, or do you just have an aggressive lifestyle?
Erika: ... I think I just bruise easily?

Love always,
Clara

milano

Oh my gosh what a day.
Mom and I have managed to do Italy in twelve hours. Our train pulled into Milano Centrale at 10:45, and between dropping off bags and shuffling home after dinner, we didn't stop once.

Mom met this marvelous italian girl named Isabella at a University of Richmond event in Bern, and called her up when we decided to stop here (on our way to Monaco... standard.) She met us at the train station and probably didn't stop talking for the next three hours (at which point she had to go back to her business school to give a presentation. I'm surprised her voice didn't give out). Isabella is one of those fantastically friendly people. It was marvelous.

The Swiss aren't like that at all. They're always polite, but they're rarely friendly.

Mom: Remember my friend [redacted]? She said to me, "I had to leave. I was too bubbly for Switzerland." And I was like, "You're not bubbly!" She wasn't even bubbly. But she was too bubbly for Switzerland.
Me: No one's ever too bubbly for America.
Mom: That's where they send the bubbly people.

I'd been getting cramped in that little country. Maybe I'd mistaken my claustrophobia for homesickness. It was nice to be in a big city with crowded squares and stylish people (Bern has none of these things).

Tomorrow, off to Monte Carlo. We will don sundresses and watch the cars go by and feel like we are in a Fitzgerald novel.

Love always,
Clara

faces

'

So if I've creepily filmed your face in the last year or so, this is why. If I haven't creepily filmed your face in the last year or so, you've been in the wrong place at the wrong time (or the right place at the right time, depending on your opinions of privacy issues. Also there's the possibility that you actively prevented me from filming your face, in which case, you're lame.)
Enjoy, guys.
If you're not in the bunch that I saw last night, then I miss you terribly. If I saw you last night... oh hey. What a night.

Love always,
Clara

limerick day

So we're sitting at The Gate eating overly greasy pizza and meeting Valerie's (frankly somewhat bizarre) physics friend, when someone brings up the fact that Teddy likes to write limericks in his spare time.
I find it necessary to compose one about Andrew on the spot.

There once was a young man named Bower
Who lived in a very tall tower
His roommate was home
But he wasn't alone
So he banged his girlfriend in the shower

Not my best work, but in my opinion, impressive under the circumstances. It appears that I've started something. Suddenly we're on a roll.

There once was a boy from new york
Whose penis was damaged by torque
He screamed out in pain
(She'd thought that he came)
But she left him unable to pork

This went on for quite a while, and believe me when I say I've posted the tamest of the limericks. They were raunchy (which is the best way for a limerick to be).
Coincidentally, May 12th is Limerick Day. I swear to god, we didn't know this.

Love always,
Clara