Great links

Reposting this from a comment of Katie's... it essentially outlines everything I have a problem with in the educational system...

and it includes a link to idealist.org! 

The fact that that exists makes me happy about the world. We idealists have a place to organize!

With organization, we have power!

Yay idealism!

I bet the cynics don't have a website. They wouldn't see the point.

Actually I bet they do, because the internet is a haven for bitter and unhappy people.

Love always,
Clara

fmylife

Today, I was at my bosses house for a company BBQ. Earlier I had taken muscle relaxants to calm my lower back pain. After a few drinks it was clear the alcohol and medication did not mix. I woke up few hours later to find out I had stripped naked and jumped into the 4 foot cake before passing out. FML

OH. MY GOD.

So that's the most incredible thing I've ever heard.

Imagine that. Just imagine it.

Oh my god.

Love always,
Clara

On the phone with vivian

"I was about to say he sounded like the guy from High School Musical, and then you started talking about socialist political rap"

Love always,
Clara

Sam is convinced...

That he's on here all the time. It might be true...

Things I've said about sam:

• Today, sam fell asleep in physics.
  
• Sam has evil wiki-voodoo
  
• Sam called me a dork.
  
• CAN WE DO THAT TO SAM SOMEDAY?
  
• Sam, whom I had been talking to, says, 
  
• "Clara, I've had hundreds of conversations with you at this point"
  
• "Sam. Send him into space."
  
• On that note, I had sushi with Sam today
  
• Sam has no soul
  
• Paul just tried to stab Sam with a green highlighter
  
• Sam, upset/ADD, dates pumas
  
• Sam said this.
  
• Sam: I like to stay informed about my obscure mammals
  
• Sam: I feel dirty.
  
• Sam: Wouldn't it be cool if, in economics there were a formula to account for human irrationality?
  
• Sam asked (in some kind of semi-logical context) whether she was going to have children
  
• Sam: (disgruntled) My log joke was better.
  
• Shivani: Sam, maybe Catherine's secretly smarter than you but you like, give her pills at night to make her brain shrink, and her brain is slowly wasting away.
  
• Sam: Cath, don't let her be anti-semitic!
  
• (Sam points at Drew)
  
• Sam: Cath, now you and [redacted] would be a perfect couple!

That really is a lot. Most of it is from physics, which is hilarious in itself.

Next I'll make a list of David comments. Or Isabella.

Love always,
Clara

Let's censor due to privacy!

Sam: Cath, now you and [redacted] would be a perfect couple!

Anneka: Except [redacted] is taken.

Me: Let's talk about [redacted]'s love life some more

Chanel: Wait, he's taken? By whom?

Everyone: [redacted]

Chanel: Ohhhhh

Love always,
Clara

Blegh boredom

Sometimes, it strikes me, at times like these when everyone is doing homework or random stupid boring things, that perhaps I have boring friends. Then after some reflection it occurs to me that my friends are among the most interesting people I know.

The world is a boring place.

Despair.

I need to get over myself and do something non-boring.

Love always,
Clara

More phun with physics

Mr Cobb: So gravity is always attractive, whereas electric force can be attractive or repulsive.

Me: Oh, so gravity is like girls and electric force is like boys

... later ...

Cath: Clara, you both attract and repulse me

Me: Ooh, I'm electric!

Love always,
Clara

Let's play the "What's on Sam's head?" Game

Shivani: What's on your head?

Sam: What's on my head?

Sam: It's a binder clip

Me: Do you know how it got there?

Sam: That guy.

(Sam points at Drew)

I love this class.

Love always,
Clara

School tomorrow

So, shoot me please?

I'm out of the terrible mood I was in earlier. I did go to work out with Dad and that was good. Endorphins are wonderful things.

The ShamWow guy beat up a cannibal hooker. Which just makes me happy. THE WORLD OF INFOMERCIALS ISN'T ALL FUN AND GAMES, MY FRIENDS.

Patrick is back :)

And I'm listening to Dawson McAllister. So essentially life isn't as bad as I thought it was. Forget that little rant.

I've been having a lot of little rants recently; most of them are best ignored.

Love always,
Clara

P.S. David and Katie are amazing. Especially 'AWESOME AMAZING HIGHLARIOUS HUMBLE DAVID!!!!'

Thoughts I have when I'm upset

• I hate the world and everything in it
• I wish I were a buddhist
• The Onion isn't as funny as it thinks it is
• I hate newspapers in general because they have pages
• I hate teeth
• I want to break something that will make a lot of noise
• I should find something to break that no one will miss and won't make a mess
• That totally defeats the purpose
• I will blog angrily

Reasons I am upset:

• I got my computer back, which is great, but I have to get used to the quirks of a new keyboard. Every keyboard has quirks (my old one had a bad 2 button) but I liked my old quirks
• I want to put a sticker on the new frame of this computer, where the old sticker used to be, so as to assert to myself that this is still good old Patrick. I cannot find my stickers.
• I have 50 minutes of an AP Chem exam to take, because Mr H is an unhappy man who wants to take it out on us.
• I had been doing this exam with a fun pen to make myself have hope for humanity. Chili has eaten this pen
• The world is a dismal place
• In looking for my stickers, I have made an utter mess of my room and stirred up all the dust, which has made my allergies suck
• I now have a runny nose, worse than it's been all week, although my allergies have been sucking all week
• Dad wants me to go to spinning because he's a sadistic jerk
• I'm being irrational, and realizing this only makes me more frustrated

Bad. Day.

Love always,
Clara

Lazy day

Isabella and Katie showed up at my door yesterday. It was fantastic. 

But a combination of lack of sleep and low air pressure have made me feel not so phenomenal today, and thus I have spent most of my time in front of a screen. 

Isabella and I watched "She's The Man", a movie which never gets old. Ever.

And then we got sushi and I came home and watched two hours straight of Law and Order SVU. Which, in my humble opinion, is the best one.

I just went out to CVS and the bookstore and the walk exhausted me. I most certainly hope I'm not getting sick. I blame the weather and the circumstances. But I've had a bit of a cough for a few days now...

Hm. I hope that isn't the case.

School starts again monday.

It will also be Chloe's birthday on monday.

I will not forget this.

Love always,
Clara

Home at last

So I'm finally home. My phone AND computer are broken AT THE SAME TIME, which has me convinced that either the universe is angry with me or something exciting is about to happen, and that exciting thing can only take place when I'm not distracted by a phone/computer.

Right now I'm on my dad's computer, but it's harder to get distracted in his office.

Regardless, I am hard to contact right now, but your best bet is facebook if anyone actually wants to say hello.

That was sulky.

Apologies. I'm hungry and it puts me in a bad mood. Mom and I had this plan to go to this juice place for breakfast after she got back from wherever it is she went, but now it's 10:30, and I've had some grapes but they are not cutting it.

But I want to go to this juice place, because apparently it's epic.

I'm learning German. For real now. It's going to be so legit. I know how to say "the man swims" and "the little girls eat"

It's really quite impressive.

On the agenda today:

1) Check out juice place

2) Run by apple place to inquire about computer's fixedness

3) Go to Verizon place to see if it's my phone battery or the whole thing that's screwed up

4) There was something else. I don't remember.

Love always,
Clara

[EDIT: I remember the 4th thing. Avoid cervical cancer. I'm scheduled for my last HPV shot today]

Tired tired.

I am, as it has been said, already a noodle.

Saw Dartmouth this morning and drove a few hours into Brunswick, ME, to see Bowdoin tomorrow. It's been cool (in the literal and figurative senses).

Also saw "Knowing" with my dad. Interesting movie. Pretty cool if you like apocolyptic scenarios.

In italy we had a couple conversations about our "favorite" apocolyptic scenarios. The guys favored zombies. Or I guess the conversation was mostly guys to begin with.
Then we began talking about asteroids, and what the government would do in the event of an asteroid or something that we couldn't avoid. Cyanide pills.
Then I kind of wondered, what if almost everyone took the cyanide pills, and the disaster didn't happen? That would be kind of cool.
And so with Alexandra's encouragement I have decided to make that my NaNoWriMo next november. Yay planning!

Step one of that planning will be to read "The World Without Us", to get a sense for things.

For now I am totally exhausted despite sleeping in the car because I woke up absurdly early this morning. Not on purpose.
Damn circadian rhythms.

Love always,
Clara

Real conversation with my dad

Driving up to Hanover
Me: Do you know where this hotel is?
Dad: I walked up to it... January 5th or 6th, 1971. I should be able to find it.

Of course, he did find it, within about a minute of getting into town. My god.

Love always,
Clara

I charge you,

oh circadian rhythms
that you stir not up, that you stir not up, that you stir not up
that you stir not up nor awake, awake, awake, awake
my love til she please.

That is a modified version of "The Rose of Sharon" by Billings, a song we sang last year in chorus.
It seems to make sense to quote it right now because I am that tired.
But sleep is simply not happening anymore.

I had a dream about trying to order pizza in an airport (before catching a plane, of course) and you had to use your passport number to do it, and Taylor D's dad was there.
That should tell you something about the last couple days.

In my brain it is almost noon.
This is not cool.

Non placet mihi.

I am such a latin nerd it's insane.
It's actually a good thing I'm a nerd like this, because I'm fairly certain all the colleges I'm exploring this week love nerdiness to some extent.
I hope.

Yikes. College kind of freaks me out. Just because I'm still not sure I know what I want in one.
But I know I want nerdiness. And friendliness. And to some extent I want it to be pretty, just because people are really affected by their surroundings and so living around ugly buildings and such would depress me.

Love always,
Clara

I'M BACK!

In the U.S.A.

Italy was phenomenal. Exhausting, but phenomenal.
Best bits:

• Seeing things (collesseum, roman forum, awesome renaissance art, pompeii, etc)
• Getting hit on by a mime (kind of literally)
• FOOD. Pizza in italy is not even the same thing as pizza in America.
• Awesome freedom and the subsequent wandering of the streets of Rome/Sorrento
• Chilling with cool people
• Finding myself saying typical stupid-clara things due to tiredness/jetlag (i.e. "I hate when you find out someone is dead after it happens")
• At our lodgings in Sorrento, we stayed in these cabins and outside there were orange trees. Like, you could reach up and grab an orange and peel it and eat it. To be fair, they were really sour and it wasn't exactly recommended.
• GELATO (egg flavor is randomly really good)
• I invented something called "the pasta game" that makes you pretend to be pasta to go to sleep. You start off as a stiff dried noodle and end up in a meal, covered in butter and cheese. Thus I got the nickname "noodle".
• Italian boys are attractive. Fact.

Now I'm on the good old college tour with dad. Today we hit up Brown and M.I.T. which was pretty cool; now we're in Hanover NH to check out Dartmouth tomorrow morning and then drive to Bowdoin.

My god I'm a nerd. But I'm so okay with that.

I have spent far too much time going between airports in the past fourty-eight hours. They are becoming something like a second home to me.

Oh well. Could be worse.

Love always,
Clara

I'm going on a journey...

...that would test the strength of love 

against the power of death

on this island of two different worlds

Whoa, musical moment. I certainly hope the latin trip doesn't involving testing the power of death. Sounds dangerous.

But that's what I'm packing for right now! Yay!

Or rather, procrastinating packing for. I have maybe two hours to finish this little endeavor. It's not a problem, right?

Chili is up in my room poking his nose at everything.

I have realized I've kept a blog in one form or another since like, seventh grade. I am an epic blogger.

Before that I tried to teach myself html with a website called "watermelon seeds". It was hot pink. And had zero content.

I was determined to make my own graphics... with microsoft paint.

So it went

1. Watermelon seeds
2. International News of Anonymous (1)
3. International News of Anonymous (2)
4. *secret secret blog whose name I will reveal had something to do with Altoids*
5. Love Always, Clara

A bit of explanation:

INoA 1 was the first real blog, and it had a color scheme similar to this one- pink on black. I basically wrote about my little 7th grade life, like taking the SAT and getting my room redecorated.

It also had a pretty sweet advice column, and my friends would make up problems to write to me about.

INoA 2 was a little bit more legit, far more pink, with something like monthly updates and links to other websites. But it also had a message board. Which was perfectly innocent, until it wasn't.

Give 13 year olds an opportunity to be monsters anonymously and they will take it.

So that transpired, I shut the board down, school administrators found out, and I almost took the fall for it, but I could prove that everything I said had "moderator" written under it. And everything I said was like, "oh let's be nice, don't hurt people's feelings, I like rainbows"

That was eighth grade.

I'd like to say I've changed since then. I definitely have.

But the more I think about the life and times of Clara, the more I think I haven't changed at all.

Which is a little bit alarming.

I suppose 7th-8th grade is an anomaly. No one is anything close to normal-functioning-human-being at that age.

No one I knew.

Italy will be fun. But the reason for my crazy blog-rant is that I probably won't be blogging in the next week, seeing as I'm not bringing my computer.

So...

so long, fare thee well, pip pip cheerio, I'll be back soon!

Love always,
Clara

P.S. Wow, I'm just full of musical moments today.

between lunch and now...

Hanna: Cath, pick up my planner!

Sam: Cath, don't let her be anti-semitic!

Me: How is that anti-semitic?

Sam: She's picking the only other jew in the room to pick on

Me: I don't think it's because you guys are jewish

Drew: Yeah, that's not why hanna's picking on cath. But it's why I'm picking on you.

David: If you're starving, you should eat Anneka's vocal chords. That sounded really creepy outside my head.

Mr C: So why would we use a word for petrified tree sap to talk about electricity?

Hanna: Oh, because electrostatics are charges standing still, and when something is petrified it stands still, like in harry potter they say petrificus--

Sam: PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!

Hanna: Yeah... So that's why.

Mr C: Cool idea, but no

Hanna: Mr Cobb, can I have ten points for Gryffindor?

Love always,
Clara

The saga of the tree

This was junior retreat. I'm not sure the videos make sense in order, but here they are. Guys throwing a tree into a lake.

Love always,
Clara

Anguish and whatnot.

Today was hell.

But I'm about to go to sleep and it will all be over. And the rest of my life will be happy in comparison.

Thank goodness.

I didn't let myself leave school until I had the bulk of my homework done. That was 7:25 PM. After the shuttle busses had stopped running, basically, which means I got to feel really guilty as a very nice driver took me to the junior parking lot.

My god, I wish I knew the bus drivers' names. I know Jennifer, because she was mine, and she's a little bit infamous anyway, in certain circles. And I knew Marcello, who used to be my late bus driver, spoke very little english, and was also a little bit infamous.

We had something of an understanding, in 8th grade, when I would be the only kid on late bus (on tuesdays. Due to voice lessons.) And I wasn't cool and comfortable with the late bus like those super awesome high school kids; I was wearing a kilt for god's sake. No one can be cool and comfortable wearing a kilt.

Or I guess some people can. Scotsmen, and those 8th graders who are such hot shit (at least in their own minds). And girls in sports uniforms, but only if they have any athletic ability (i.e. not me).

Anyway, he would tune the radio to oldies and I would sit quietly with my head against the seat and do homework, until that got soul-crushing, and then I would harmonize. At the time I thought it was quiet, but I'm sure now that I probably got pretty into it and he could definitely hear me.

Then one day I was half-complaining to my super cool 8th grade friends about it, and one said I should just change the station myself. So that day I got on the bus before he did and set the radio to 99.5. And it stayed there, I think, for as long as I rode the late bus.

To tell the truth, after that I kind of missed harmonizing to random oldies. Specific memory: Singing "Only the Good Die Young" as the bus pulled into the Safeway parking lot.

Marcello and I were chill though.

Although he had no idea what was going on most of the time.

I think he got fired... I haven't seen him once this year. And he was notoriously unreliable.

That's depressing.

Want to hear something non-depressing?

Tomorrow is the last day of school before spring break. 

That is definitely not depressing.

Love always,
Clara

P.S. Also not depressing: In 48 hours I will be on a plane to Italy. I need to pack.