Saturday, April 30, 2011

willis alert

this is a small child whose last name is willis.  i know this because his dad was also wearing a willis shirt and, well, if your first name is willis you shouldn't name your kid willis jr.  and i'm assuming they know that.  i made other claire be the stalker who got this picture on her phone.


we were at the braves game.  it was a glorious evening.  we arrived with 55 seniors and left with 53.

(but that was okay because two kids got picked up from the game.)

awesome senior retreat...but when i got home at 12:10am i was pretty glad it was over.  i'm a tired girl.

happy saturday, everyone!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

today i went from busy (my normal state at work) to 2 minutes away from being overwhelmed.  as in, i've only just got things under control.

graduation is in 16 days.

there are so many things to do between now and then.

it feels like everyone needs to talk to me about something.  i'm being pulled in 90 different directions.  my patience is expanding by the minute because there's no choice other than to be patient.

will all the seniors graduate?  unclear.  will all of them complete their service hours?  unclear.

additionally, i have so much grading to do.

countdown to this weekend's visit from a friend and his boyfriend and the subsequent beer festival we're going to with a bunch of our friends?  48 hours.

yessssss.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

ireland

july: oxford!

(duh, miss claire - tell us something we don't know!)

last week of june: ireland!

(oooh - we didn't know that!)

other claire and i are making plans to travel in ireland for about 10 days before starting work in england.  we've been to dublin, so we're going to explore some smaller towns.  has anyone been to ireland?  we'd love ideas about where to go or things that we must do, etc.  please help.

before going to the republic of ireland we're going to spend a weekend in belfast with a friend of mine from working in oxford last summer.  his name is nick, and he is bow tie guy on the right:


(bow tie guy on the left is the one who isn't returning to oxford and has made my move to oriel college necessary.  i have forgiven him, but only barely.)

nick and his wife grew up in belfast and now are a doctor (him) and a pharmacist (her).  nick taught the medical science class at the summer program i work for.  nick and i skyped today and it was SO good to catch up with him and get his input on what we should do while we're there.  we'll be staying with him and his wife for a weekend and exploring belfast and the giant's causeway on the northern coast of northern ireland before renting a car and heading into the republic of ireland.

additionally, skype is magical.  i could see him, thousands of miles away (we gave each other tours - me of my office [4pm my time], him of his kitchen [9pm his time]).  for free dollars.  the 21st century rocks.

i'm starting (continuing?) to get really excited about this summer.

if you need me, i'll be singing this song to myself on repeat.  or, let's be honest, the two lines i know...

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

blazing sea nuggets go for the three-peat/hat trick/triple crown/turkey and succeed!!!!!!

dollar signs everywhere!!!

i love trivia nights.  especially when sitting outside in gorgeous 75 degree weather with pizza and friends.

hooray hooray.

back in atlanta after a weekend in charleston

this weekend there was lots of catching up with the 17 (!) other duke rugby girls who were at colin's wedding (including the the lovely bride who was GORGEOUS), as this photo points out:


the ceremony was held on the patio of the south carolina aquarium as the sun was going down, with a party inside near the fishes afterwards.  so the light in this picture isn't ideal...but it is a true reflection of the light at that moment.  sweetest ceremony ever.  references to the princess bride and duke basketball and pre-existing conditions (the bride and groom are both graduating from medical school next month).

in contrast to the bride's beauty, there was this:


and this:


and this - CLEARLY the best outfit of them all:


(yes, that is a one piece sparkly silver pantsuit.  be jealous.)

here's all of us together:


you see, when we were in college we would play a prom dress rugby game every year.  well: we started this my senior year, but colin (the bride) is two years younger than me and they continued it after we left.  think ugly prom dresses from thrift stores that are ripped and torn as you attempt to play rugby in them.  awesomeness.

so as a nod to that memory, 15 of us rugby girls (2 were bridesmaids and had to, you know, wear bridesmaid dresses) wore ugly prom dresses to the wedding and reception.  i have never been stared at so much in my life.  it was really fun, though, and colin thought it was awesome...and it was a fun and silly way to let colin know that we love her.

weekend: success.

Friday, April 22, 2011

"miss claire - how are you posting?  i thought you were in charleston for the weekend!"
"well, lovely readers, i wrote this post yesterday and scheduled it to post today for a little friday fun even though i'm indisposed."
"oh. i get it."

have you heard of a google a day?  i discovered it recently - very fun to flip through, especially with my love of trivia.  go waste some time.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

i'm headed to charleston this weekend...

for my friend colin's wedding.  hooray!

colin played rugby with me at duke; while at duke she also started a club called kaadatt - "kids all about dancing all the time."  they would occasionally hold random dance parties on the quad.  it was pretty amazing.  on the invitation for this wedding she wrote that dancing at the reception was "mandatory."

lots and lots of rugby girls are coming to the wedding, including one who is flying in from london.

you had better believe that this is going to be an awesome weekend.

long story short, though - i'll be out of touch for a couple days.  happy easter weekend, everyone!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

gay men draw butch things, part 3

a tank.
by willis.

(in related news, we won our trivia night last night!  hooray!)


the "gun" that the tank driver (probably not the technical name) is holding looks like a hair dryer.

also, the tank is driving on...barbed wire wheels?  what is going ON, willis?

oh, i love these drawings...

Monday, April 18, 2011

lazy days

another convert:


yesterday afternoon becky and i laid around on blankets outside and read for an hour.  the sun was shining.  it was heaven.

today i've taken the day off from work and we're eating/shopping/getting manicures, and then probably spending more time reading in this beautiful weather.

life is good.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

what i'm listening to right now:

"home," by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros



a really original sound - and i watched a video of them performing and i have decided that they are truly BIZARRE.  love their music in spite of that (because of that?).  thanks to my friend dylan for introducing me to this band; i thought of him and this song this week as he brought his new baby girl home from the hospital.  hooray for baby norah!

Friday, April 15, 2011

t minus 8 hours until becky arrives!

my sister is coming to visit this weekend!  hooray!
things planned:
indian food take out and the friday night lights premiere on tv
a trip to world peace cafe (how has she never been?!)
quasi-fancy pre-prom dinner with my work friends
prom (i'll try to get her to guest post about her experiences)
post-prom drinks with friends
cinema club on sunday morning
warm weather all around!
trivia!

going to be a great weekend. :)

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

this is an incredible true story.  it gives me goosebumps and makes me a little teary.

watch this video first.



then watch this one.



i heard about this on NPR (i love NPR just as much as the new york times), but watching the videos is even more incredible than listening to the story.

the world is small.

there are true mysteries that can be solved.

people are inherently good.

Monday, April 11, 2011

really interesting read: NCAA's Double Standard

on a related note, i continue to love reading the new york times online - as part of my job (staying up to date on current events so i can talk about them with my government students) and for enjoyment, i probably read 10 articles on their website a day.

when i found out that the new york times was going to charge to read articles online - if you read more than 20 in one month - i mistakenly thought they said 20 in a day and said to myself "oh, i read less than that - i'll be fine!"  oh wait: i read a lot of articles.  i won't be fine.

magically i got an email the next day where the new york times told me that the $15/month subscription would be waived by lincoln (the car company) for six months because i'm a "loyal reader."  how many loyal readers there are, i don't know.  but i'm pretty stinking happy right now as i continue to read for free.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

sunday

another truly gorgeous day - the kind of day that makes you appreciate just the ability to live through it.  i can feel summer coming - can feel the weight of work lifted off my shoulders, can feel the beautiful weather coming (and staying).  i love days like this.

mike and kelly and i went to the braves game this afternoon.  now, you might be saying to yourself, "miss claire, i thought you made a pledge to the universe never to go to a day braves game ever again because you are always hot and miserable!"  why yes, i did make that pledge.  but it's early enough in the season that it isn't TOO hot - though it was in the mid-80s today - and i have found the magic of section 414 where there is shade for the entire game.  heaven!!  pledge taken back!!



i love going to baseball games because of (a) the ability to enjoy being outside (if the weather is nice), (b) i like baseball, and (c) i'm not so terribly invested in the game that i stop enjoying myself if the team does poorly.  duke games are really fun to see in person, but if they're losing i am unhappy.  the braves lost today, 3-0, and it almost didn't matter.  i was happy just to be at a game.  i was in pretty good company, too, so that didn't hurt.


kelly indulged my attempt at an artsy shot of the field reflected in her sunglasses.  thank you, kelly.

i took a shower after the game (sweating still happened even in the shade), and then joey and i had dinner with two friends on the patio of a restaurant near our house and it was still quite warm even though the sun was going down.  strike that: it was the perfect temperature to sit on a patio.  bliss.

monday: to you i say "harumph."  summer vacation: hurry up and get here!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

today is april 9th.  it is also the first 90 degree day of 2011 here in atlanta, georgia.

i am just as appalled as you are.

so true:

"While the goal of all movies is to entertain, the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing."
--Sidney Lumet, director of lots of films (including 12 Angry Men), who died today

Friday, April 8, 2011

question from trivia night on tuesday

category: lyrics
question: name the song that the following line comes from: "son, i've made my life out of reading people's faces."

i NEVER EVER know the lyrics answers - but i did on this one!  aaron gave me a high five.  it was awesome.  anybody else know - without googling it?

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

after a realllllly long day:

i'm at the hair salon waiting to see a new stylist named mary.  my old stylist was awesome, but he moved back to indonesia.  so...i'm seeing someone new.  it's loud in there - lots of blowdryers running, etc. - but i hear my name, look up to see a woman smiling at me, she introduces herself as "m," and we go off to her station.  she says something like "so you're new here!" and i say, "oh no, i've been coming here for a while - i'm just new to you!"  we talk about what i want done to my hair (basically, make it how it looked 3 months ago), and then we walk over to the sinks for her to wash my hair.  she says, "so, you're not new?  they had in the computer system that you were a new client."
me: "um, nope!"
her: "and you're andy?"
me: "um, claire?"
her: "what stylist are you supposed to see?"
me: "um, mary?"
her: "i'm em."
oooooh - she's em, not m (perhaps this mary person goes by her initial only, i thought when i heard her say her name).
and then it's back to the front of the salon where mary is waiting for me and i have to sheepishly explain that apparently i can't hear.  em picks up her client - a man named andy.

things we have learned: your gender is not listed next to your name when you make an appointment.

geez.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

lunch for tomorrow (and thursday...and friday...) - sweet potato latkes (to go alongside a salad).  they are delicious; only about 3/4 of them made it from pan to tupperware - my mouth got in the way.


the recipe is: 1 grated sweet potato and 1 grated onion.  squish water out.  mix with 1 egg and several tablespoons flour.  fry.  eat.

what i'm listening to right now

"middle cyclone," by neko case



(yes, this is a bizarre homemade music video, but just listen...)

Saturday, April 2, 2011

for your entertainment:

sample questions from harvard's 1869 entrance exam.

people who would not have gotten in include: me.

(and not just because i'm a woman.)

Friday, April 1, 2011

march: 6 7 8 9

i have learned, over the past couple months, that when you make an effort to read a little bit more it becomes a habit...and then all of a sudden you're reading a LOT more.  because you enjoy it.  like last month: i read four books in march, which is the most i've read in a really long time.  i got a little obsessed with the hunger games series, too, which kept me reading.

this month i read:


the children's blizzard, by david laskin (really interesting nonfiction book about a blizzard in south dakota and nebraska and iowa in 1888 that killed a bunch of schoolchildren.  i learned a lot from this book - perhaps too much, in fact, about meteorology of the 1880s that led to the blizzard warning not reaching the rural areas with enough time to save people from the danger.  it's so interesting to think about the role that meteorology has in keeping people safe today - i think we underestimate their role today.  but really - i had to skip parts of this book because i just couldn't take any more information about the snow warning system that was in place on the prairie in 1888.)

catching fire, by suzanne collins (the second book in the hunger games series, and every bit as good as the first one.  i got this from the library on a saturday morning and was finished by the end of the day on monday.  obsessed.  i kept texting willis when crazy things would happen because i had to tell SOMEONE and he'd read the series.)

half-broke horses, by jeannette walls (i loved her first book, the glass castle (a memoir) - this book she calls a "true-life novel" - it's based on the author (and her mother)'s memories of her grandmother, but is told as a first-person account as the grandmother on life in the west in the early 20th century.  a really quick read and i love this author - it's probably dorky to say that the stories came alive, but they did.  so call me a dork.  i was really sad when this book was over.)

mockingjay, by suzanne collins (the third (and final) book in the hunger games series.  i bought this from amazon after realizing i couldn't wait for 96 middle schoolers to read this book before i could get it from the library.  i wasn't staying up late to read this book like i had with the first two and it's significantly more serious than the others, but i was glad i'd read it just the same.)