Where's Waldo?

What I'd like to know is...

Who designs these?

Summer to do list

Draw

La Géode

Point FMR

Work out

Centre 104

Spend the 14th of July at the Champs-Elysées

Write directed study (i.e. Watch John Waters'+Spike Lee's films+read their books+be a happy kid)

Paris plages, just because

Sew n' Knit

Visit all of Paris' museums (HA!)

Tour Eiffel

Take 9834874589724723487234893274 pictures

Arc du Triomphe

Cook

Deauville

Pratiquer le Français (!)

Prague

Work at Admissions enough to pay for the Oktoberfest bonanza

Send postcards to lovely people

Madrid

Buddha Bar

Berlin

Batofar

Jardin des Plantes

Buttes Chaumont, Montsouris, Bois de Boulogne

Parc Astérix

Rock en Seine

Engage on a portfolio-building project of some nature

Work on this blog

...I feel like I'm forgetting something.

About

Let’s start with the basics.

Hello, my name is Ana Clara and I’m a 21 year-old young woman (although calling myself a “woman” sounds somewhat bizarre when considering that I’m still 100% financially supported by my parents; calling myself a “girl” nonetheless would be even weirder, since I’m now legally an adult and have been living abroad by myself for the past two years, amongst other obvious enough reasons which make me more of a woman than a girl and don’t require mentioning).

I’m from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, born and raised. I’m very proud of my origins (perhaps too proud?) and usually joke, but not quite, that I’m one of the few 100% Brazilians (although that’s impossible). As a brief overview, both sides of my family come from very humble backgrounds and both my parents worked incredibly hard to earn all we’ve got at this moment in our lives. Needless to say I’m forever grateful, and will always carry a self-imposed debt for the opportunities I’ve had and am having.

Now, as for this blog. What’s its purpose? I’m not really sure. All I know is that I’ve always been very keen of writing, be it about myself or about any given subject that interests me. I’m not a big fan of speaking though. Engaging in group conversations has always made me nervous (that is, depending on the group, the day, how sober I am), with fear of being inconvenient or sounding redundant, or something like that. I.e. I’m very self-conscious in general, but especially when it comes to my conversational skills. But don’t take me for an anti-social person, oh no! I love people. But few are those with whom I feel comfortable enough to share my opinions and feelings - those are usually the ones I truly love, and I love them from the bottom of my heart. Contradictory enough, I feel comfortable sharing with the Internet (probably because it doesn't have a face).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve come to realize that I am indeed an opinionated person - not that this matters to anyone but me - and keeping all of it to myself was making me feel somewhat “suffocated”. The point then is: since I won’t speak, I’ll write.

Back to the purpose of the blog: besides wanting to externalize some of the infinite things that go through my mind, I decided to start it based on the fact that I have no idea of what I want to do with my future. All I know is that I definitely don't want to go back to Rio, and that's that. I also realized it was about time I did something concrete, preferably based on my love for writing - to write my thoughts down and hopefully make some sense of them in the end. So here I am.

See you later,

Ana Clara