Post by elle on Dec 23, 2007 0:02:56 GMT -5
BACK TO THE BASICS
Full Name: Claire Manuela Salinda
Nicknames: Clairebear
Birthday: 05-11-1990
Age: 17
Sexuality: Straight
Gender: Female
Stereotype: Sweetheart/Quirky
Status: Single!
BEHIND THE SCENES
Personality:
OH, Claire. The girl was a bit of a dichotomy when you got to really know her. Shy around most people, yet terribly outgoing to the point of embarrassment when around friends. Has the appearance of a good girl, yet is no stranger to getting a little crazy at some pretty wild parties. Bright, but finds no need to apply herself. The only two qualities that usually stick, despite everything else, is her compulsive need for everything to be clean and her sarcasm. We'll get into that later.
CLAIRE is a pretty shy girl around people she doesn't know. Or in class. She's the girl who sits there uncomfortably, praying that the teacher doesn't call on her so she can remain unnoticed in class. It's a bit embarrassing, but she can't really open up easily at first. It's the same around family members, causing most of them to stare at her oddly. How could a Latin-American family, usually loud and obnoxious and chock-full of family members have a member who was so reserved? She was afraid of a handful of her uncles until she was about seven years old, and still didn't talk to most of them for two years later. She just...didn't know what to SAY to most of them. On the flip side, however, she has a knack for mortifying her friends when either driving, or just hanging out in public places. If you see her driving with some friends down a street, don't be surprised if someone manages to yell a catcall out at you. It's probably Claire. All of the time she spends being reserved and quiet needs to be let out SOME time, and she happens to feel most comfortable with her friends. They always make her ask people for directions, or go up to strangers her giggly girl friends find attractive. Well, that are around their age. She doesn't want to get raped any time soon; too much Law and Order: SVU can make you a teeny bit paranoid.
IT'S a bit weird to people to see the good-girl Claire in class getting a little bit...hammered at some wild party that Friday night. Most people don't expect the girl who can make herself look so innocent in class dancing on the table and generally being a weird, drunken teenager just after school. It isn't that weird of a concept to her, especially being from California where the drinking age should basically just be lowered to 14, but some people who don't know her that well still find it a bit of a shock. Of course, these are also the same people who manage to flip out if they hear her say "motherfucker," but that's a little beside the point. Basically, Claire shows that you can't always make assumptions about people. And while she is no stranger to getting drunk, she isn't a big fan of weed or any other drugs. She tried smoking pot once and it just made her throw up a lot. So she doesn't enjoy it. She doesn't think less of people who smoke a bit, but is vehemently against harder drugs. Hm.
GOING to Dunstan was probably the last thing that Claire ever wanted to do. Hanging out with a bunch of rich kids wasn't her idea of fun (well, not like she's never done it before. But this was OLD money. She heard they were much more judgemental.), and neither was getting shipped away from her wonderful home and wonderful life in Southern California to Boston where people actually had to deal with snow. WHAT. Needless to say, in an effort not to stay here, she hasn't gone above and beyond in school. She felt too guilty to actually fail any classes, but Claire is fine with C's and the occasional B. It's not like she's a dumb girl; if she actually cared about what was going on, she would probably have applied herself and gotten the A's she was no stranger to back home, but she just didn't CARE anymore. Her parents wanted her to go to a good school and thought that going to a fancy prep school would make her look better for colleges, while Claire had been planning to take a year off after high school to go...say, backpacking across Europe or something. Not be the brain surgeon her parents wanted. The only class she actually had an A in right now was English and she couldn't help it. She liked to write.
CALLING Claire a neat freak would be a bit of an understatement. Claire is a really anal about everything being in its place. Her closet is color-coordinated, and her room is always impeccable. She doesn't know why this happened, but even when playing House at a young age, she enjoyed being the mommy and having to clean everything up. It's not like she has OCD or anything (though she has pondered over that; she's a little bit of a hypochondriac. Or just a worrywart), she just likes everything spotless. Messes freak her out.
THE last thing that truly makes Claire...Claire is probably her "razor-sharp wit." She may be pretty polite to many people she meets, but is no stranger to muttering some pretty colorful things under her breath. It makes those around her laugh, and occasionally gets her in trouble. But for the most part, who would think that a girl so innocent would be capable of saying such things? One of her favorite things to do is to use her sarcasm in such a way that people can no longer tell if she's being truthful or not. Claire tries not to overdo it (after all, it would quickly take the fun out of the situation), but when she does, she enjoys it. This can make for a bit of a problem when she's actually being sincere when saying something looks nice or something along those lines, but she usually is able to make sure others can differentiate her compliments from her sarcastic nature.
History:
On April 5th, 1990 in Rosario, Argentina (the 3rd largest city in Argentina; don't you forget it), Guillermo and Lourdes Salinda welcomed little Claire into the world. Their only daughter, they decided to make life the best they could for her and decided that, though Argentina was pretty much amazing, there were more opportunities in America for her to have. So by November of next year, they had managed to get some strings pulled by friends in America who could help them out, and they started on the arduous task of becoming American citizens.
NEEDLESS to say, Claire doesn't remember any of this and is unable to speak a lick of Spanish, other than "where is the bathroom," "no more," "careful," and other little kid phrases. It does make her feel a little weird at family functions, since she can only understand about 80% of what is going on and can't exactly say much back. She blames her parents, who wanted her to completely assimilate into American culture. Because of this, Claire remembers little of Argentina except for the annual week-long Christmas trip to visit grandparents and assorted cousins. Her earliest memories stem from her home in Manhatten Beach, California; about two minutes, at most, from the beach and hated by those towns around her. Manhattan Beach was the "rich kid" town, which did make Claire a little self-conscious at times since she didn't fit in with that crowd.
IT'S not that her parents weren't well-off; they were, but not well-off enough for her to afford the Prada bags and Chanel sunglasses her friends enjoyed. Thrift stores led to some interesting buys, and her closet didn't showcase the latest fashions from the newest designers. However, her parents had enough money saved to send her to a private Catholic school up until the seventh grade (that and piano lessons, which Claire originally had to take against her will but discovered it actually wasn't so bad), where she finally rebelled and was sent to the nearby public middle school for one year, before off to Mira Costa high school she went for two years. Her parents had decided this would not do; the quality of education was not what they wanted for their daughter, and demanded her to apply for a prestigious preparatory school on the east coast and about a frillion scholarship places to help her pay her way through it. Reluctantly, she did, and because she was Hispanic, was accepted. Diversity r00lz.
HER parents were ecstatic. Claire was not. She also felt terrible for her little brother, who now had no chance in a public school ever, and would probably end up rowdier than Claire had been at parties. However, Claire had no choice in the matter and before she could protest (well, actually that's a lie; there were many arguments. Both parties called the other selfish, guilt trips ensued, and...the worst part of having immigrant parents "WE LEFT SO YOU COULD HAVE A BETTER LIFE" was brought up more than once), Claire had to pack her L.A.M.B. luggage given to her by a friend as a parting present (it was pretty great having rich friends who could get her nice things) and was off. After graduation, she managed to piss off her parents quite a bit. She decided that before she exploded from more school, she would take a year or two off and is here at Greystone. Claire just wanted a little break, is all, and is using this time to make friends and for general merriment before she's shipped back to the east coast to some prestigious, New England school against her will. She's reluctant to choose that route though.
Goals:
To make over 100,000 dollars.
To revisit Argentina.
To make friends.
To avoid going to boarding school.
To find a special someone.
Fears:
Rape
Snakes
Spiders
Being Abused
Heartbreak
Habits:
Bites her nails when nervous.
Sings in the shower
Likes:
Baking.
Bubbles.
Music.
Dancing.
Reading.
Piano.
Darkroom photography.
The smell of photography chemicals.
Digital SLR's.
Learning a new language.
Argentinian food.
Dislikes:
Shit tastical music.
Valleygirl accents.
Liars.
Fakers.
Stoners who do nothing but talk about getting LOLZFUXXDUP.
Messes.
Grapes.
Point-and-shoot cameras.
Attractions:
Tall guys.
Wit.
Humor.
Eclectic music taste.
Chivalry.
Confidence.
Musical talent is definitely a plus.
Nice hair.
Repulsions:
Slobs (though secretly it's kind of hot; she'll never admit it though).
Arrogance.
Pompous asses.
An overly feminine guy. To date, anyways. She'll befriend them, just not be attracted to them.
Anyone who feels the need to call her Mexican. Argentina =/= Mexico.
RELATIONSHIPS
Family:
FATHER - Guillermo Salinda
MOTHER - Lourdes Salinda
Friends:
See history.
Enemies:
See history.
Crushes/Partners:
See history.
Pets:
A dalmatian puppy named Achilles.
She's convinced he's slightly retarded
ON THE OUTSIDE
Appearance:
WELL, maybe not exactly. Though her parents were from Argentina, and their parents, and so on and so forth. So while most Argentinians were known to be white and were extremely, obnoxiously proud of their light skin, Claire wasn't able to relish this Hispanic/White Person dichotomy that threw some people for a loop. Her skin is more...olive, if not just ever-so-slightly more tan than your average pale kid. She could probably get darker if she really felt like it, but tanorexia wasn't exactly high up there on Claire's list of things to do. She was fine with the darker skin, but Claire had never been a fan of her plain brown eyes and dumb brown hair. She had always been envious of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed children at school, and tried out contact lenses for a short amount of time until she realized it just kind of made her look like a giant douchebag.
THOUGH the contacts made her look like a douchebag, she still wasn't happy with her dark brown, wavy hair. However, that was a relatively easy problem to solve. She gets her hair lightened a few shades, going from a deep dark brown to a rather...caramel color. Claire once dyed it back to her original color, and realized that it was not her at all. So now she doesn't try anything too out there with her hair, and is petrified to cut it since it took so long to grow out. There was also a somewhat traumatizing haircut in her past that made her a bit paranoid to say anything but "oh, just a trim would be nice." Maybe some day she'd hack all of her hair off, but until that point, she was completely fine with long, lightened, hair. There was more she could do with it, too. That and she could make a pretty intense hair mustache.
CLAIRE wasn't a super tall girl, but she wasn't shrimpy either. She stood at an average height, maybe a little on the taller side at about 5 feet 7 inches, and was no stranger to stilettos. It was a little more difficult when she wanted to feel shorter. That wasn't exactly something you could fake easily. She usually didn't have to deal with this problem, though, since she rarely wanted to be shorter. Most people didn't, unless they were about 7 feet tall or something. And Claire wasn't.
HER fashion sense really wasn't anything too special. Claire enjoys thrift stores and cheap stores like H&M. She likes this way of shopping better since her wardrobe is now relatively gigantic and most of the stuff in there cost under 20 bucks, which is always a plus. Her style, however, isn't exactly something one could easily describe in one word. Claire basically wears what she likes, and it either works or it doesn't. Whether it's a new dress she just found at the thrift store with some odd print, or jeans and a t-shirt, she enjoys putting together outfits and trying different stuff out. Yeah, see, it's pretty hit-or-miss. She does enjoy wearing a few choice pieces of jewelry; the most common of the items being a gold bracelet that her father gave her for Valentine's Day. It was a pretty nice thing to do, and she was actually surprised that her dad was able to pick out something...nice.
Image(s):
OTHER
Transportation: Maroon Nissan 350Z with clear taillights.
Employment: Crash, as a Waitress.
Residence:
Buckman Heights, Apt 208
OOC-optional
Alias: Malita
Age: 22
Location: Spain
Full Name: Claire Manuela Salinda
Nicknames: Clairebear
Birthday: 05-11-1990
Age: 17
Sexuality: Straight
Gender: Female
Stereotype: Sweetheart/Quirky
Status: Single!
BEHIND THE SCENES
Personality:
OH, Claire. The girl was a bit of a dichotomy when you got to really know her. Shy around most people, yet terribly outgoing to the point of embarrassment when around friends. Has the appearance of a good girl, yet is no stranger to getting a little crazy at some pretty wild parties. Bright, but finds no need to apply herself. The only two qualities that usually stick, despite everything else, is her compulsive need for everything to be clean and her sarcasm. We'll get into that later.
CLAIRE is a pretty shy girl around people she doesn't know. Or in class. She's the girl who sits there uncomfortably, praying that the teacher doesn't call on her so she can remain unnoticed in class. It's a bit embarrassing, but she can't really open up easily at first. It's the same around family members, causing most of them to stare at her oddly. How could a Latin-American family, usually loud and obnoxious and chock-full of family members have a member who was so reserved? She was afraid of a handful of her uncles until she was about seven years old, and still didn't talk to most of them for two years later. She just...didn't know what to SAY to most of them. On the flip side, however, she has a knack for mortifying her friends when either driving, or just hanging out in public places. If you see her driving with some friends down a street, don't be surprised if someone manages to yell a catcall out at you. It's probably Claire. All of the time she spends being reserved and quiet needs to be let out SOME time, and she happens to feel most comfortable with her friends. They always make her ask people for directions, or go up to strangers her giggly girl friends find attractive. Well, that are around their age. She doesn't want to get raped any time soon; too much Law and Order: SVU can make you a teeny bit paranoid.
IT'S a bit weird to people to see the good-girl Claire in class getting a little bit...hammered at some wild party that Friday night. Most people don't expect the girl who can make herself look so innocent in class dancing on the table and generally being a weird, drunken teenager just after school. It isn't that weird of a concept to her, especially being from California where the drinking age should basically just be lowered to 14, but some people who don't know her that well still find it a bit of a shock. Of course, these are also the same people who manage to flip out if they hear her say "motherfucker," but that's a little beside the point. Basically, Claire shows that you can't always make assumptions about people. And while she is no stranger to getting drunk, she isn't a big fan of weed or any other drugs. She tried smoking pot once and it just made her throw up a lot. So she doesn't enjoy it. She doesn't think less of people who smoke a bit, but is vehemently against harder drugs. Hm.
GOING to Dunstan was probably the last thing that Claire ever wanted to do. Hanging out with a bunch of rich kids wasn't her idea of fun (well, not like she's never done it before. But this was OLD money. She heard they were much more judgemental.), and neither was getting shipped away from her wonderful home and wonderful life in Southern California to Boston where people actually had to deal with snow. WHAT. Needless to say, in an effort not to stay here, she hasn't gone above and beyond in school. She felt too guilty to actually fail any classes, but Claire is fine with C's and the occasional B. It's not like she's a dumb girl; if she actually cared about what was going on, she would probably have applied herself and gotten the A's she was no stranger to back home, but she just didn't CARE anymore. Her parents wanted her to go to a good school and thought that going to a fancy prep school would make her look better for colleges, while Claire had been planning to take a year off after high school to go...say, backpacking across Europe or something. Not be the brain surgeon her parents wanted. The only class she actually had an A in right now was English and she couldn't help it. She liked to write.
CALLING Claire a neat freak would be a bit of an understatement. Claire is a really anal about everything being in its place. Her closet is color-coordinated, and her room is always impeccable. She doesn't know why this happened, but even when playing House at a young age, she enjoyed being the mommy and having to clean everything up. It's not like she has OCD or anything (though she has pondered over that; she's a little bit of a hypochondriac. Or just a worrywart), she just likes everything spotless. Messes freak her out.
THE last thing that truly makes Claire...Claire is probably her "razor-sharp wit." She may be pretty polite to many people she meets, but is no stranger to muttering some pretty colorful things under her breath. It makes those around her laugh, and occasionally gets her in trouble. But for the most part, who would think that a girl so innocent would be capable of saying such things? One of her favorite things to do is to use her sarcasm in such a way that people can no longer tell if she's being truthful or not. Claire tries not to overdo it (after all, it would quickly take the fun out of the situation), but when she does, she enjoys it. This can make for a bit of a problem when she's actually being sincere when saying something looks nice or something along those lines, but she usually is able to make sure others can differentiate her compliments from her sarcastic nature.
History:
On April 5th, 1990 in Rosario, Argentina (the 3rd largest city in Argentina; don't you forget it), Guillermo and Lourdes Salinda welcomed little Claire into the world. Their only daughter, they decided to make life the best they could for her and decided that, though Argentina was pretty much amazing, there were more opportunities in America for her to have. So by November of next year, they had managed to get some strings pulled by friends in America who could help them out, and they started on the arduous task of becoming American citizens.
NEEDLESS to say, Claire doesn't remember any of this and is unable to speak a lick of Spanish, other than "where is the bathroom," "no more," "careful," and other little kid phrases. It does make her feel a little weird at family functions, since she can only understand about 80% of what is going on and can't exactly say much back. She blames her parents, who wanted her to completely assimilate into American culture. Because of this, Claire remembers little of Argentina except for the annual week-long Christmas trip to visit grandparents and assorted cousins. Her earliest memories stem from her home in Manhatten Beach, California; about two minutes, at most, from the beach and hated by those towns around her. Manhattan Beach was the "rich kid" town, which did make Claire a little self-conscious at times since she didn't fit in with that crowd.
IT'S not that her parents weren't well-off; they were, but not well-off enough for her to afford the Prada bags and Chanel sunglasses her friends enjoyed. Thrift stores led to some interesting buys, and her closet didn't showcase the latest fashions from the newest designers. However, her parents had enough money saved to send her to a private Catholic school up until the seventh grade (that and piano lessons, which Claire originally had to take against her will but discovered it actually wasn't so bad), where she finally rebelled and was sent to the nearby public middle school for one year, before off to Mira Costa high school she went for two years. Her parents had decided this would not do; the quality of education was not what they wanted for their daughter, and demanded her to apply for a prestigious preparatory school on the east coast and about a frillion scholarship places to help her pay her way through it. Reluctantly, she did, and because she was Hispanic, was accepted. Diversity r00lz.
HER parents were ecstatic. Claire was not. She also felt terrible for her little brother, who now had no chance in a public school ever, and would probably end up rowdier than Claire had been at parties. However, Claire had no choice in the matter and before she could protest (well, actually that's a lie; there were many arguments. Both parties called the other selfish, guilt trips ensued, and...the worst part of having immigrant parents "WE LEFT SO YOU COULD HAVE A BETTER LIFE" was brought up more than once), Claire had to pack her L.A.M.B. luggage given to her by a friend as a parting present (it was pretty great having rich friends who could get her nice things) and was off. After graduation, she managed to piss off her parents quite a bit. She decided that before she exploded from more school, she would take a year or two off and is here at Greystone. Claire just wanted a little break, is all, and is using this time to make friends and for general merriment before she's shipped back to the east coast to some prestigious, New England school against her will. She's reluctant to choose that route though.
Goals:
To make over 100,000 dollars.
To revisit Argentina.
To make friends.
To avoid going to boarding school.
To find a special someone.
Fears:
Rape
Snakes
Spiders
Being Abused
Heartbreak
Habits:
Bites her nails when nervous.
Sings in the shower
Likes:
Baking.
Bubbles.
Music.
Dancing.
Reading.
Piano.
Darkroom photography.
The smell of photography chemicals.
Digital SLR's.
Learning a new language.
Argentinian food.
Dislikes:
Shit tastical music.
Valleygirl accents.
Liars.
Fakers.
Stoners who do nothing but talk about getting LOLZFUXXDUP.
Messes.
Grapes.
Point-and-shoot cameras.
Attractions:
Tall guys.
Wit.
Humor.
Eclectic music taste.
Chivalry.
Confidence.
Musical talent is definitely a plus.
Nice hair.
Repulsions:
Slobs (though secretly it's kind of hot; she'll never admit it though).
Arrogance.
Pompous asses.
An overly feminine guy. To date, anyways. She'll befriend them, just not be attracted to them.
Anyone who feels the need to call her Mexican. Argentina =/= Mexico.
RELATIONSHIPS
Family:
FATHER - Guillermo Salinda
MOTHER - Lourdes Salinda
Friends:
See history.
Enemies:
See history.
Crushes/Partners:
See history.
Pets:
A dalmatian puppy named Achilles.
She's convinced he's slightly retarded
ON THE OUTSIDE
Appearance:
WELL, maybe not exactly. Though her parents were from Argentina, and their parents, and so on and so forth. So while most Argentinians were known to be white and were extremely, obnoxiously proud of their light skin, Claire wasn't able to relish this Hispanic/White Person dichotomy that threw some people for a loop. Her skin is more...olive, if not just ever-so-slightly more tan than your average pale kid. She could probably get darker if she really felt like it, but tanorexia wasn't exactly high up there on Claire's list of things to do. She was fine with the darker skin, but Claire had never been a fan of her plain brown eyes and dumb brown hair. She had always been envious of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed children at school, and tried out contact lenses for a short amount of time until she realized it just kind of made her look like a giant douchebag.
THOUGH the contacts made her look like a douchebag, she still wasn't happy with her dark brown, wavy hair. However, that was a relatively easy problem to solve. She gets her hair lightened a few shades, going from a deep dark brown to a rather...caramel color. Claire once dyed it back to her original color, and realized that it was not her at all. So now she doesn't try anything too out there with her hair, and is petrified to cut it since it took so long to grow out. There was also a somewhat traumatizing haircut in her past that made her a bit paranoid to say anything but "oh, just a trim would be nice." Maybe some day she'd hack all of her hair off, but until that point, she was completely fine with long, lightened, hair. There was more she could do with it, too. That and she could make a pretty intense hair mustache.
CLAIRE wasn't a super tall girl, but she wasn't shrimpy either. She stood at an average height, maybe a little on the taller side at about 5 feet 7 inches, and was no stranger to stilettos. It was a little more difficult when she wanted to feel shorter. That wasn't exactly something you could fake easily. She usually didn't have to deal with this problem, though, since she rarely wanted to be shorter. Most people didn't, unless they were about 7 feet tall or something. And Claire wasn't.
HER fashion sense really wasn't anything too special. Claire enjoys thrift stores and cheap stores like H&M. She likes this way of shopping better since her wardrobe is now relatively gigantic and most of the stuff in there cost under 20 bucks, which is always a plus. Her style, however, isn't exactly something one could easily describe in one word. Claire basically wears what she likes, and it either works or it doesn't. Whether it's a new dress she just found at the thrift store with some odd print, or jeans and a t-shirt, she enjoys putting together outfits and trying different stuff out. Yeah, see, it's pretty hit-or-miss. She does enjoy wearing a few choice pieces of jewelry; the most common of the items being a gold bracelet that her father gave her for Valentine's Day. It was a pretty nice thing to do, and she was actually surprised that her dad was able to pick out something...nice.
Image(s):
OTHER
Transportation: Maroon Nissan 350Z with clear taillights.
Employment: Crash, as a Waitress.
Residence:
Buckman Heights, Apt 208
OOC-optional
Alias: Malita
Age: 22
Location: Spain