[~-F. a. C. e. //V>a. L. u. E.
||Name|| Clarissa Elisa Petri
||Age|| Twenty-one
||Gender|| Female
||Heritage|| Spanish and Italian decent.
[~-T>h
||Birthday|| March 21, 1986
||Appearance|| Clarissa is a normal looking girl. She doesn’t have anything to make her seem abnormal on the outside, unless she gets a tattoo which is something she would never do. Clarissa would never dare stain her skin of cream coffee with permanent ink, no matter how pretty the design. Aside from her obvious skin color is her height. This young lady is done growing, leaving her with a decent height of five feet and three and a quarter inches tall. She’s not too tall to wear heels nor too short to get on most rides at amusement parks. And for those wondering about her weight, she weighs a health one hundred and ten pounds.
Her figure is petite while her chest is almost border line flat. Sometimes with baggy clothes she appears as a feminine boy. Although she is thankful with a humble size A bust, Clarissa can’t help but wish sometimes for a different body type. Even those shirts that are suppose to give girls hour glassy figures hardly help. However, the only good side to this is the fact her and Edwin are basically the same size--meaning more clothes for her to wear! Though with some pants they are a bit too tight for her liking and there are those times when her brother looks better in her outfits than she does.
The shade of her eyes is a pleasant shade of forest green. Her hair goes two inches past her shoulder blades, reaching mid way down her back. Those layered locks of dirty blonde are kept in a lose bun or pony tail. Sometimes if Clarissa is feeling fancy she’ll add in some clips to spruce up her hair a little. Framing her oval face are bangs swept off to the left side, almost giving her an emo look. Thankfully the girl doesn’t dress like an emo or goth. Clarissa doesn’t like spending too much money on clothing, hence hwy her favorite stores are Ross, TJ Max…any place that’s cheap. The only things consistent with this girl are wearing sneakers and jeans. The typical attire for this girl is a tank top under an over the sleeve shirt, a bracelet on her right wrist, jeans and sneakers. This girl prefers comfort over glamour.
||Personality|| When one first looks at Clarissa the usual word to pop into their head is, ‘bookworm’. Which is essentially true. Clarissa isn’t as out going as her brother, she’s the shy and quiet type. The girl sometimes prefers the company of book than to others. Part of it is her inner child still clinging to the hope maybe she’ll find her father in one of the books she reads and the other part is because books have been her friends longer than most people. After all, reading material did help her cope with the death of her father. But there are other sides to this little bookworm.
For one thing she is a good listener. She’ll play close attention to your body language when you speak to her, the way you speak, the tone of your voice. She takes all this into account when listening, to understand the message you’re trying to verbally send to her. After all sometimes we say one thing when it means something else to both parties. Clarissa tries to minimize this accident by paying close attention to almost every detail. While this is a good trait to posses on one on one communication…it sucks during big group discussions. Its sensory overload for the girl and after hanging out with a big group of people--and questioning how her group of small friends grow to large numbers--is she physically and mentally exhausted. This explains why after big family gatherings is she tired for the next couple of days.
Another trait of the girl is her shyness. It takes her a while to warm up to people, which is why its unlikely she’ll approach anyone. Unless of course, its to ask for directions. No one likes being lost for too long. With her group of friends does Clarissa come out of her shy shell a bit. These are people she’s known for at least a few years and are completely comfortable with. Her guard isn’t up, she can disclose some personal information with her friends and discuss almost anything. Though she’ll be doing more listening than talking but she’ll be able to express herself a little more.
Those are the two main personality traits of this girl. She’s laid back and tries to help out her family whenever she can. Her patience level is quite normal and she does have some pet peeves. Like the sound of a balloon being rubbed over and over…as well as someone who repeats themselves constantly or interrupting a conversation. Clarissa does get mad from time to time--because she is human after all--and to take out her frustrations she turns to music or just scribbling down her thoughts on a piece of paper then ripping it up to tiny bits. There are rare times when she’ll get out of being shy and actually yell at someone but that’s if they did something to test her patience or if her patience was all ready on the brink.
Though if you do want to strike a conversation with Clarissa or calm her down, just have her start talking about her favorite subjects. Cooking or books. Her mother taught her how to cook and she likes the idea of making something good with her hands. Whereas with books she likes to discuss character development, allusions and critiquing the work of the author.
||Likes|| The smell of rain, overcast, strawberries, walking, pasta, cooking and reading.
||Dislikes|| Onion soup, annoying jingles, home shopping network, and misplaced papers.
[~-P. e. S. o. N. a. L.//-- n. O. t. E. s. <<]
||History|| Clarissa is the second child of her family, the first born being her brother Edwin. Both siblings are three years apart and lived with both parents till Clarissa was eight years old. The young girl had a pretty good childhood, her father the owner of his own grocery store and mother the manager at the local diner. Both parents wanted to give their children the best but being workers of the middle class came up short on some important dates like birthdays, Christmas and Easter. However the home was filled with warmth and love. Birthdays were spent with the family of course with some cousins hanging around--at least they brought presents, which when one is young is all you care about. There were some traditions while attending a Petri party, one there had to be pasta. And the second tradition was created by accident. Every year a funny event all ways happened in the Petri house hold that day. Like for example, when Edwin accidentally locked himself in the bathroom during Clarissa’s third birthday party. Or how Uncle Marty--age twenty three at the time--mistook a laxative for a chocolate at Edwin’s ninth birthday party. Needless to say, Uncle Marty couldn’t fully enjoy himself that day.
When in school Clarissa was an average child, going to class and making friends. She just sort-of fell in between crowds. In elementary school, the girl was part of the ‘girly’ squad. Those types of girls who did nothing but talk about how they couldn’t wait to grow up and wear lovely dresses. She fell in love with reading when her class took their first trip to the library in the first grade. Her little green eyes fell on a small white book entitled: Word Bird’s first book. She kept borrowing that book for weeks, asking her mom or dad to read to her. If her parents were busy she would nag her brother to read to her, even going as far as crying to make him. Finally after a month Clarissa returned the book, only to come pack with another by the same author and character. Apparently she wanted to read the entire series and she almost managed until the library ran out of available copies. Up until this point, Clarissa had a pretty good childhood.
However, when she was seven years old her father was involved in a car accident. He was driving home one night after locking up the grocery store when a drunk driver lost control of his car. The car was heading in the opposition direction of the road when it swerved and struck the family Toyota. According to the police report, both men died at impact. On December first was Christian Nathan Petri buried in the local cemetery with a plain grey head stone simply reading; Here lies a good man, a loving husband and devoted father. On the day her father was buried Clarissa’s trust in men diminished slightly. All that kept going through her head as she watched with teary eyes her father’s black casket lowering into the ground was, he promised to be there for me. Her mother quiet her job at the dinner to become a full time owner and worker of the fine store her father had left them. To cope with the loss Clarissa would spend her time reading more than anything. It let her mind wander away from a world where her father was gone to where he could be. When Edwin was ten he took on the role of ‘father’.
He couldn’t finish his childhood, he thrust himself into being an adult. Taking care of a seven year old baby sister and trying to help out their mom with the store as much as he could. Clarissa herself tried to help out with cleaning the front of the store as well as helping stock some boxes on lower shelves whenever she was done with homework. During middle school times were for the most part, stable. Her mother was hardy at home to raise them because the store required a lot of her attention. At school Clarissa was a normal child, part of the ‘normies’. She wasn’t popular as the preps, jocks or cheerleaders, weird enough to be with those kids who sat in the corner to poke things with a stick and she certainly wasn’t smart enough to be classified as a geek. She kept to herself, making few friends who shared the same interests as her. She participated in book club and continued to help out her mom with the family store. Her grades were good enough to keep her GPA at a 3.5 when she graduated.
Then that day came…Edwin coming out of the closet when she was in the tenth grade. She was the second person he told. The older boy consoled in his sister how he felt about his own gender. While it took some time for Clarissa to adjust, she found the benefit of having a gay brother. First they could hit on guys together at the mall, she would all ways have a shopping buddy living with her who knew what was going on in the fashion world--or at least in the cheap clothing stores. And, the fact he was the same size of pants as her meant more clothes for her to wear. Though the down side was her hopes of finding guy like Edwin to date…came crashing down. She thought her brother was a great guy--mind you she didn’t have a fixation on her older sibling--but the teen thought about a guy that would be like Edwin, or at least a guy Edwin would approve of. But now learning her brother was gay tainted her perception of guys. Now she views guys as friends and not potential dating material--which would explain why she didn‘t date at the time. When the time came to tell their mother…he was in his junior year of college and she in her last year of high school. Clarissa knew for one entire year her brother was gay--how she managed to keep it from their mother is thanks to brilliant acting.
The mother took time to adjust to her son being gay. First she thought it was some joke but as she saw how her son really was. The things he kept secret for so long…and the explanation as to why Clarissa had some of those magazines. She tried to convince her son he was going through a phase and would soon grow out of it. The older woman tried to set him up on blind dates which didn’t work out too well in the end. After two years did their mother accept her son for who he truly was--though she tries to set her daughter up on dates which hasn’t worked out well. Four more years passed by in a blur, Edwin dealing with the stock market and Clarissa exiting college with a degree in biology.
||Current life|| Clarissa is a graduate fresh out of college with her B.S. in biology. She can either use her degree to get into medical school or just start working. Right now though, she wants to enjoy her vacation for a bit before going back to school or into the work force. Her vacation is a trip through Europe..and her first stop, Greece!
||Animal|| First choice: Cloud Leopard
Second choice: The Kermode Bear
||Why her|| Clarissa just graduated with a degree in biology. For four years she‘s learned how organisms live together, evolve and adapt to changes. Now this knowledge can be used in two ways, as a foundation for medical school…or be applied in real life situation like say…her lower half being replaced with an animals. Besides, every island needs a cook.
