Final battle with basement cat.

We’re very selfish people who receive a gift we can’t handle. We do the most unloving things we could have ever possibly done. We only worry about what we want, what we need, and we don't think. Yes, we know, it could’ve been a lot worse. And we bring it upon ourselves. It’s human nature.
It's our own fault that we're completely addicted to everything we do. I wish we could say the same about our God, say that we want him by our side every waking moment of our lives. I myself must’ve been lying in church when I was the only one defending the position that it is easier to love God than man. I said that God is always with us, and it’s easier to have reminders of his everlasting love through all creation and through the Bible. But now I see otherwise. It is easier to want those things which fulfill our selfish needs. God never grants our selfish requests, and that is why we try finding fulfillment elsewhere. And that is the farthest from what true love is. Shouldn’t I know better than that?
No, I'm sure we all feel like hypocrites some days. As much as we want what we want we have to make a few sacrifices. We get a gift I can’t handle, so we have to be extra careful to keep it on the shelf until the right time. Which most likely isn’t for another 6 years, right? Everyone’s lives will be a lot more fulfilling if we all learn to live by the benefits that come from that sort of sacrifice.
I'll try falling asleep now without feeling horrible for being so stupid. I know better than that! But at the same time not accepting God’s grace is like saying that it’s not perfect enough to cover every little aspect of our lives. I know people have already died without you because of my selfishness. I’ll try harder in the future. After all, I’ve gotten this far with your help, how can I doubt your perfect guidance?

--E.A.

Oh yes, and procrastinating.

What I'm doing right now:

-Writing a commencement essay (a poem, actually) good enough to make everyone cry. If they don't cry I'll use tear gas in the whole auditorium tomorrow at speaker tryouts.

-Eating dry Ramen because I'm so stressed out that I need something to munch on.

-Not to worry!--with the Ramen I'm drinking cold milk with sugar and vanilla extract.

-Laughing at the fact that there were only 4 seniors in our all-senior Government class yesterday.

-Remembering prom and planning to organize a CF-BOPM-RRWHM-SECRHMF: campaign for the betterment of prom music and replacing rap with heavy metal so everyone can really have more fun. (And we'll have a IYDLIL policy: if you don't like it, leave.)

-Wondering which prom picture to put up (I have a few good ones, but the best pictures I have are, of course, of my insanely handsome date.)

-Losing the game.

-Wondering why it must be that humans are doomed to spend 1/3 of their earthly life sleeping. I don't have enough time for anything these days!

That's all.
--E.A.

Don't forget what tomorrow is!

Senior skip day tomorrow! (I'm going...wait, or am I? Am I "going" to school or to senior skip day? Hmm...)

I hope I won't see any easter bunnies at prom.

Prom is tomorrow. Luckily everything is in order. I just hope that by "suit" my boyfriend meant an actual suit, and not a costume. :) Can't wait for tomorrow.

--E.A.

?

It's odd, I haven't had anything to say about anything since late March. Usually I'm not this untalkative, but I know there's a problem when even my personal blog (not this one) is lacking words. Seriously, normally I average a page or two a day in personal writing, and recently, since late March, it's a paragraph on average. I'm not quite sure what is happening. I have two theories:
1) I don't have time
2) I've lost interest in writing
And the second one is theoretically impossible because writing is a calling of a sort for me. And I do have time, I just choose to not use it for writing for reasons unknown to me.
So then what's the problem? I can't figure it out.
Yes, I know it's Hannah Montana. It's a good song, though.
The struggles in our lives are tests of faithfulness.

--E.A.

Wolf in sheep's clothing. Or pigs in tiger's...

This cracked me up today:

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth. The mother tiger, after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve. After checking with many other zoos across the country, the sad news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only 'orphans' that could be found quickly were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin (elena says: HOW.) and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops? Take a look...

I think I'm just fascinated by the pigs in little tiger costumes. Tiger wannabes. HAHA.

My question is: if she only had triplets, why did they give her two extra pigs??

--E.A.

Newfound obsession: VELOCIRAPTORS.

I mean, it just makes sense, right? That I would suddenly fall head-over-heels in love with a V. mongoliensis. But it's true. I've been looking for something to collect for a while now, and I think I finally found it: I'd like to collect velociraptors.
Before I launch into a complicated discussion of how there seriously are velociraptors at our school, here are some fascinating resources for everyone to check out:

1. VELOCIRAPTOR LOVE TSHIRT
2. XKCD TSHIRT (xkcd actually started the whole velociraptor thing (they're so random, I love it) but I'll mention that a bit later again)
3. VELOCIRAPTOR FINGER PUPPET (now everyone's gotta have this!
4. VELOCIRAPTOR MUSIC <---you guys this is just weird. Apparently this guy named "DJ Purple Rabbit" has a CD out with a song on it called "Velociraptor", and the creepy part is that it was released on my 18th birthday!!! Freaky!!!!!!! That's a sign, it's official.
5. "Dinosaur Face-Off: Velociraptor vs. Ankylosaur" The title of this just absolutely fascinated me. As did the price, ahem ($90! WHA?!!)
6. VELOCIRAPTOR EARRINGS! Somebody should totally get me that for graduation.


So now I'm just really looking forward to ordering some plastic dinosaurs off the internet. Seriously, who does that though? Well...me, apparently.



HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM A VELOCIRAPTOR ATTACK:
1) Windows are possible entry points. Avoid standing too close to windows.
2) Playhouses are NOT safe from Velociraptors. Do not try to hide from them here!
3) Install round doorknobs. Velociraptors do not have thumbs, therefore making it harder for them to operate said doorknobs.
4) Doors in your house should be either oak or steel.
5) Keep a loaded rifle in your bedroom and have a tire iron handy in every room. You never know when you might need it!


And this is how this all got started (Thanks XKCD): The picture is small, just click on it GOSH.

--E.A.

TOMORROW IS VELOCIRAPTOR AWARENESS DAY! SERIOUSLY! SPREAD THE WORD!

What's in my head right now.

"If we're going to say glory to God it doesn't mean just glory to God when I'm in front of people or glory to God when people are watching. It means glory to God with every word and every thought and every motive, every meditation. .. It's as if we're saying in every part of my life, in every corner, in every shadow of my life, glory to God, with every relationship, glory to God, with every motive, glory to God, with every word and thought, glory to God."
--Steve Fee

By My Side.

Ever since I saw "Godspell" (twice, mind you) I have been stuck on this song. It is so powerful. There is nothing more comforting than knowing that Christ has risen and is always by my side.

Above all, HAPPY EASTER! He is risen indeed.

(If you haven't seen Godspell, watch it. Be aware of controversies, but also be open-minded, people, please. God gave you a brain, so please use it to make your own judgements.)


--E.A.

HAD to share this:

The Old Man.

I met an interesting old man today. He sat down next to me in the doctor’s office.
“How are you?” I politely volunteered, lifting my eyes off my magazine.
“Hi,” he said. There was a moment of pause, during which I could tell he was just one of those people who really wanted to talk to someone. And I was just one of those people who wanted to hear what he had to say.
“That looks like a doctor’s satchel,” he finally said, pointing at my black purse.
“You’re right,” I said. “It does.” There was another moment of silence, during which I tried figuring out why he noticed to point out that specific detail.
“I lived my whole life here,” he finally said. “This town used to have 24,000 people and 3,000 students. They told us that if they included the outskirts into the city limits we might get another post office.”
I love old folks in general, but I was really fascinated by this man’s willingness to talk to me about this. Clearly it was on his mind and he wanted to share with someone but might not have known with whom.
We talked for a few minutes, during which he explained to me that he was almost 85 years old and that he has lived his whole life here. I wish now that I had gotten his name, because it might have been interesting to look back into history and see where he fit in. That’s what I love about the past—the fact that there are people living among us today who know all about it.
He said that his great-uncle was in the Civil War and that he fought for the North with Kentucky. “My family has lived here for a long time,” he said.
I mentioned that I was from Russia and that I didn’t have any history here, to which he said, “You don’t sound like a Russian!” and his wife put down her newspaper and looked at me over her glasses.
“I suppose I lost my accent,” I explained.
As soon as he found out that I was Russian the old man jumped ardently right into explaining all about Bloomington’s history, starting with the very beginning. He rattled off the famous people who lived here, the populations during the different years, the changes in government, various changes to city layout, courthouse, etc.
Then, as if on cue, the nurse came in and called my name. I waited until the old man finished his thought, and then said, “It was very nice to get to talk to you, I wish I had gotten more time.” With a “Take care!” I left the room.
After I walked out of the office I wondered why this old man would want to tell me all these things. About his great-uncle in the Civil War. Was he trying to make a connection? Why did he mention the fact that he has roots here? What was he trying to establish? Was it political or social commentary? Or did he just simply want to converse with someone?
I wish I had stayed for longer to talk to this old man. All the way to my car I wanted to turn around and go back and sit in that waiting room for just a few more minutes, to find out what more he had to say. For some reason it made a very strong emotional impact on me, and I drove all the way home in silence wondering what it had all meant and why it impacted me the way it did.
Perhaps it was because he looked like my Grandpa. My own words echoed in my head, “I wish I had gotten more time.” Such a burned-out thought for me by now. How many times have I thought that before about anything and everything? Too many.
Anyways. Make of this story whatever you'd like. Always listen, though. And always take the opportunity to start a conversation.

--E.A.

(while you're at it, check this out http://astrology.yahoo.com/channel/none/the-true-meaning-of-this-season-a-gentle-reminder-from-tony-d-337730/ )

Stress...kind of.

Among all the stress of the day, that picture ^^^ gave me a great laugh.
Thank God for laughter. Amazingly stress-relieving and mind-curing.


As far as stress goes, though, here's what I got:


Here's that bike I'm thinking about getting.
So let's hope I can pull my resources together and get it. Also, let's hope my parents read my earlier post about dangers of cycling and see that really New York, California, Florida, and Texas are just stupid when it comes to road safety. Our town, a college town, is very bike-friendly.



Okay that's all I have to say for the day unless you'd like to hear my rant about Ms. Kvale's wonderful candy selection in Physics class or my chiropractor misadventures.
I'll leave you with a verse:
Psalm 63:3
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

--E.A.

Unmotivated.

It's not like I don't have anything to do, it's that I have lots to do but I've done so much of it already that I had to go through about four cups of hot chocolate just to keep awake.
Here you go.

Rules:--Go to urbandictionary.com and type in your answers to the following questions.--Post one of the first definitions for your answer.

Your name?
Elena: Elena is another word for perfect. The root of the word comes from ancient fairy world, where perfect beings were called ELENA not many of them survived through time but some are still among us.

Your age?
18: Eighteen, as in the number 18. Before 19, after 17.
I turned 18 today! You're 81, moron.

Your favorite food?
Pasta: a codename for various drugs (what isn’t a codename for drugs these days?!)

What should you be doing?
Homework: Homework is a form of suppressing a child's individual interests so that they do not develop any ideas of individual worth and proceed to fill a job that is needed to keep everything functioning properly when he or she is not at school.

Your favorite color?
Yellow: that song by Coldplay
~Look at the stars, Look how they shine for you, And everything you do, Yeah, they were all yellow.~

Birthplace?
Russia: A really big and very cool country in the east. Managed to crush the Nazi occupation force after a decisive tank battle in the fields of Kursk. Currently fighting the rebels, as of yet they are the only country to do anything effective to fight global terrorism.

Birth month?
February: the month that confuses the heck out of people who don’t know that 28+1=29 and also the month that gives women the best excuse to ask for expensive jewelry.

My car almost caught on fire today.

(chill, it's just an illustration I found on google, not what it actually looked like)

Okay, so here's what happened to me today:
I was in a store with my cousin and we were getting ready to leave. It was pouring down rain and we were standing by the exit trying to figure out how we were going to make a run to the car without getting absolutely soaked.
Then we saw all the employees gather around us, and some of the customers. They were all looking out into the parking lot, and I wondered if they've never seen the rain before or something.
NO.
There was a car. In the parking lot of this store. And it was ON FIRE. (No, it's not the car in the picture. Are you kidding? I'm not evil enough to run around town taking pictures of burning cars! "Oh look a burning car, *click* hmm so picturesque...")
But the most important part was that it was standing next to my car!
Instinct kicked in.
Defending my property.
I was NOT about to let my car get damaged (the other people probably didn't even have good enough insurance--you should've seen that junker they were driving! No wonder it caught on fire!)
It wasn't a very big fire on the other car--just a little bit under the hood, but I totally wanted to get out of that parking lot, pronto. So I ran to my car, in the pouring rain, to the thunder and lightning (and we had a tornado warning). It seriously felt like World War III.
I could hear the fire engine sirens in the distance and I had to be somewhere in ten minutes, so I really didn't want my way to be blocked by firetrucks (and I didn't want anything to happen to my car). So I got out of there.

Now that I think about it I should've stayed for the whole show. Well, it was either my entertainment or my car. I took my pick. We'll probably read about it in the newspaper tomorrow anyways.

--E.A.

25 Random Things About Me.

Homework is for freshmen.
Some days I wish I had freckles.
I used to be obsessed with The Sims.
I write every day for publishing/personal reflection.
I wonder what’s wrong with people who say they “don’t read much”.
Every day is a gift. That’s why it’s called ‘the present’.
I love heavy metal (Metallica’s latest CD is amazing, but old school Metallica is alright too).
I like taking pictures but none of my friends like their pictures taken.
God is life.
I almost never watch TV.
I’m kind of obsessed with cycling at this point.
From my perspective, basketball games are only fun if you’re in Pep Band.
And high school sports are overrated.
I grew out of the whole “being a senior” thing about four months ago.
I don’t mind being a farm girl for a few weeks in the summer when we go down to our lakehouse.
I have very special friends. No, really. They’re special.
I already have my dream car.
I like healthy food, although people who don’t do their research (especially on organics) really dumbfound me.
I can’t live without my laptop (for writing purposes).
I play piano. I play piano well. I’ve been playing keyboard in a band for 5 years.
I like psychology. The knowledge I have in that area makes manipulating people very easy.
I am not an American citizen yet. I will be soon.
I’m afraid of balloons and oversleeping.
I have CDO: OCD in alphabetical order.
9 times out of 10 my hands are cold. Cold hands warm heart, they say.
Most of my friends are band geeks.
I don’t like cake. Or cookies.
My grandparents are the best, and I grew up with only one set. R.I.P. Grandpa.
I do silly stuff just to make people laugh. I like making people happy.
I am still achieving self-actualization. Are you?
My favorite color is yellow…and black…and silver.
I was born in Ryazan, Russia.
I’m learning to play bass…it’s not going very well.
I like good food. I might have already mentioned that. In any case, I like tasty food…and lots of it.
I like randomness…oh look, a cow! Penguins! Eek! (yeah inside joke nevermind)
I love America’s Funniest Home Videos.
I have Spina Bifida. Yes. Except it’s the non-malignant kind so I’ll never be paralyzed. Praise God.
I like picking on my cousin since I only have one.
I find people my age annoying but reasonably easy to deal with.
I’ve dressed up and went trick-or-treating as the same thing for the past 4 years yet no one ever figured out it was me.
I’ve only broken one bone my whole life: the little thing on the side of my elbow. I was at Mr. Gatti’s in the jungle gym…
I desperately want to learn to play the Balalaika.

Inspiration.

I'm working on a commencement speech right now, and this kind of makes me think. Enjoy.

Born to be weird?

I wanted to give you little excerpt from my very first day of writing (four years ago) when I was in 8th grade. If you would, notice the fingerprints of God all over the most ironic lines I wrote.(I’ll be adding comments in parentheses).

4-2-2005

…While my parents were busy in the back yard i went upstairs to my room to hang my new Spongebob poster on my wall. The poster said, “Born to be Weird”. Do you think i’m born to be weird? No, really? Oh, why was i born? is there a purpose? Maybe it’s to write a book? (OH THE IRONY.) Well, that’s what i’m doing now, isn’t it? Plus i don’t think i’m doing very good, i’m a horrible writer. Why would anyone ever read this stuff, i guess. i mean, what else would you call something so incredibly simple written by a very simple girl. there are millions of writers all around the world who would looove to publish their work. i don’t even know why i even care about this so much. i do want to share with other people, even though i don’t know why. What’s the main purpose of this writing that i do? is it to tell people a little more about Russia? Well, nooo.. if this gets to any government officials they might have a worldwide meeting and ban immigration! (At this point I still wasn’t very happy about moving here so I often went on rants.) No.. that reason is definitely out! then what? Maybe.. just maybe.. maybe there’s another reason that i just don’t know yet. Maybe it’s something that’s going to happen in the future.. (OH THE IRONY…AGAIN!) oh, whatever. this is only my second day of writing and i’m already getting into weird subjects!

(There's always a purpose to everything. Keep thinking.)

--E.A.

WOO! 4 years and counting!

Happy 4-year-anniversary!

That is, my dear blog(s)/writing. I love you, and I don't know what I would do without you. You bring amazing insight into my life and you let God speak to me through you.

Also thanks for successfully letting me take this relationship to the next level (blogging). Successfully. And while I do have a few mild concerns, they're nothing like those of actual published authors. Although I'm sure I'll be running into that later.

(this is from postsecret)

I'm pretty busy right now. I have to juggle commencement/graduation/scholarships/prom/church/an important birthday coming up/and quite a few things to think about. So no time for deep thought or anything über-creative for here.

Song stuck in my head today all day: Alive--P.O.D. I think it's because it was on the radio this morning.

--E.A.

April Fool's.

MOST EPIC PRANK EVER:

Leave class early and cover your unsuspecting boyfriend's car in post-it notes. I left him a post-it in his every class and stuck one on his locker between classes. The last one read "Good luck after school today." He was clueless. Then he was in for a surprize. Apparently I'm "really gonna get it now". To that I say HA-HA because this was the best-set-up prank ever. Happy April 1st dear.

Thanks to http://misfit410.blogspot.com/ for the following awesome idea, by the way.:

"I want to take a moment of my time to stop and say thank you to Barack Hussein Obama who has done a fantastic job the last 3 months...The future of our very important auto unions now seems very secure, our banks are in very good hands and I can see no way for us to go except up. I hope you all will join me in putting our partisan politics aside and giving this great man the credit he deserves, I even propose we mark this day from now on as "Barack Obama Day"..Happy April 1st everyone."

Communication Fail = Death.

It's true! My day has gone through some rough times all because of miscommunications, undercommunications, and complete lack-of-communications.

First of all, I completely forgot that I had signed up to tutor every Wednesday. So I got an email at 11 o'clock last night with a "looking forward to seeing you tomorrow" message inside.
Darn it.
I hunted down this student during school the next day and made other arrangements, which didn't make things easier because I hate to reschedule other people's lives to accomodate my needs.

And then came another horrible miscommunication: I knew I had an eye doctor's appointment today, but people in my family failed to mention
a) it might last, yes, over an hour. Over three hours, in fact.
b) when you are done, you will not be able to see clearly
c) therefore you will be unable to drive
d) or read (therefore tutoring goes out the window)
and finally, I was not informed of the following:
e) the doctor will answer a personal call which will extend our visit by about an hour and
f) actually, yes, you WILL be able to drive and read as COMPLETELY NOTHING will happen to your vision

That was the part I was the most upset about. Nevermind the fact that the doctor walked out of the office at one point for about an hour. Nevermind that he was kind of a jerk with the way he talked about me and my lack of participation in school sports (They need my brain in academics more than they need my height in basketball, you jerk.)
But the fact that my vision was not impaired in any way was the most upsetting. "You wouldn't be able to drive!" dad said. "Even I always have trouble, and I've driven over a million miles in my life." Hey, guess what: you're 50 years old, your eyes don't function the same, and they're a -2.

So I cancelled tutoring because I was told that I "wouldn't be able to see". Nice, right? I felt horrible, because my student has a test tomorrow and I wasn't able to help because I had something else scheduled and was completely misinformed!

Anyways. And then I get home and start getting ready for this "scholarship reception" at my college when I notice the fine print on the scholarship letter.
*lemme get out my magnifying glass* it says "register before March 18th". HOW did I not see that? It's been 10 days since then and I find out 40 minutes before the thing?!

I guess this is another one of God's ways of telling me how important communication is. Listening, paying attention, and making sure the point gets across.

Heh, I'll live.
--E.A.