Enjoy your flushing experience!

2nd floor bathroom, by the B-wing and the nurse's office. 2nd stall. EPIC SIGN.
Reads: "Attention. This toilet flushes for 30.9 seconds. Trust us. We timed it...yes, with an actual stopwatch. Enjoy your flushing experience."

THAT. IS. FREAKIN. AMAZING.
Wonder who's behind that? I mean, who else would be special enough to think of it, time the toilet flushing, and then write a blog post about it. WHO ELSE.

Whoever it is, she must have a pretty darn awesome sense of humor. And heck yes she is planning some pretty darn awesome pranks for all her friends tomorrow. In fact, she is doing her research right now...*shifty eyes*. I'll post my...um...her results tomorrow. TEEHEE.
April Fool's Day is the best day of the year. :)


Songs stuck in my head today:
1. Unforgiven III--Metallica (I woke up with this stuck in my head. Is it possible that it carried over from yesterday? Hmm.)
2. Whatever Reason--Disciple
3. I'm Henry VIII I Am--Herman's Hermits (really weird song and really annoying when it gets stuck in your head because it's just so darn cheerful!)
4. Revolution--Starfield
5. The Gay Eskimo Song--Corky & The Juice Pigs (AGAIN!!! in the same class, too!)
6. Truth of a Liar--August Burns Red (I love ABR)
7. Hearts Burst Into Fire--Bullet for my Valentine (great song. the guitar in the beginning is phenomenal)
And now it's back to Henry VIII. Darn it.

--E.A.

Dr. Cullen is real!

Okay, I totally had to post this before I went tonight.
So we were driving through Washington on Saturday.
And I saw THIS.
And I made my dad back up so I could take a picture.
EPIC.
No, like, EPIC EPIC.
What a total win.

The funnier thing, though, is what happened just now. I went on Google to see if I could find any better pictures of the place and I typed in a combination of "Cullen", "Medical" and "Washington" and, of course, a picture of Dr. Carlisle Cullen from Twilight came up. Here's the sad part: I was so focused on finding pictures of this place that I thought it was serious! I thought, ZOMG! He actually works there?!!!! And then I felt really stupid...I still feel really stupid...

--E.A.

Research day: HOPE.

Great. A whole day to do a bunch of research necessary for 1) the mural we are doing for school and 2) commencement. Well, and 3) just for myself.

I was looking today for inspirational quotes/pictures for concepts such as hope, change, and the future, and here are a few interesting things I found that I will not be using anywhere in my work:

"Don't wonder how valuable you are, wonder how you are valuable."

"Once in a while it hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in a way they have been told to."

By the way, I decided to start a log of what songs get stuck in my head throughout the day, so I recorded a few today. If I suddenly realized I was humming something, I wrote it down and, well, here's my list (most of these I wrote down before 4 o'clock today):

1. I Believe in Love--Barlow Girl

2. True Love--Phil Wickham

3. You Found Me--The Fray (yeah I was having a mellow morning)

4. Holiday--Green Day (not quite sure where this one came from)

5. Dear God--Avenged Sevenfold (the chorus was stuck in my head)

6. ...I'm the Only Gay Eskimo--Corky & The Juice Pigs (oh goodness don't ask! this was seriously stuck in my head after Government class today!!)

7. The Unforgiven III--Metallica

Keep thinking.

--E.A.

Brain space.

Yes, I was going to write about something else right now, but it's a deep and thoughtful topic and I need some time with it, so while I'm working on that here are a few other things to keep this blog rolling. These are little snapshots I wrote previously. Enjoy.

"I don’t even know where to begin. I’m SO behind on writing and I have so much that I don’t even know what to write about. Oh sure I have all the time in the world now, it’s just that time is just like money: “Oh I need a little for this, and for that, and this will help me in the long run, and this is a good investment…” and in the end you end up with neither time nor money if you reason that way. So I have to prioritize. How am I going to do that with all the stuff I have to write about?! "

"You know what I realized today? I talk to myself out loud. I was getting out of my car today in the Kroger parking lot and I saw how dirty my car was, so I though, I should wash my car. Instantly I replied to myself out loud: “Not today, you idiot. It’s freezing!” When I said that I noticed that there was a woman sitting in the car next to which I parked and her window was rolled down. I awkwardly looked at her for a second and walked briskly towards the store."

"Here’s a little friendly exchange I had with my cousin this morning after having bought some candy at a gas station. She read me a riddle off a Laffy Taffy wrapper and I decided to prank her by pretending there was a riddle on my AirHeads wrapper.
“Hey, listen to this: it says, ‘Did you know the word “gullible” is written on the ceiling of your car’?”
“Huh?” She looked up and I laughed my socks off.
About five minutes later, though, I was in for another roaring moment. After carefully inspecting the wrapper of her AirHeads candy she finally said, “Wait, where are the jokes on these things anyways?” "

"I was looking up Rolex watch prices for a project today, and somehow an “Add to Cart” button next to “Buy for only $79,250” just doesn’t seem appropriate. Like, what kind of a sick joke is this. Who would actually click that!? I did…just to see what would happen. The page took forever to load. I wonder if Bill Gates owns a Rolex watch. Probably didn’t think twice about buying one. What’s $100,000 of…how much is he worth now? According to a website that’s about 15 cents to him. EEK. Bill Gates makes $300 a second. I make $15 an hour of grueling tutoring, and only when it’s in demand."

--E.A.

Academia Saves the Day.

I feel compelled to discuss this subject yet again:


Epic kudos to Evie and whoever wrote this on the FRONT DOORS of our school:

Evie, of course, being the first to notice this gross flat-out disrespect for the school's academic standards, quickly corrected the uneducated half-wit with a BRIGHT-ORANGE post-it note.

And not only that, but she also submitted this picture to the NEWSPAPER to the "Panther Pride" discussion board with the caption "I call this one "Academia Saved the Athlete" Good Luck to South Science Olympiad at state tomorrow, too!"

So basically an EPIC WIN all around. Yay academia! Yay people who can't spell and make our day! Yay science olympiad! Yay nerds! Yay submitting things online to newspapers! Yay fast communication! Yay Evie!
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/htoxtras/southbb/epride.php?id=116

--E.A.

Cause we all love LolCat.

I have a bit of an addiction to lolcats. I subscribe to their blog feeds and I've read all their macros (the official name for the captioned pictures), yes, I've read them all (since they updated the first shots onto their http://icanhascheezburger.com/ site in 2007), and I save my favorite ones.

This morning one of my friends was working on an informative speech for her speech class on the topic of lolcats, so I decided to help her out with some research.

Here's what I found.
This is priceless.

--==THE BIBLE in LOLSPEAK.==--

There has been some controversy (of course) about disrespect to ancient scriptures and concepts and all that. Well, I'm Christian, and I think it's clever, witty, and funny! It gives the Bible a certain edge and shows that God does have a sense of humor. Especially if you read the Old Testament in lolspeak--some of those translations really show you how wonderful God really is. (And, of course, this project is only recommended for those Christians who have read through the Bible and know what's going on. Don't just read the lol version. :))

Here are some excerpts that I found funny:

Romans 1:4

NIV: "and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord."
LOL: "an we can knows he r teh son uf Ceiling Cat cuz he wuz ded, then zomg, he r alive."

Romans 1:13
NIV: "I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now)"

LOL: "I tryed to visit u lots of tiems but I never cud. Monorail Cat was deraild an stuffs."

Romans 1:23-24
NIV: "and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires"

LOL: "They dun wurship Ceiling Cat. They wurship teh idols like Booda, but he eets too mani cheezbrgrs. Wy u wanna wurship him? So Ceiling Cat ses FIEN! BE DAT WAY!"

Or here's this:

"I calz her "whoa man", k cuz she in ur chest stealin ur ribs. Srsly ... "

"Nadab an Abihu litted they sensas on fiah, an smellies, an gived it to Ceiling Cat. Ceiling Cat was laik: “DO NOT WANT”."

"Moses was laik: “WTG Ceiling Cat! Ceiling Cat rox!” and Aaron was laik: “…”."

Anyways. Judge for yourselves. Check it out.

http://www.lolcatbible.com/

--E.A.

Donkey-riding.

Today was the day my Mother and I had the conversation about the dangers of what I do: road cycling, and the fact that sometimes I have to ride on roads where the speed limit exceeds 55mph. You know how these things go, though. Moms seem to have the latest "information" on the ready, complete with a gillion reasons why what you just said is a terrible idea. I think that's even in a Mother's job description (especially when her children grow up)--provide reasons for why certain ideas are "bad".


And, of course, it's just the law of the universe that right before you have an important conversation with your parental units about something (i.e. being on our super-safe campus after dark) something relevantly-horrible happens to a relative/coworker/person on the news (i.e. a coworker's daughter getting robbed after volleyball practice one night). So as I was telling my Mom about riding my bike on "highways" she mentioned my cousin Kelly, whose husband just died in a motorcycle accident. Horrible coincidence.



But I had a crown card ready.


"Mom, you do know that more people get killed by donkeys than airplanes every year?"


That stopped the conversation dead in its tracks, and I left the kitchen area to give Mom some thinking room. When I was upstairs, though, I decided to investigate that particular statistic, and I now report my findings.


- Moose (meese if you prefer) are the biggest man-killers in US and Canada.
- In totally unrelated headlines, a guy got 12 years in jail for killing a donkey.
- 2.3 million people got killed by elephants between 2002 and 2008(worldwide).
- About 700 cyclists die per year in car accidents.
- Realistically, a cyclist is 3x as likely to die on the road than a motorist however 40% of those deaths are with children under 16.
- Cyclists account for only 2% of all road fatalities.
- Most cyclist accidents occur in urban areas between the hours of 5 and 9.
- 4 states out of 50 account for 50% of bicycle accidents.
- 1 in 20 cyclists (worldwide) is injured (not fatally) annually.
- And dig this:


"An analysis based on the life expectancy of each cyclist killed in road accidents using actuarial data, and the increased longevity of those engaging in exercise regimes several times a week compared with those leading relatively sedentary lives, has shown that, even in the current cycle hostile environment, the benefits in terms of life years gained, outweigh life years lost in cycling fatalities by a factor of around 20 to 1."

If you are a cyclist and want more info, go here: http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

My question is:

Can I just ride a donkey on the highway instead of my bike? If donkeys and highways are dangerous separately from each other, does that mean the dangers will cancel out when they are combined?

--E.A.

Basketball & Stuff.

This morning I got to school at 7am just so I could get me some basketball tickets. It’s insane--like people decided to think of nothing but basketball for three days straight.

All the hallways are super-decorated and everyone is going insane.

I guess "basketball" and "Hoosiers" are two pretty inseparable concepts, but nobody really knew how inseparable they really were until now.

This is the first time that the boys team will be going to the state championship since...1919?

Do you have any idea how many tickets they sold yesterday? Yes, over 3500 In one day! So I was hoping to get in on this ticket-purchasing frenzy.

Yesterday, even though it was raining, the line stretched all the way around the school. People were basically in mortal combat over parking spots in the front lot--which clearly prevented any students from parking there and therefore everyone was late to class in the morning becuase they couldn't park.

So today they decided to not start ticket sales until 8 am. Which means I had an hour. Which doesn’t make sense, but not much else in this life does.
And since I do the morning announcements I couldn’t even get in line until 8:05. By then, though, I was hearing talk around the office along the lines of “if we let everyone who is in line right now get 2 tickets we are going to run out”. Panic mode!

Really, though, how are they going to run out of seats in this place::::

Conseco Fieldhouse is huge! There is no way they’re out of tickets! Yes, they have to sell to the “general public”. But doesn’t it make more sense if you sell all the tickets you can to people from our town instead of from elsewhere?! Doesn’t make any sense.

The sanity of the world is long-lost. As we have established long ago, actually.

--E.A.

Basketball, Edward, and an Episode of Blah.

I'm pretty hyped up right now (and I can't sleep, as is evident from the time it says up above...or is it down below? Anyways it's 12 o'clock.) And it's not hyped up in a bad or a good way, it' s just kind of in between. I suppose it's just stress and frustration mixed together...with a pixie stick on top.
1. There's a state championship boys basketball game which I wanted to go to and which I AM going to because I always get my way, and when I don't get my way I sit there and pout until I do get my way. That's not a good character trait to have, especially since I was originally upset with the other person for telling me that the game wasn't a priority. It's not one of those "I-think-it's-all-about-me" situations, but for a second there I did catch what seemed like a slight disregard for my interests. At least it seemed like it. Anyways, I'm over it. Petty drama. Over it, over it. So over it.

2. Speaking of appreciation, I wonder how much people really notice what good little things other people do for them every day. Things that often totally slip under the radar. Like the fact that I'm willing to stay up until 12 o'clock just to blow-dry my hair just to look nice the next day. Okay this is again heading in the direction of the whole basketball-game issue, and I decided we were over it so moving on.

3. I appreciate people who have patience. I'll be patient with you if you are patient with me. And please be patient with me.

4. I think this is all partially stress, though, and the fact that my Grandma is flying out tomorrow and will probably not be back until the summer. It's good to spend time away from her for a while because otherwise we just all lose our appreciation for each-other (there's the whole appreciation thing again!) but I don't know how well she'll handle going back to the place where she lived before Grandpa died. She's a tough lady, she can handle it. At least she'll have everyone believe that. Whether she actually wants everyone to believe that is a whole another psychological debate, though.

5. At least I got all my Physics work out of the way. All I have to work on tomorrow, then, is finding something to wear for the dance. And writing thank-you notes for sponsors who donated to our club fund. I don't even know what I'm going to put in those cards.
roses are red
violets are blue
thank you so much
this card is for you
Yes, that's the best I can think of right now. Not too bad, though, is it?

6. Our school basketball team is going to the state competition and I don't even like basketball all that much, but I'm still pretty excited. Maybe it's the fact that it's a huge basketball game. In Indianapolis. My senior year. We get to make history, or we get to learn that a good build-up doesn't guarantee a good outcome. I mean, the other team is preparing just as much, right?

7. Ew my aunt watched Twilight and now she has a crush on Edward. Ew! Edward isn't even all that nice or good-looking. "But he's so romantic!" she said. Seriously, lady, you talk like a 14-year old. Even I know better than that. Come on.

8. Okay I'm done blabbering for the day. See, what happens is that when I tutor right after school I always have to talk really fast because I have to fit a whole chapter's worth of talking into the space of an hour (don't know how teachers do this...). So it sets the pace for the rest of the day and I experience extreme episodes of super-extreme logorrhea for the rest of the day. (There's your daily word, by the way: Logorrhea. Cool, eh?)
Anyways. Done talking.

--E.A.

Didn't know all this editing was so hard!

Really: I haven't done any online HTML work since the days when all the kids were crazed about oh-what-are-those-things-called. Today I had to add a custom header to my blog. "Custom" is the key word there, because that automatically implies a long time spent resizing, changing fonts, and otherwise messing with Photoshop (which I just got through IU's free software program, so I honestly have no idea how to use it). But here it is. I think this is as complicated as it'll get. I might add music. Yes, music is essential. But overall this "blog" idea is very nice. It suits me well, I think.

I'll let you in on a little secret: five years ago I started private blogging. 1,500 typed pages later I think it's time to share some of that.

I'll let you in on another little secret (that's not so secret): I'm a writer. Maybe I should just go straight to publishing. It's nice to have a private blog, though. Before I get crazy-famous and have to get a website. Wait, I am crazy-famous. Oh well.

So I think I'm in for an adventure.

--E.A.

Unfortunately, Elena is easily amused.

I didn't know where else to put this, and I thought I needed something new to put on my blog anyways. After all, I'm still not too enthusiastic about the idea, so maybe seeing that posting is fun and easy would encourage me to put up more interesting stuff. As in, stuff that is more interesting than this.

Type into Google "Unfortunately" followed by your name and you get a cornucopia or randomness. I already did one that was "Elena needs" (I'll repost it after this), so now it's time for another one. These things seem to be a fad nowadays, and I think it's because people ARE easily amuzed and like seeing what other people with their name do online.
Yeah I Googled my own name once. There is, apparently, and Elena with my last name who lives in Spain and writes books on Romanesque Philology. I always knew us EPs were strange, and there's just more proof for you.

But anyways. Here's this. A list:
1. Unfortunately Elena's father doesn't approve (I'm sure he doesn't)
2. Unfortunately Elena hasn't dropped yet (I haven't dropped? Good!)
3. Unfortunately Elena's cell phone was stolen (no, but my iPod was stolen once)
4. Unfortunately Elena did not have the relevant document at hand (that's how it always happens, let me tell you)
5. Unfortunately Elena wasn't well enough to attend the after-competition party
6. Unfortunately Elena injured her leg after the free skate (she would...)
7. Unfortunately Elena is the hole in the donut (HAHA! that's amazing)
8. Unfortunately Elena can purchase items only when they are needed
9. Unfortunately Elena had to play one of the hottest players in college tennis in the first round (interesting)
10. Unfortunately Elena is right (yep)

And here's the old "Elena needs" thing:
1. Elena needs blockwalkers & volunteers
2. Elena needs to take care alone for a boy needing special treatment every half or one year in the special children care centre
3. Elena really needs for Alissa to go to sleep (haha what?)
4. Elena needs our help
5. Elena needs a haircut
6. Elena needs to shut up (HAHA!)
7. Elena also needs Albumin and Meronem (what are those?)
8. Elena needs a loan of 1500 soles which she will invest in the purchase of defects
9. Elena needs to have these documents for her trip to Germany
10. Elena needs no make up at all (hahaha)

--E.A.

Random useful links

See, if I'm going to do this blogging thing right I have to start writing something meaningful for other people to read and scratch their head and say, "Hmm, that is very meaningful." I have nothing today, though, except for some useful links for you to explore:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm A free personality test! The kind they let you take for free on CollegeBoard and the kind you have to pay for elsewhere. It's actually very accurate, so you might want to give it a go.

http://www.giantmicrobes.com/ Who doesn't love these things? We've all seen them in Mr. Rapp's Chemistry classes, and now we're all addicted. At least I'm addicted. I want to have them all. I want them to get dusty on my shelves instead of the store shelves.

http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/ One of the strangest and most-updated blogs out there. Really has no purpose except to make its readers go "Uggghhh...." at the sight of the things various celebs choose to wear.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ Speaking of wonderful blogs, here's a one not many people know of but more should read. People anonymously send in their secrets on postcards for the world to see! One of these days I'll muster enough artistic ability to create something to send in.

http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~liujt/page2_5.htm And finally, a page for all the people who are currently taking Microeconomics. If more people started reading this delightful (and utterly useless) little blog of mine, just imagine how many people's lives would be easier. Scroll to the bottom of that page. Worship the bottom of that page. It'll be useful.

--E.A.

It takes too much time.

Wonder how much time I will be spending with this *BLOG* thing. It was suggested to me by a trusted friend.

"Hey, you have lots of ideas and you write, and you like posting stuff, so why not start a blog?"

Well, I kind of had a private blog here for the past 4 years, but I never considered it to be important enough for other people to read.

Seriously, how conceited do you have to be to think someone deliberately wants to read your daily musings?

Hopefully I won't be spending a lot of time with this since time is money, but I do have a lot of ideas. Who knows, this might turn out to be nothing but another one of those fancy electronic things which I end up never using.

--E.A.