Announcement!

You may remember a certain fish named Sir Kerplunk....Well, he's.............................................


still alive!

Actually, I don't think I ever blogged about Kerplunk. Well..here is a picture of him on the day I got him.
He was in a normal (though rather big) fishbowl (leftover from the days of Sparkles Crystal), but it cracked and was leaking a little, so I moved him to....

This. This picture was taken about 2 minutes ago.
(Please excuse the umm...water color.)

He likes the camera, so I took a closeup.


But this post isn't supposed to be about him.

Announcing!
The arrival of Elena Luke's
NEW FISH!
Lord Kerplop
was purchased at Wal-mart for somewhere around $3.50 at about 9:15pm
on the 28th of April, 2008.

I never knew that Wal-mart sold beta fish. I went there to get a vase for a new fish and ended up actually getting the fish at the same time. I thought I better keep up with the name thing. Sadly, Sir Kerplunk and Lord Kerplop are never to meet, because Beta males don't usually get along all that well (to put it lightly). The two knights did, however, have a staring competition when I put their vases next to each other just to "see what would happen".

Here is the new fish!
And..his closeup! Isn't he such a pretty pinkish purple color? He's also somewhat reddish now. He was completely whiteishpinkishlightpurpleish when I first saw him..unfortunately Kerplunk looked similar when I got him, and now he's green and red. blech. ;-)

My room

I got Charlie's room! (actually..a while ago) I'm working on making it mine now.

My door

Close-up of my door. It took forever to save those pop-top things.

My lightswitch thingy :)

My lamp

My curtain..but it's actually taped, not sewn (yet).

Track news!

Ok...I haven't posted my results for the last 2 track meets, so here they are.

Last Tuesday I did the 100, long jump, and the 800. (I chickened out of the 4x400 because I wasn't feeling too great after the 800 and have been regretting it ever since because only one other team ran it) I stunk in the 100. Horrible time (ok, not horrible, but not better..like 14.6) , placed like 2nd to last in my heat (but I WAS in the 3rd heat out of 4, so apparently I'm not all that bad :-D) I placed 12th overall. Blech! I did badly in the long jump too. I only jumped 11'10.25". Blech again. I think everyone jumped badly though, and I placed 5th overall, so that was kind of cool. I got 3rd in the 800!!!! But the best part is that I knocked 5 whole entire seconds off my time!!!!!!!!!!! I got 2:39!!!!!!! I felt horrible after it though. You'd have thought I sprinted a 2 mile or something. I'm so out of shape! The results of the meet can be found here.
That meet is supposedly one of the hardest we'll do all year, so it's encouraging to know that I can place in the 800 running against schools like that. (although..they are 3rd division)

But on to the exciting meet!

It was an invitational! YAY! Those are the kinds where you get stuff! I did the 100, long jump, 800, and 4x400. (being determined not to chicken out of the 4x400 this time..and actually I had more time to recover from the 800 because they ran the boys and girls 2 mile separately)

WELL........................................
I got 7th in the long jump!! (they gave ribbons down to 8th place at this meet because there were 10 schools and lotsa runners) I got 3rd in the 100!!!! Yippeeee!!! I ran a 14.36 in the prelims putting me 2nd in my heat (though at the time I thought that it was the slow heat). Then they announced the names that had made it into the finals over the loudspeaker..They said a bunch of names ending with, "AND..so and so." and I thought, "Oh..didn't make it. Oh well." Then, "AND eeleena luke and so and so" Eeleena..hmm..I'll take it. Thank goodness my last name is nice and recognizable. So I made it into the finals, which was exciting enough. I figured that I would probably be last in the finals because they had announced my name last..so I thought my time must have been slowest. I ran somewhere around 14.18seconds, which is a new record for me! And I got 3rd place.

Then, of course, my favorite (not) the 800. I ran a pretty bad time (for me..well..no. More like average time), 2:42. I got 2nd place! The winner had a time of 2:35. I should be able to run that. It's only 4 seconds faster than my best time! But when I passed the girl who was in 2nd, I was so worried about her passing me that I didn't pay enough attention to the girl who was winning. I let her get way too far ahead of me. Anyway, it was exciting to get 2nd!

Then we got 3rd place in the 4x400. That's my fault. I should have pushed myself to run it harder. I mean, it's only a 400! I could have got us in 2nd, and I'm sure that our team could have kept the place..or at least gotten a better time. It was like 4:58, which is pretty bad for us. But we did place 3rd out of like 6 teams, so.....yeah.

Our girls team (all 4 of us!) managed to get 9th place out of the 10 teams. We were SO EXCITED! We always place last, but we beat the girls team from Troy Christian! Unfortunately Jacob (aka the boy's team) wasn't able to beat any of the other teams, but he did place in a few things, so we had points for both teams.

It was an exciting meet! Probably the funnest one we've had all season!

Oh, I forgot to mention that when we got there it was raining and we had to set up our tent..(I had been camping with my family and Uncle Steve and Aunt Carissa, so we had this screen tent [meant to keep out bugs and sun..not wind]) Well, that was all we had, so we set it up, but it looked hilarious. The few of us (on the black team) setting up a blue and green striped screen tent in the rain, the wind blowing it over while we struggled to stick tent poles through it. I'm talking about a REAL camping kind of tent..not a pavilion thing like everyone else has. A girl asked Anna (my fellow long jumper) at the long jump, "Who has that weird tent". ;-)

Left to Right: 1st place in the 800 (at Franklin Monroe), 2nd place in the 800 (on Saturday at Southeastern), 3d place in the 100 (on Saturday at Southeastern.

Left to Right: 2nd place at the 100 (at Franklin Monroe), 3rd place in the 4x400 (at Franklin Monroe), 7th place at the long jump (on Saturday at Southeastern).

My collection

The t-shirt Daddy got me (yeah..the black spot is just a messed up part of the picture)

The back of the shirt. See our school at the bottom?!

Costumes for the Music Man

Here are the 4 costume ideas we've found for the Music Man! We got it all (except the white shipoopi skirt and Aunt Kiki's boots) at the thrift store! I still need my Wa Tan Ye costume and shoes for the Shipoopi, because (amazingly enough) I find it impossible to irish step dance in these boots. ;-)

These two shirts with the Shipoopi skirt are my ideas for my Shipoopi costume and for the rest of Act 2. As much as I don't like pink, I'm afraid that it looks better than the blue..more..Zaneetaish. I don't have shoes to go with this costume.

My Marian the Librarian costume..but this one is a little Iffy, because the skirt is like 4 sizes too big and the shirt is about 7 sizes too big. (You can't tell in this picture, because I'm holding big bunches of the skirt and shirt behind my back) It would take some sewing. It's also a little too flimsy for 1912, but we might be able to fix that too.

I really don't like this one too much, but I think that maybe for like one scene (I have lots of time to change between certain scenes.)..or if I'm desperate....


These boots are sweet! They lace all the way up the front!

And I'll wear my hair the way I have it in the pics, but I'm going to try doing ringlets and tie the top half with a ribbon.

Once again..

Yup, I had another track meet yesterday afternoon. I did the 100, 200, 4x400, and the long jump. I placed 1st in the 100 with a time of 14.59 sec (YAY!! I beat 15 seconds!!), 2nd in the 200 (I think, but I'm not positive about my placing) with a time of 30.22sec (unfortunately I didn't break 30, which was my goal, but that was my first time doing the 200 so I might have a good chance of dropping that extra 0.22 seconds), 1st place in the 4x400 (but only out of 2 teams, so not as impressive as it sounds, still..we ran well) with a time of like 4min 55seconds or something like that, so actually, it's not as good as we have done in the past, but it got us the place, and 1st in the long jump with a jump of 12ft 2in. lol All of my team did great, but there were like 10 runners in the 100, 9 in the 200, 2 teams in the relay, and only 5 girls in the long jump (counting Anna and I, and we got 1st and 2nd place) It was a kind of fun meet, but not as challenging as some of the others. That will have been my 4th meet, only like 4 more to go!! I'll be posting pics of my ribbons an medal from the 3rd (most recent before this one) meet sometime soon. ;-)

Run by my side --
live in my heartbeat;
give strength to my steps.
As the cold confronts me,
as the wind pushes me,
I know you surround me.
As the sun warms me,
as the rain cleanses me,
I know you are touching me,
challenging me,
loving me.
And so I give you this run;
thank you for matching my stride.
Amen.

On your marks! Get Set! GO!!!

Tala, thank you for wishing me luck! ;-) It was either that, or my prayers to St. Sebastian (boy is he an awesome saint!), or rubbing Mei mei's lucky belly (don't ask..family tradition thing), or a combination of all 3! I did horribly in the long jump..my jumps were 11'5", 11'2", and 11'5". Pathetic..really. And then I got 2nd in the 100!!! Hip hip hurray!!!!! AND!!!! I got first place in the 800! My coach is rather confused..hmmm 100 or 800?? Bit of a difference between the two. :-D

Oh, and our 4X400 relay team got 3rd place out of 4, so not absolutely awesome, but not bad.

My dad (who ran the 800 in highschool and was all excited that I was doing it) came to the meet late and pulled into the parking lot literally 30seconds after the end of the 800. He wasn't too thrilled about it. ;-)

Now...let's see how Tuesday goes....

P.S. I forgot to mention that my times were worse for this meet than they usually are, because of the wind and freezing cold weather, but I placed ok in the running events, so apparently everyone's times were worse, and my "duck wings" as the coach likes to call them helped with the wind or something.

Wish me luck!

Here I go..to the 3rd track meet of the year!!! It's Saturday morning, it's cold, I'm nervous (as usual), and I'm running the 100, 800, 4x400, and the long jump. Well, actually I'm not really running the long jump. I'm jumping it, but whatever.

Did I mention the last meet's results? We ended up getting like 20 points! We lost the meet, but considering there were only like 10 of us competing.......that's pretty ok. I got 3rd in the 800, our team got 3rd in the 4x400, and I got 6th in the long jump. Hopefully we can do as well today. We'll see. I love the long jump! It's the most relaxed I am all meet. The farthest I've gotten was 13 1/2 feet, which isn't spectacular, but it doesn't really matter, because for some reason the long jump doesn't completely freak me out like...say the 800? The coach wants me to do the mile. *cough cough* Have you seen how fast the people run that? People apparently run the 4min mile, which is absurd, because that means that they sprint the whole thing. I run about a 1:11 quarter (on a good day) So..they not only run 11 seconds slower, but they do 44 seconds slower...and I'm sure I couldn't run 1:11 all the way around. That would be like..uhhh a 4:44 mile! ;-)

Anyways..g2g!

If I never post again, you'll know I died in the attempt of winning the 800..unless I didn't make it through the 100 and long jump.

Goodbye!

Funny quotes

Charlie: Did Choo Choo say that she wants to be a nun when she grows up?

Mommy: I think she did.

Charlie: Well, when I grow up I want to be a Pagan!


My friend's 7yr old brother also mentioned to his mom (while I was over at their house)..

Sebastian: Mom.

Mom: What?

Sebastian: When I get married, I want to have my shower at Toy's R Us.


This morning my mom, in desperation to stop the general fighting breaking out throughout the house, had us stand in a circle and hold hands. (Thankfully we didn't have to sing Kumbaya or anything.) Then we all had to say something we liked about each person..

So....here's what was said about me.

Mommy: Elena is dependable..most of the time. I know she'll always do what I ask her.................eventually...

Valya: She's nice and Kind.

Nastia: She is?

*general laughter*

Nastia: Elena always smells good because she's always chewing gum.

Mommy: Which she isn't supposed to be chewing. *shoots meaningful look in my direction*

Mariana: She's nice

Jacinta: She let me sleep in her bed..once. And I got to sleep with her in Switzerland.

Charlie: When we were in that place with the ice cream store across from the beach

Mommy: Portugal?

Charlie: Yes..at that place..umm..I DIDN'T have to sleep with her.

THIRD DAY!!

They were great! Sanctus Real was ok, and there were two other bands that played in the beginning. I think that one of them would have been ok, but the sound was terrible, so we couldn't understand the guy at all.

We didn't get to meet the bands, but some of the band members walked past where we were sitting a few times. I would post more, but I have a violin lesson, Lit class, and track meet to go to......

More later!

~Elena

Totally Random!

Sorry, I haven't posted in forever! I could give you about a million excuses, I definitely have about that many, because I came up with one every single time I submitted a writing assignment..late..to bravewriter. Thank goodness that's over! I like to write, but the research takes a long time. Somehow I managed to scrape an A in the class.

Well, what is new? aha! I had my first track meet on Wednesday! It was really scary. In a ..well..not the nicest part of town, 17 schools (ours was one of the smallest), long jumping against girls that were averaging 13-14ft. Scary. But, it was fun............afterwards. ;-) I cut my 400 time from 1:15 to 1:12 and got 6th place in my division, 4th place in my heat. (We think I earned 3 points for the team in the 400.) I got like 6th place in my heat on the 100, but I did cut my time from 17seconds to 15.2seconds, so it wasn't all bad. And then I upped my 10ft jump to 13 1/2 ft! I was so thrilled about the extra 3 1/2 feet that I didn't really care that I didn't jump that far in the rest of my 4 jumps. So, overall, not so bad. We have another meet on Monday. I'm already nervous. Here
is a page with the meet results. Scroll down to Boy's track and under division 2..you'll see (under team scores) Dominion-4!!!!

Then, under Girl's track and under division 2, you'll see Dominion-3!!!! So, our team only got 7 points, but that's not horrible, considering that there were only about 8 of us there.


Well, guess what else is new!! Tomorrow, I'm going with my friends, Rosa and James, and my mom, aunt Kiki, and whatever other friends they bring, to see..........THIRD DAY!!!!! They're playing with Sanctus Real at the same place that Building 429 played last time, but this time we're going prepared. We're bringing stuff to get signed, so we don't have to resort to programs. ;-)

And..then there's the very random minor fact that I straightened my hair today. I don't think I've ever straightened my hair completely, just my bangs, so......yeah, it was a nice change. ;-)

Go ahead and laugh at my self taken pictures, but someone has to take pictures of me. ;-) jk

Me with my normal hair (well, not totally normal, but I didn't do much to it..just washed it :-D) ..at a really weird angle..in black and white.




Me with straightened hair..sitting here, on the couch, before I wrote this post..note the necklace is the same in both pics. ;-)

That's all for now!! I'll be posting about the concert..sometime....in the next..year...but Latin exams are coming up, and, of course, I've forgotten half the stuff I memorized for the midterm exams. Oh, speaking of Latin exams..I took the NLE (National Latin Exam) a while ago, and got a Silver Medal, or I will be getting the medal in May, when my teacher sends it to me.