Happy new Year!

Hm, the numbering is off, which makes it look like i posted this a second before new years. cool. I looked at my livejournal (because my blog doesn't turn 1 for another couple weeks) to see what i said last year, but to my surprise i didn't post on new years. my closest post was on the 4th, and it started off with how i had broken my phone. 1 year ago that phone was broken, and it didn't get replaced until about 3 weeks ago. That tells you something about me. Other than the broken phone, 2007 was one of the best years of my life. It was full of accomplishments, changes, and new exciting developments. I feel much closer to being an adult than i did last year (although the idea that i'm probably within a few years of marriage still blows my mind). I graduated high school, i got my eagle scout, i went to college, i was ordained an elder, and most recently i got my wisdom teeth out, the basic right of passage for leaving adolescence, unless you're michael mcnally, and then it's your basic right of passage for being 16...weird-o.

New years celebrations were great. We got a bunch of fireworks, and over the course of the night i got pretty good at taking pictures of them. We watched star wars earlier tonight, and had gingerale at midnight because isaac likes to make toasts.

As far as 2008 is concerned, i think it'll be another pretty big year in my life, since it's when i head of for two years as a missionary. That'll be an adventure and a half. I'm bad at new years resolutions, so i'm not going to try to think of any right now, but i'll come up with some over the next couple days and write them in my real journal. And with that i begin my foray into the new year by heading towards bed.

~a cup o' kindness

In case of emergency, spend all day in bed.

I just realized it was saturday, that was kinda disappointing. I've discovered that my pain medicine makes me sleepy. This isn't all that suprising, since it says right on the botle that it may cause drowsiness, but this is the first medicine that's made me drowsy. Niquil and Benadryl, while difficult to spell, don't really do anything for me, so this feeling of just wanting to lounge around all day and read lemony snickett is novel.

I have been occasionally productive though. I made another camera case, since my first one was lost and then slept on, and then i improved it to make a pocket for my little felt screen cleaner. I've taken copious amounts of photos, and made a time lapse of a settlers of catan game, and realized that a time lapse of risk would be rad, and decided to do that some day. Yesterday i spent a few hours working on my made gift, which required bamboo, a guitar, and a power saw, so now that's almost done.

Other than that days have been pretty slow filled with games and planet earth. I guess i'm going back up to jackson in a couple days for new years, so that'll be a party. Hopefully the package of stuff for friends will have come in by then, or else i'm going to have to mail it or something, and that'd be weak.

salut

"But then he won't be wise!"

well, i am now short three wisdom teeth. Happily i get to keep one of my lower wisdom teeth, which means about half as much pain and i retain the ability to chew, which is a big plus. I took some photos of the experience, because that's what i can do.




not the greatest day outside, but it was as good a day as any to sit in bed for 24 hours.

I don't remember much of the whole experience. I went in, and they talked to me a bit, i got an IV. They anesthetized it, which seemed pretty unnecessary, especially since it still seemed like it hurt about as much as normal. Then they gave me a shot of something, and about 10 seconds later i was out. It was interesting because usually i don't really remember falling asleep, but this time i actually felt it coming on and losing consciousness. Anyway, sometime later i woke up feeling pretty out of it. I got up and really wanted to walk on my own, but my mom helped me, which was probably good, since about 2 hours later i was still struggling to walk without running into things.

I wish i had asked the doctors to set my camera up on time lapse, because that would have been a sweet video, but alas. Anyway, i took some pictures while i was pretty out of it, i don't really remember taking them, but they're here, so that's cool.

Me being out of it.



Me being more out of it.




I couldn't focus on anything, and somehow i though this would be apparent if i took a picture of my eye.





but it wasn't.

After that my camera's battery died, and i wasn't awake enough to charge it up for a few hours.

At about 7 that night i was awake enough though, and so i took a sweet picture of my eye.




So yeah, i'm feeling a bit better now. The left side of my mouth still hurts a decent bit, but it's getting better, and the whole delirium thing has passed, so that's a plus. My homemade camera case got left in the car i think, it's easy to lose things when you're barely concious, because the whole, "where's the lst place you had it" strategy doesn't work when you can't remember large spans of your day.

I made a pretty awesome video of myself, i'm going to try to post that, and hopefully it'll work. Woo it will, it's going to take a while.



It's sort of hard to tell what i'm saying, but this is the gist:
"well, i just got my wisdom teeth out, and i can't really focus on anything or ???? things. I think i'm biting my lip, but hopefully this will be funny when i'm, you know, cognizant again, so, till then."

So fun times, not being able to spit is a bit of a drag, especially when brushing my teeth, which is also a drag since i can't brush all my teeth. Hopefully i'll be better by new years.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, probably symptomatic of sleeping all day, but it was still a pain. Sometime while i was mostly asleep i had a dream that i made a really good sandwich and then remembered that i couldn't eat it. That was disappointing to the max.

I watched meet the Robinson's the other day, which was a surprisingly good movie. Plus the Danny Elfman and All American Rejects combo is always something worthwhile. That about all for now, i need to finish my made gift.

Christmas!

Christmas has once again come and gone, and twas pretty awesome. I got a Digital Camera and a printer, both are pretty high quality. I also got a game and some clothes and 20 bucks, so not the greatest catch as far as quantity, but i'm vvery happy with it. I just made the obligatory case out duck tape and felt, which is pretty good considering i did it entirely on my own.

So, pictures!


Isaac got some lego, and he's been pretty happy about that. He also got a bike, but he doesn't know how to ride one yet, so i think he's more happy about the lego.



the parents got Dread Pirate, which we played. It's very fun, and the board is awesome. The map is on this canvas type thing, and the dubloons are actually made of medal.



Isaac also got Operation, which he wasn't too happy about at first, but it caught on eventually. It provided a good subject for playing with the macro setting on my camera.

Today has been pretty chill, we had breakfast and have played games and i've spent most of the day fiddling with the camera. Now we're watching planet earth and waiting for my mom to finish this math crossword thing.

Tomorrow i get my wisdom teeth out, that'll be an adventure. So hopefully the anesthesia won't kill me, because that would be a dissapointing way to die. There was a pretty sketchy defibulator in the office when i got my oral exam. Anyway, that's about all for today. Happy Christmas everybody.

Marley was dead, to begin with.

Hm. Charles Dickens ends a sentence with a preposition.

I want to post my 100th blog entry on new years or new years eve or something, because i think having a round 100 posts for 2007 would be nice. Therfore, i need to post some 5 times in the next week, and so off i go.

When last we left our intrepid hero, he was just getting into biloxi. I spent that weekend with the family, enjoying good food, hanging out with isaac, watching movies, and playing games, all sorts. On monday i went to an Oral Surgeon and set up an appointment to have my wisdom teeth taken out, on this coming wednesday. After that i drove up to jackson and went to a Sal and Mookies party and hung out with caitlin and josh and johnny and meghan, so that was all kinds of an adventure. I slept at Caitlin's that night, since her brother was out of town I had a fairly large room and a bed to myself, so that was cool.

Tuesday i had a dentist appointment, but i watched starwars 5 for a while before that. Yoda is funny as ever. The dentist was about as enjoyable as any experience that involves sharp medal and teeth. I found out i have a cavity in the Widsom tooth i'm keeping, so that's going to have to get taken care of at some point, i guess now i have motivation to find a dentist up in SLC.

otherwise tuesday was pretty chill, i went down to johnny's and got dinner with him, terri, and andrew, on Terri's dime. After that i played a lot of World of Warcraft and didn't go to Emmett's. I thought about it, but ended up staying at johnny's that night. Wednesday i played a bit more world of warcraft and then we went up to caitlin's and did some more hanging out, and i saw michael in all his long haired glory. Roberta was there too, so that was cool. Blow guns are pretty fun.

Lets see...thursday was nice, i stayed at caitlin's again on wednesday and we made brownies. There were originally plans to watch the lord of the rings extended editions, but that fell through. We drove to Cups eventually to drop kyle off, and ended up staying there for a while because Emmett and Tyler were there, so we hung out with them for quite some time. Then we went to spencer's and played guitar hero, which was way fun. Oh, and i saw kirk and michael and, obviously, spencer. I slept at spencer's and played lots of Super mario Galaxy that night, which is a very fun game.

I realized that night that in a perfect world, or at least the ideal life i imagine myself having someday, video games aren't present. I like playing video games, but mostly either as a social event or as a way to pass the time. There are usually many things that i would rather be doing than playing video games.

Anyway, friday was my last full day in down, and it was alright. We got up late and then went to see I Am Legend, which i liked. It's gotten some criticism for the ending, but i can't think of an ending i would like more, i think it's just in that awkward region between sappy and awful, where you find sad but somewhat hopeful. Anyway, i enjoyed it, certainly not the best movie i've even seen, but fully worth the 5ish dollars. Plus we saw Mr. Chris Cambell at the movies and talked for a while and one thing led to another and i got a Sweeney Todd poster, so that's awesome. I'm not sure if i'm going to be able to get it back to Utah, but we can only hope. I feel kinda weird because although Sweeney Todd is a movie i really think is intereseting, i'm not going to see it for as long as i am living under this decision to not watch rated R movies, so it seems almost phoney to have a massive poster of it up in my room...oh well.

after the movie we went back to spencer's and ate dinner. Michael left and a little bit later Roberta came and we played Risk, so that was fun. I lost early due to some terrible luck and poor circumstances. Spencer won late, which made me happy, because Spencer has had more than his fair share of unreasonably poor luck in Risk, and it's resulted in me beating him at least twice.

Saturday i woke up and went a-hunting for Bamboo with spencer for a gift i'm making, since Bamboo doesn't grow in Biloxi as far as i've seen. After that i drove back, and got back into biloxi around 6, at which point i started practicing feverishly for an accompaniment gig i had agreed to do today, which went as well as i could have hoped. Overall the trip to jackson was pretty good, i didn't see everybody i wanted to, i didn't get in touch with hunter at all, which was unfortunate, but i forgot my charger in biloxi so i was living mostly without a phone. I'm planning on going up around new years and hopefully i'll see him and get ultimate going like i had planned.

It's really starting to feel like christmas, we made cookies today, andt here are presents under the tree. I don't have any idea what i'll be getting for christmas, but hopefully it'll be rockin'. I've gotten presents for roughly three of my friends, and i'm pretty stoked about all of them. I need to think of presents for the rest of my friends, and i'm slightly limited by the fact that i have all of 10 dollars to my name, so it looks like a trip to the dollar store. If you get a present from the dollar store, don't take it as an insult, think of it as 10 percent of my financial worth.

~The Ghost of Christmas Presents

No Crocodiles, or Rhinoceroseses

So i'm home. Now that i'm actually in the house in biloxi, it does feel pretty homey. There's a christmas tree, and my old computer chair (which is still mad comfortable) and family, and catan, and all kinds of cool things. My mom made me tortellini for dinner, which was delicious, probably the best meal i've had in months.

The flight was pretty great, i got there 2 hours early which meant i had to sit for around 2 hours with nothing much to do. I wrote a bit in my journal and watched CNN. I'm not a big fan of CNN. The fact that they give the news all day long means that unless there's a steady flow of interesting news, the majority of the day is news about which i don't care.

Like coffee preferences among the presidential candidates. Why in the world would i care how they like their coffee? btw, clinton sometimes drinks black and sometimes goes with the cream. Obviously she is indecisive and a poor leader.

Eventually the flight got moving and i had a whole 2 seats to myself. My window was pretty shoddy, but i'm glad there was enough room that i didn't have to sit next to random Jack Daniels drinker who was originally going to be in 7C. I mean he was a nice enough guy, but i enjoyed having a bit of space. I almost fell asleep, but that didn't quite happen, so instead i played solitaire on my iPod and managed to lose several times. When it finally looked like i was going to win we were landing so they told me to turn it off. I actually just remembered so i pulled it out and it was still on it but i pressed menu which restarted it. That was a little disappointing.

Oh, so most amazing coincidence. As i was walking on to the plane, what should my iPod randomly shuffle to but John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane." The odds of that were like 1 in 3000. If my iPod's battery didn't just die i could tell you exactly what the odds are, but regardless, it was pretty cool.

I want to compile a full list of the things i want, but i still don't really know. I have gradually thought of more things that i need/want.

The originals still hold, i definitely want a Digital Camera, and i hope that happens, but i'd survive not having it for christmas. That's actually true of most of the gifts i want, they aren't really things i want now, just things i want between now and next year. Anyway, a few new things:

Cool posters, my walls are rather bare. Something by Escher would be awesome, also bands that i like, bands that i don't like, good movies, bad movies, sports, really just any poster that you think i might like would be great. I need to make my walls more interesting.

Music is always awesome, I love being introduced to new music. Burned cd's are probably the best cheap present in the world because they're almost free but are made with love...and piracy. And who doesn't love pirates?

As far as video games, i dunno. I need to play mario galaxy, but i think that might be a game i could rent, beat, and move on with my life.

Clothes and stuff are great. I like having new clothes, but there are only a few people i know that i trust to buy real clothes for me, but clever t-shirts and hoodies are much appreciated. Hoodies especially, it's wicked cold in utah (not so much here. My first thought as i got off the plane, even before, "New Orleans smells bad" was, "man it's warm here". Biloxi actually feels pretty nice, pretty cool and not too humid).

Candy is cool, but candy doesn't last very long, and half the fun of presents for me is the fact that i always remember where they came from. So everlasting gobstoppers are great, not those cheap ones that you find in the grocery store. I'm talking about the stuff straight from Wonka's shop. That stuff is quality.

Books are good, but barring a few amazing books, i can just borrow a book and give it back and i'll get pretty much the same effect.

And any other cool stuff is probably safe. Some of my favorite gifts have been absolutely random stuff, just because of the memories they have. A good rule of thumb is if you want someting for yourself, i'll love it, unless you want something that i obviously wouldn't want (like girls clothing) or you want to punch me in the face; i will not love that.

Well, it's getting late even by college in mountain time standards, and i have a full day of being on vacation to prepare for, so adieu, adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.

~Sister Susie sittin' on a thistle.

P.S., just because this is awesome, years ago i really wanted a rhinoceros for christmas, and so my mom wrote me a poem, reminiscent of Shel Silverstein's stuff, about wanting a rhino for christmas.

Thursday, I don't care about you; it's Friday, I'm in love.

Friday can't come soon enough, i am so ready to be done with this semester, i only have 2 essays and another final. My math final went fairly well this morning, i felt like i was failing it but when i went back through it there was only one problem that i was struggling with, and he drops our worst problem, and gives pretty decent partial credit, and then there's the curve. Oh the glorious curve. I wonder if honors classes are graded on the curve, because that would be crippling, especially since a 3.5 is required for an honors degree, and quite a few honors students are on some sort of scholarship with a minimum gpa requirement. Hopefully it's more of a parabola.

Christmas is only 2 weeks away. This semester has been absurdly fast, i still don't really feel like i've found my groove in this whole college life thing, but it's getting there. Next semester the groove changes completely with classes different and such, and a new roommate, madness.

I decide that i'd rather not have guitar hero for christmas. It's a really fun game, but 90 dollars could be spend much more effectively, like on a digital camera. I also want to become really good at rock climbing, but i don't see that happening for christmas or next semester, since rock climbing and winter don't mix well, except for indoor, which remains wicked fun.

I really need to stop procrastinating, those essays aren't going to write themselves. I have such a hard time motivating myself at the very end of school, it's a pretty bad time to lose motivation, especially is college. I proved in high school that i could survive not trying for the last term, but in college the last couple weeks is responsible for a pretty sizable portion of the final grade.

I had a dream last night that was a good reflection of my subconscious. First of all, i stayed up all night doing nothing in particular, i think i hung out with some people, at 8am i was going to head to sleep, but then i didn't have any place to sleep, i think i ended up sleeping in some sort of hammock thing in that field where we play frisbee. I was somehow simultaneously at the dorms and in jackson because i was suprised when i couldn't sleep in the Howard st. house, and then i realized that i had a dorm to sleep in. It was a weird dream. Dreams always seem to last longer than it takes to describe them, and they always lose a lot of their meaning. It's weird.

But yeah, wasting all my time and feeling like i'm short one home is pretty common as of late. I'm excited to get back to mississippi, but i can't really call biloxi home, mostly because i've only been there for two days, and i don't know anyone there other than my family. I'm also looking forward to making it up to jackson. I think i have a tendency to complain about my friends sometimes, and i somehow expected to find these perfect people to hang out with in Utah. As it turned out, my friends in mississippi were, and are, pretty crazy awesome, and it's hard to imagine actual people who were much better. I had a workout buddy, a second string work-out buddy (who was hampered by his lack of Y membership), video game buddies, risk buddies, tv buddies, movie buddies, Ultimate frisbee buddies, talking about stuff buddies, work buddies, do nothing buddies...the list of buddies goes on and on, most of which i haven't been able to dublicate here.

So i'm hoping for some all inclusive roommate buddy to move in next semester, because i'm sure that'll happen. I do have a climbing buddy, a doing really stupid but fun stuff buddy, and snow buddies up here, and i would have ultimate frisbee buddies if it wasn't so snowy and cold, and i have church buddies for the first time in a while, so it's not all lost. I am short a best buddy, and those are pretty vital.

So aside from being agonizingly close to leaving, life has been pretty bland during this finals week. I just want to be done, but it'll come soon enough, until then I have essays to put off.

~The Down of a Thistle

Let me tell y'all what it's like being male, middle class, and white.

Man, today was entirely too awesome. So lets see...morning was so-so, i had class, but then i got my phone back. Woo! I'd lost it on the shuttle, and someone just found it a couple days ago, and conveniently had the charger necessary for charging it up to call my mom. I'm glad there are people that are that dedicated in making up for my absent mindedness/unsatisfactory pocket quality.

Then i had physics, more mehsh, but it was my last class of this semester, from here on it's 2 papers and 2 exams and i'm out. Lets see, after physics i worked out, and ran into the Honors Floor Gang. Wow, when you write it out it looks wicked official. Anyway, so that was good, then i walked back up with them, and hung around for a bit. I got some food, and on my way out they (the honors gang) were playing pool, so i went and hung out there for a bit and when steven left i took over for him and totally owned in pool until i scratched on the 8-ball. That's kinda how i play pool, i don't think it's the best strategy.

After that i hung out with Tim, watched scrubs, played guitar hero for a while....a long while, and at some point molly james came by and they played, and my roomate played some and his friend played...anyway, we ended up playing for a solid few hours. It started snowing at around 5 and by midnight there was 4-6 inches, so after a bit of convincing i tim and molly james to go. Me and Tim and James had a pretty intense snowball fight while we waited for Molly to finish getting snow stuff, and then we went down to the glenn for a bit, but that got old fast, and so i took us over to the giant hill that runs right into the street, but the snow at the bottem was powdery that we stopped...except for tim.

And that's how tim got his limp for christmas.

not really, but he did hit that road pretty hard, there were no cars around though, so it was relatively safe, relative to doing something completely stupid...say jumping off a bridge.

Anyway, sledding was way fun, i got hot so i took my jacket and underarmor off and when i was so close it was a pretty natural next step to go sledding with no shirt on. That was way too intense, tim tumbled and got very cold, and it didn't help that molly james were throwing snowballs at us while we tried to put our stuff back on.

So after that we started to head back, which took around an hour, there were originally plans to build a giant wall of snow infront of the door, by rolling a ball of snow all the way back, but by about 1/4 the way there it was too heavy for us to roll, so we broke it up and threw boulder sized pieces of snow at molly james.

A side note, in order to clear any confusion, Molly and James are two seperate people, who are also a couple, and are almost never seen apart, thus Molly James.

then a bit of snow football (where the football was made from the remains of the snow boulder) and some more stupid snow fun, and then me and Tim walked back and here i am.

Lets see, the rest of this past week has been pretty ok, nothing too great. I lost my phone the thursday before last, and had pretty much given up on it by monday, i had my last midterm, watched the heroes season finale (lame, darn writers strike), lots of guitar hero (we tallied it up with the Wii and it worked out to around 25 hours over the past week and a bit), aaand that's the gist.

I'm so full of andreneline and awesome that i'm not at all tired, which isn't great, because i have 2 papers to write for next week, one of which is actually pretty significant, and an essay on tuesdasy and thursday, then friday i fly back. wow, 7 days from now i'll be in Biloxi. I really don't know where to call home these days...I think jackson qualifies, i've lived there longer than anywhere else, but now i don't have a house or a family there...

Anyway, i'm going to read some and try to get some sleep, it's supposed to snow most of tomorrow, although i'm not sure where we can go from how awesome tonight was, i'd hate to hit the peak with 2/3's of winter left over.

I need to go snowboarding.

~Linus, not Lucy

My Name is Jonas

That's not entirely true, but Guitar Hero III is entirely awesome, and My Name is Jonas happens to be a really fun song to play. Rock climbing is also entirely awesome, today i was bested by the rock wall, but it was still fun.

Guitar Hero and rock climbing, all my life is missing is a physics midterm...
Oh happy day! I have one tomorrow at 2, and as such, i think i should be hitting the proverbial sack.

Also, Happy Birthday to Amy, who is probably the nicest person in the world, maybe tied with my mom.

No joke people, i wish i were as nice as Amy, but as it turns out i am a bit sarcastic and critical. I need to get that in check before i do the whole mission thing, i don't think that'll fly so much out there.

So yeah, that's all. I hear there's supposed to be some mad snow storm coming in in the next couple days, i dunno if that'll actually happen, i've become a bit suspicious of the weather peopel of late because they're bad at telling me when to hope for snow. I'm going to sleep now.

~Iron Man

weak, BYU won by 7.

that game should have been ours, when we had them 4th down and 18 deep on their side with one minute left that should have been the end. Oh well, i'll survive.

Happy Birthday Katie!

It is now officially Katie's birthday, even on her side of the country. Generally Katie does awesome little exposés on people's birthday (maybe exposés isn't the right word, but i just spent a solid couple minutes trying to figure out how to make an é, so it stays) but since it won't be the same with her doing it for herself and with me still a ways from feeling tired, i thing i might as well.

Katie for me has always been extremely thoughtful about how i turn out, which is always pretty awesome. She's bought me presents solely for the purpose of making me cooler (boxers, weights, a secret passageway, which i still think is awesome, even if it was a little thrown together), and i must admit that a good percentage of my wardrobe has been purchased only after receiving her ok. I remember Katie doing my artsy projects for me when i was in the earlier years, and for some reason, random bits of advice she's given me have stuck; my chucks are completely writing free, and i still remember that now that i'm in college i'm suppose to buy a bunch of dress shirts, especially pink ones, which i wasn't supposed to buy pre-college because it'd be weird, i only wear that brown tie with Khakis, which sadly meant that i couldn't wear it for about three years on account of not owning a pair of khakis, and the blue striped tie with dark pants. Actually come to think of it about half my ties came directly from katie. I think i terribly underrated Katie when we were still living together, which is probably true of most siblings. I think Katie might know me better than anyone else in my family, from treasure troves of blow pops to rearranging our rooms to make libraries to playing spies and making bombs, to hiking down to the local grocery store to load up on gum because we were going on a road trip and that was the only time we were allowed to chew gum. About 2/3's of my music comes directly from Katie; all things considered, Katie's had a pretty profound influence on my life, which i think has probably made me a much better person generally, or at least a much less socially awkward one.

It's been great to see Katie go from a somewhat struggling, shy to the point of sickness, skinny college student to a really very successful, healthy woman, wife, and soon to be mother, especially because it gives me a bit of hope for my life (minus the woman, wife and mother part o' course).

So Happy Birthday Katie. I have no doubt you'll be an amazing mother, and have by far most trendy kid(s) on the block.

What's this? Ammon on vacation but not bored?

Today was surprisingly eventful. Perhaps not exceptionally productive, but at least full of accomplishments. I woke up at 1pm, ate some breakfast and watched the second two discs of scrubs season 6, having watched the first last night. Then Tim im'd me and we went down to Dick's and took another crack at the rock wall, which this time around i totally beat. My forearms aren't nearly as sore this time either, which seems to be indicative of a certain bit of progress. After i climbed my forearms didn't look skinny, which is something that hasn't really happened in the past decade, so that was kinda cool. I must admit that despite being confident and suave in all other respects, i am a little overly conscious of having such tiny wrists. It's not something i lose sleep over or anything, but yeah.

I've realized that generally my Blog and my Journal are in direct competition, and generally the one i write in second gets a lower quality account of my thoughts and musings, and my increased consistency of writing in my journal may be contributing to a lack of quality and quantity in my blog, but i figure my journal will be more likely read by descendents and such, although i imagine my blog will still be around, barring some collapse in the internet and/or google infrastructure. Anyhow:

After climbing i came back and finished reading Freakonomics, having read the first chapter last night. That pretty much was my day, but i'd say it was a good day.

Freakonomics had a section on baby names and their social implications, and as it turns out, Amy and Katie are among the top 20 whitest girls names. As it happens, all my sisters respective significant others have names on the whitest boys names list (Dylan, Colin, and Logan)

reading through i spotted a few other names that are native to my family, so i concluded that my family is very very white. Go figure.

It's interesting how a single moment can have such a profound influence on the rest of your life. None of those moments happened to me today, but i did remember a few of them.

Herein lies the problem with this blog. It, unlike my journal, is written not for an audience per se, but certainly in front of one. I mean it's listed right over there >
not to mention the variety (vicissitude is a fun word, btw) of random people who might happen to come across it, and future people i'll meet who will probably see it. I read my Latin Teacher, the venerable Davy Jones', blog, which had months of really fascinating stuff that i'm sure he never planned on any of his students reading, especially since in the hands of certain students it could have led to some very serious problems between him and the murrah administration...hm, there was a point to this tangent...
right: People read my blog, and so i don't say quite as much. It's not that i'm hiding things from people really, just some things aren't polite conversation, which is why i have yet to post about the rather surreal experience that i was privy to in the midnight hours of tuesday night, or why i'm not mentioning some of the random instances that have forever changed my habits in some way or another. And then of course there are somethings that i probably am hiding from people, at least things that i wouldn't bring up without a bit of prodding, and of course, the things that would logically follow that thought to support that statement are the very things that i'm not really wanting to say.

Freakonomics was an interesting book for me to read, or rather, it's an interesting time for me to read freakonomics, since for the past few weeks i've been thinking about a few interesting questions, and i'm not quite sure how to vocalize them, which is a bit of a problem because they inevitably get worked into papers i write, where they aren't very well illustrated. I just used two verbs in describing writing that really have nothing to do with writing, interesting. Anyway, for one, stemming a bit from the discussions we had with The Things We Carried and Beloved, on the difference between truth and fact, and the readings i've done of plato and aristotle, i want to say that feelings are the truest form of thought we have, but then that poses some problems, because i don't really want to say emotions are more relevant than rational thinking, but there's definitely a difference in my mind between feelings and emotions, in that emotions are much more temporary, but feelings are much more consistent...or something.

Also, why is it in church when people are asked to volunteer to say the prayer there's almost always this long awkward silence. I doubt most of the people in there are in a position where they don't like praying, or don't feel comfortable praying. I guess it might be a symptom of a general fear of speaking in front of other people, but i don't think that's really what it is...i dunno.

There was something else i was going to poorly elaborate upon, but now i don't remember so much...i should write outlines for these things, seeing as they're longer and more eloquent than a lot of essays i write, though definitely less correct as far as spelling and grammar go.

Well that's all for me tonight, i've been writing this for a rather long while, and i need to go to sleep. 10 Hours from now i expect the Utes to be mopping the floor with BYU, and i'll need to be awake to watch that.

fin

Happy Thanksmas!

thankoween doesn't roll of the tongue in nearly the same way. Tongue is an oddly spelled word.

Thanksgiving was a pretty decent day for me, i slept in until 10ish, which isn't that much later than usual, but it felt nice. I went up to grandma's with cami and colin and hung out with the extended fam. I like my extended family a lot, but it's really not the same. I definitely miss having thanksgiving with my family. The food was good, but i'd say my parents are better. Also there were no oyster crackers...sad.

Anyway, after thanksgiving we hung around for a while and talked, then we drove back to salt lake and i hung out with cami for a while and played games. I won jambo and we tied trivial pursuit, then she went out to park city and i hung out in my dorm and watched the first disc of scrubs. I was tempted to watch the rest of it, but i have a long weekend, and i'm not sure if there's anyone around to hang out with.

Vacations are always a little questionable here, it's great to have time off from school and all this free time, but so many people here live so close that it's pretty easy to feel like the only person on campus around breaks, and that tends to lead to boredom. I can't imagine staying here over christmas break, i'd die. I'm looking forward to christmas a lot, it'll be nice to spend time with my family and friends.

In the spirit of thanksgiving, i'm going to sketch out my christmas list. What better way to give thanks than compiling all the things i want:

A nice suit (including shoes, mine are dead)
A Camera
Keychain oil container thing
Winter clothes
Guitar Hero III

hm, that's all that i want that i can think of. Clothes and music are usually a safe bet too. I felt like i had a lot more to say when i started this blog, but apparently not, that seems to happen a lot as of late.

~No Superman

i think i've ended with that before...

Oh, P.S.-It mortifies me that at this very moment, a mere two timezones away, people are going shopping for christmas deals. How did we come to this?

I sort of lost my focus halfway through this post...

This past week was fairly uneventful, in all the wrong ways. I get bored far too easily sometimes, but what can you do? Yesterday we had our last home game, and it was pretty crazy go nuts. We won 28-10, so that was cool, next week we play BYU, that's going to be intense. After the game i went over to cami's and got a BLT, did some laundry and played games with cami and some of her friends, so that was a pretty decent night.

I have a killer headache, and it's really not a lot of fun, i had one friday night too, but that was on the right side, whereas this is on the left. good stuff either way though.

Thursday i played a little 3 v 3 ultimate frisbee, which never works very well, but this was pretty decent. We won over all but lost the pivotal ending game point, but that was ok, it was way too cold for ultimate with no gloves. We also almost went to see a free movie, but it was sold out, so instead we wandered around Gateway, hit up an arcade, and found a glorious rock wall at Dick's, so that's kinda going to be my new random obsession for the next while i think. The rock wall won round one, my grip gave out before i was even halfway up (to be fair, the bottem half has the two hardest spots, and after you can't hold on it's hard to make much progress). But i may have found a solid workout buddy in Tim, so we'll see how that turns out.

Wednesday was a temple trip and i got to go to the Salt Lake Temple for the first time, so that was pretty cool.

Pretty unexciting week all in all, i'm going to read some Aeneid and try to get rid of this headache, and then i guess i should do my math homework.

It looks like i'm going to have an A in all my classes. Hooray for at least 1 more semester of scholarship.

~No Moss
This blog post is really unexciting, that's unfortunate.

oh yeah, thanksgiving is in a few days. I don't quite know what happened to this semester.

Loads off my back:

So far the past 24 hours has just been full of happy discoveries. First, talking to my mom, i found out that the house is sold and we're completely out of debt. Woo!

Then i found out that, contrary to what i had discovered earlier that day, the wisdom tooth study that pays hundreds of dollars is not a myth, it just isn't going through the university. It's actually an anesthesia test where they're using something other than codeine to see how it works, in search of a pain killer that doesn't run the risk of doubling as a patient killer. I'm a little wary of drug tests, but i think i'm going to call and see what the deal is, because it seems legit; it's a real oral surgeon and getting paid to have my wisdom teeth removed would be pretty stellar.

This morning, after rolling out of bed into calculus, i found out that i got a 100 on my midterm, which made me tres happy. Ever since the beginning of the year i've been worried about failing that class, not cutting it as a math major, and losing my scholarship, especially since technically i wasn't supposed to take that class, having only a 3 on the BC Calc test. I do need to really learn Maclauren series, which i've always struggled with, it being the last thing we learned, during a time when i was quickly losing my motivation in school. So yeah, that made me pretty happy.

Then, i came back and showered (i really don't know how i'd live without showers, i think without them, hygiene problems aside, i'd quickly devolve into a stressed out mess), ate, and decided to tackle the financial issues between me and the university. Basically over the past couple months i've been baffled by how much money i'm owing the university, and it just hasn't been adding up. Before college i had figured that i'd make it through the entire first semester with a few hundred to spare, not accounting for book costs and random spending, but book costs and random spending aside, i found myself owing the university 1600 dollars. This wasn't helped by the fact that MTA has yet to give me the 750 dollars they owe me, but even without that, it shouldn't have been that much.

Well, today i discovered that instead of giving the money to me to give to housing like i had been expecting, they credited the extra money back to my mom's credit card, in the amount of 1500 or so dollars. So now everything makes sense, my housing bill is paid for, and i just have to wait for the card to be processed before i can register for classes.

Huge sigh o' relief.

In other news, life has been pretty average. We drove down to provo on a whim on friday night and hung out with some people that my friends knew. At one point we ended hanging out in the apartment complex that amy had lived in once upon a time, which was thoroughly surreal. I thought about calling jessie or buckley, but i don't know how i would feel about my cousin calling me at 11 o'clock on a friday night to see if i wanted to hang out, so yeah. Also, BYU honor code is surprisingly constraining when you're not expecting to get kicked out of the dorms at midnight, and then the apartments at 1:30. So we went to denny's and got some food and then drove home.

Saturday was way fun, we had the funnest football game ever involving a really very clever fake punt that we ran about 40 yards for a touchdown (although the refs didn't give us the touchdown and we had to run it for half a yard) we beat wyoming 50-0 in what the opposing coach had called a guaranteed win for wyoming. It's really a shame Utah had such a rough early season, or else we would be in 2nd with BYU in first, our last game deciding the winner, but alas.
So that's been my last few days, i'm pretty happy right now, it's a shame i have physics in an hour. Oh, and i bought more contacts over the weekend, it's great to have them again, although my eyes had gotten mostly used to glasses, and it's weird, but my glasses aren't quite the right prescription, and they're crooked, so it's nice to be able to see better again. So yeah, good stuff all in all.

~An Unladen Swallow

Concussive Ramblings

It's official: sometimes i do some pretty stupid things. More on that later.

This week turned out pretty good all things considered. I'm somewhat surprised it's already thursday, and more surprised that thanksgiving is only two weeks away, madness. Also there are only five weeks left in fall semester, it's gone way too fast.

Tuesday we went to another basketball game. As it turns out, i don't like basketball games nearly as much as football games, i dunno, they're just not as much fun, maybe there's too much scoring for me, as a soccer player, to feel comfortable. Either way, we almost got a free pizza but Nick dropped it, and i decided that diving headfirst into the ground just for a personal pizza was not worth it.

Ironically, last night i decided diving headfirst into the ground would be an awesome thing to do. On our way back from smiths and squirrel brothers (strawberry cheesecake icecream is as good as ever) i noticed a massive pile of leaves, by far the biggest i've seen in my life. So me, Madeline, and Molly, being far more awesome than James and Vanessa, jumped in. (i guess it makes no sense to facetiously insult people when they don't even read this to appreciate it). At some point i thought it would be cool to dive headfirst into the pile o' leaves, not reasoning that leaves don't have anywhere near that much cushion, and that diving into a 4 foot high pile of leaves can't be that much different from diving into 4 feet of water. It ended up being rather painful, and is definitely not something i would recommend.

The moral of this story, however, is in no way "look before you leap". I've discovered that, barring some very serious consequences, i generally don't regret the things like this i do, because they really were pretty fun. I sometimes regret the consequences, but usually only when they involve other people. I've said many a time i'd break my arm if that's what it took to go snowboarding again, and that's somewhat true. I never regretted having gone snowboarding, except for how it affected the swim team and how much it cost. I didn't mind much falling out of the treehouse other than, again, the financial cost. A lot of times i don't mind dealing with a little bit of pain, because that goes away pretty quickly, but then you have these great stories to tell, and fun memories, and all that jazz.

So that's my philosophy on leaping. Probably not the wisest of philosophies, but i find it makes for a much better life than 'don't leap'. Incidentally, in relation to all things dealing with people and such, i use the opposite philosophy, something of a 'look and then over analyze for ever before you leap, and then afterwards when the opportunity is gone regret not leaping." but whatever, at least i am, as aristotle would say, 'consistently inconsistent'. I'm also waxing verbose, so i'd better stop before i make any more concussive ramblings.

I'm going to take some aspirin.

By the by, is there any way to dive other than head first? It seems to me that a dive generally implies diving headfirst, and diving headfirst is a little redundant, and if we're going to be more technical, your head isn't usually first, your hands are first. Had i actually dived headfirst into the ground i probably wouldn't be writing about, but luckily i'm not that stupid.

You are my everything

My alarm clock is iTunes, this morning Ben Folds - Losing Lisa came on while i was half asleep, and i didn't realize until later today when i was listening to iTunes some more why it was stuck in my head and why i wanted to make a joke about somebody being my everything, so don't read too much into the title.

Anyway, i'm better, i had a pretty all around crappy weekend, but it's over, i'll live. Hm, i set out to make a blog post, but i realized that i don't really have anything else to talk about...yup i got nothing. oh well. How did college life end become so dramatic, i thought that was supposed to end when i switched my little tassel to the other side. Oh well, i deal.

~Exquisite Dead Guy

Here's a truckstop, instead of St. Peter's

Today could have probably gone better, but i have clean laundry again, which is a nice change over last week.

I don't think i've ever liked what's followed after, "i really need to talk to you."

this has been a very emo weekend for me, and Coldplay and R.E.M. definitely aren't hindering that, but they are providing an appropriate soundtrack.

~The Sidewinder

times like these

So i'm in somewhat of a melancholy mood at the moment, and i decided that listening to Coldplay wasn't helping, so now we're seeing what Jack Johnson can do. Jack Johnson is generally a good way to feel happy.

So yeah, life these days is fairly decent, i have friends, so that's cool. I took care of all things unsaid in my real journal earlier tonight while i was emo, so i'll just chronalog the past week, which was pretty good.

On friday i went to Calculus which was about the same as always, then i worked very hard to not go to sleep and motivate myself to go to Colorado. For a few days there i was feeling craptacular, pretty much exhausted always, which i think was partially mental, probably stemming from the fact that i'm partially mental, but i got over it because Colorado is way too cool a state to skip out on.

The drive down was pretty uneventful, I half slept through most of james driving, and then enjoyed Wyoming in all it's beauty for Madeline's shift. We got to Molly's at around 9, it would have been sooner but we got caught in some very slow traffic for the last 2 miles. We ate dinner, courtesy of the molly parents, and then played password, which me and james beat molly and blaire in, although just barely. hm, that should be "in which" but sometimes i like to not be so pedantic a.k.a. grammatically correct. Anyway, at some point we slept, with the unrealistic idea of going hiking at 9am the next morning.

Madeline got there around 11 or 12, and suprisingly we ended up hiking. James, Madeline, and I left Molly (since molly had to go watch the Rockies lose up close and personal), and met up with Madeline's friend...jake...i think. Anyway, he seemed like a cool guy, reminded me a little bit of Kimball, but of course no one reading this knows who he is, so that doesn't do much good. Anyway, we went on a nice hike in Estes Park, which took us up to the Meadow (prompting various bambi references). Me and jake were feeling somewhat adventurous, or rather i was and jake was cool enough to follow, so we hiked up to the top of the little mountain we were on, which was pretty amazing. The hike back down was fun, and involved a bit of bouldering and trying not to die. The hike back went pretty fast, since it was all down hill, so that was cool.

We went from there to Porter's (another friend of madeline) house to watch that game and/or The Invisible. Porter's lady friend...ellie?...ella?...i'll go with ellie, said that we were jinxing the game by watching it, so we didn't really see them lose at the end. After the game me, porter, and james took on madeline and ellie in an intense game of Disney Scene-It. It was way intense, we lost because we said flubber instead of the Absent Minded Professor, but it was fun. That was saturday.

Sunday i went to church in some random ward, which made me appreciate the lack of babies in my ward, but Church is Church no matter where you go, which is always nice. Sunday was pretty chill, i took a nap, and then packed when molly and james got back (they'd gone up to Fort Morgan, where Molly used to live). We left at 2ish, and i drove the first stretch, which was fun. James and Molly were mostly asleep so Madeline drove the final leg. We started getting pretty tired with an hour or two still to go, so we played freeze-out (roll down all the windows when it's cold and go for as long as you can). That turned out to be way too intense for Molly and not nearly intense enough for me and madeline, and it looked like the windows would just be open for the rest of the drive, so we invented Freeze-out Extreme, which requires you to hold your hand out the window (holding onto the top of the car). We lasted about 12 miles and i decided i cared less about winning then i did about the inevitable nerve damage i was doing to my hand, so madeline took the prize for most hardcore/stubborn person.

We got back into Salt Lake at 9ish, and i think we did something, although i don't quite remember what. This is getting long, but the next few days weren't nearly as intense.

Monday was mondayish, and that night we watched heroes and met James new roomate Nick who seems like a nice addition to the group. Then we hung out and me and Madeline played with James awesome laptop (complete with tablet screen thing) and drew a picture of what molly and james would look like, were they unhappy pilgrims. Molly and James didn't seem to appreciate it nearly as much as we did, but it was fun either way. Oh, all day monday i was weirdly energetic, i'm not quite sure what happened there, since i definitely didn't get enough sleep.

To contrast, tuesday i was weirdly unenergetic, but i found out i made a 99 on my IT midterm (which was dippin awesome). That night we went and saw the Simpsons Movie, which is funnier than i remembered it, and then watched zoolander, which was exactly as funny as i remembered it.

Wednesday was halloween, and another dissapointing year. I came pretty close to having a costume, but as it turned out nothing happened, so it never happened. Me and Madeline and then Kelsey and Cathy and Vanessa and Flora and James and Molly (in order of arrival) watched Spiderman 3, which is funny and awesome and tacky. I'd forgotten the ending, and remembered it all of a sudden a few minutes before the end. After that we went looking for something to do, the creepy Chapel of Chapel Glenn seemed like a good choice, but it was locked, so we wandered around and me and Nick climbed on things than i climbed the hardest tree i've ever climbed (the first thing to hang on was about 15 feet up, so it involved some hardcore climbing.) And then i sat there for a while because i was having flashbacks of Arm-break 2006: The tree house of horror. I think after that we went to some mexican restaurant and then hung out in james room until i was too tired.

Thursday james got a couch, that was pretty awesome. Me James and Nick got front row seats to the Utah - Montana basketball game, which was lots and lots of fun, on our way out we saw a dippin dots, and that's when i realized that dippin is a good word to say in place of frickin, so i'm going to try to work that into my vernacular. We also watched The Emperor's New Groove with some girls, since 3 guys alone watching disney movies is somewhat suspect.

Today, friday, i lost my soccer game. It sucked a lot, we should have won, and i played like crap, so it's pretty hard not to blame myself, but happily no one else did verbally. We lost in a shoot-out, so i'm sure the shooters that missed and the goalie feel at least as bad as i do, but still, it sucked, i hate losing, but i really hate losing when i know i should have done better.

So yeah, that's my week. I did do some college work too, read some plato and aristotle, re-wrote an essay on oedipus rex, took a midterm and other collegiate things. Tomorrow i'm going to finally do laundry, since i'm down to dress shirts and soccer socks. This entry got way long, and took up nearly an hour of my time, which is good, my time right now is going way too slow.

~More than humid

Random Note 5/17/08: James' roommate's name was Tim, not Nick. I dunno where Nick came from.

Colorado!

I'm going to colorado this weekend. Hopefully Prof Rossi doesn't give me much homework since i'll have a hard time doing it without my computer.

There'll be updates and pictures when i get back. The Red Sox are poised to win the world series, but to do that they're beating the only other team i can imagine seriously rooting for.

Such is the plight of supporters of underdogs in these modern red sox times.

Remember that time when i always get nauseous for no real reason sometimes, usually dealing with social events following less sleep and crappy food. Well yeah, i'm getting bored of it, but it's kinda nice that my friends don't know me well enough to yet immediately pick up on it.

I looked out the window and what did i see?

Today was ok i guess, nothing too special, just some nice hanging out times. I discovered Facebook video, which i've known was around for a while, but now i like it a lot. While going through the videos on my computer i found this one. i tried uploading it on blogger, but it went all night and didn't finish, so just look at it on facebook.
http://utah.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1018341740639


it made me laugh and be happy.

In other news, i got a 98 on that midterm i was freaking out about, and i have a B+ average overall in that class, which is great. If i rewrite that essay and stop failing physics exam (i'm doing above average, but still, it's disappointing) i'll be all kinds of set.

I've decided i'm going to try to get a job reffing indoor soccer, if i can do that. Come to think of it i've never had ref's in indoor soccer, but if i can do it i'm definitely going to. I'd get payed and i'd get to play soccer, a definite win win. This weekend i'm going to colorado with some friends while molly goes to the World Series. We'll probably hike around a bit and have fun times. Having friends is great, i really should have gotten some sooner. My laundry card came with $3, but each a load costs 1.75, so that's pretty wack. I did laundry today because i had run out of socks and underwear, but a single white load should hold me over for a while.

Lets see, i think that's about all that's gone down here since sunday. Oh, and i won an andy Warholesc tie, that was cool. I should go to bed, maybe i'll read some plato first. Peace out.

~Popcorn Popping.

Family Newsletter October

i have a massive midterm i need to study for, and all our talks in church today were about not procrastinating, but this is something i need to do sometime today anyway, so i may as well get it out of my system now. Days of late have been pretty awesome, i had a minor emotional breakdown from failing a physics test and getting a c on a paper, but as it turns out, i was above average on the test, and that's my drop grade, and i'm going to re-write the paper. more importantly, i got a hammock that day which gave me something to occupy my thoughts other than, "oh crap, i'm going to fail college, lose my scholarship and have to go to UVSU." (not that there's anything wrong with going to Utah Valley State...)

Otherwise life's good. The red sox are in position to go to the world series, and it's possible that i am as well, since a friend of mine's family loves the rockies, and are going to try to get as many tickets as possible, and i might be able to sit in for a game. (how awesome would that be, Red Sox vs Rockies). I went to a utah soccer game on thursday and that was really exciting, and it reminded me how much i love and miss playing soccer a lot, so now i'm thinking i need to set up a indoor soccer team for intermurals. It snowed yesterday, and me and my friends went sledding on my clothes hamper, which worked really well. I also played racquetball yesterday. On friday i watched transformers in the dollar theater (awesome), and on tuesday i saw Ratattoulli in the dollar theater. I guess that's the gist of what's been going on. I had a midterm in IT on thursday, and i think that went pretty well. I think that about most of my midterms though, so we'll see how that turns out.

Alright i guess i'll type out the real family newsletter now. I always find typing them a little awkward, because here, where i write like it's a journal, there, i have to write like it's a letter. And i'm not a big fan of writing letters, but whatevs:


Salutations!

The talks in sacrament meeting today were about not procrastinating, so it's somewhat awful that i'm writing this as my calculus midterm ticks ominously closer, but in priesthood we talked a little about the importance of family, so i'll take care of this first. So far i'm loving life in salt lake. Friday me and my friends made the obligatory hike up to the giant U on the mountain, which was actually a pretty nice hike. I wanted to trek off into the brush, but my friends weren't in the mood for getting lost in the mountains, so we ended up taking the fairly tame path up the mountain. Yesterday it snowed quite a bit, so we went sledding in clothes hampers and had snow ball fights. I feel like i have to make up for the last 14 years of my life with no snow, and so far i'm doing pretty well.

In other news, college is going alright. Me and Cami made it up to Cache valley a few weeks ago to visit Grandma and Grandpa. It's great, and a little surreal, to be so close to family i usually only see during the summer. In a few hours there's a fireside at the Institute by Elder Uchtdorf. Last month we had Elder Holland, and the institute was skirting the edges of the fire code, so this time it's a little more organized, and you really have to get there early in order to get seats in the same room. We also have a temple trip this week, up to the Bountiful Temple. Last month we went to the Salt Lake Temple, but i didn't have a recommend yet, so i'm excited to actually be able to go this time around. So between family, the mountain hiking, the snow, the General Authorities, and the bounteous temples, Utah is treating me very well. I'm looking forward to winter and some more significant snow fall (we only got a couple inches yesterday, enough to sled, but i find myself craving a snow fort). But until then, i should go ahead and study. So long.

~Ammon

So yeah, that about covers my life, now i need to study. blech.

Ay, there's the rub.

I had the most realistic dream i've ever had last night. Not only did it feel real, but the stuff that happened was fairly believable. I was playing soccer on my murrah team, or at least mostly on my murrah team, i know Jean, Cory, and Chris were all there, so yeah. We were down 1, and it was raining. Somehow or another i ended up scoring 2 goals, really 3, but one of them didn't count (i was offsides i think)

It was a really fun dream, and i woke up wanting to play soccer. I think i'm going to do indoor soccer over the winter, which looks to be wicked awesome. Depending on how the indoor is, i may have to buy some sneakers, i'm too cheap to buy indoor cleats.

This weekend became fun very quickly as people started coming back in. I went to the football game with james, although we missed most of the first half because i thought it was starting at 3 for some reason, but the first half looked pretty unexciting. The second half was way fun, and we did the an awesome fake fieldgoal where the kicker served as quarterback. Our kicker definitely one of the best kickers in college football, maybe the best, but he definitely isn't the best quarterback. It was pretty weak, but the play was so awesome (and we were winning by so much) that it didn't matter. I wonder if they had tackled him if it would have been roughing the kicker...

So anyway, that was pretty cool, we won, and the weather was pretty nice. Then we went back and played trivial pursuit...no that was yesterday...we just hung out for a while and then went bowling, i'm not nearly as good at bowling as i was, i bowled an 85ish the first time, and a 107 the second time. But i did curve the ball and make it look awesome, and that's really all that matters. Also, because they cut us midway through our 10th frame, technically i had the highest score, but james definitely was set to win, i think he only needed 1 pin to beat me.

Sunday was good, it was the last day for Adam, our awesome sunday school teacher, which was sad, he's a great teacher and seems like a pretty rockin' guy too. He's off to Rome to teach english. It's crazy gutsy, cus he doesn't really have a hotel or plans or know anyone over there, and he doesn't speak italian. I think that would be really a lot of fun.

Other than that i made it to church ontime for the first time in a while. hopefully it'll be a trend. After church i took a nap, ate some, played trivial pursuit, and hung out for a while, while doing my homework, very slowly, but fun times.

Also i got a care package of winter clothes, racquetball stuff, and a $500 scholarship check, which will be helpful. Tonight there's a carnival thing at the church, so we'll see how that turns out, and then there's heroes at 8, which i'm sure will turn out awesome. Tomorrow i get my hammock, i'm really very excited.

This is my friday night...

why is it that words with ea are less friendly than words with ee?

Meat, Beat, Steal, Weak, Bear, Dead...

Random observations while watching baseball.

Also, it's interesting that college football is way more exciting than pro, but college soccer is much less so.

If i go crazy then will you still call me superman?

I've almost made it through this week, only one more day and then everybody will be back and life will continue. Good times.

I've had a pretty unproductive week, although i've gotten a few things that i needed to get done out of the way. Otherwise this week has been very thoughtful, and i find myself missing mississippi. Today i was hiking about through the mountains, and it reminded me of being a little kid and wandering around the woods near my house. I wish i'd had utah then, there's so much more to explore, i could go for miles just behind my dorm.

Today i've been missing murrah soccer. We really had some good times. I don't think i'll ever have as much fun as i did at some of those games. Even though i have intermural here, it's not the same, we're not a team, and winning and losing barely matters. Most of all i miss a way to constantly play soccer. I really like soccer, like a lot. I think if i were good enough i would have no trouble playing pro-soccer. It'd be so much fun. Since it's too late now, i'd settle for a large group of soccer playing friends.

I miss Sal and Mookie's too. That was a really fun job, i think if pro soccer doesn't pan out, i would enjoy working at a restaurant. I know it won't happen, because i don't want that as my career, unless i became a chef or something, cus those guys are awesome.

Lets see, what else. I just generally miss having a lot of friends. When you only have a few friends it's pretty easy to find yourself with nothing to do.

I'm pretty much out of things to say, i wrote extensively in my real journal today, that was good. Other than that my life is pretty calm, tepid even. Maybe i'll have exciting dreams...

gosh, these are so emo sometimes.

fall broken.

it's been a long while since i did a blog, so i guess i will. A lot has happened, but it seems like not a lot worth talking about has happened. Right now it's fall break, which i'm really not enjoying much because all my friends went home for the week, leaving me bored and lonely trying to figure out what to do with my time.

I watched the prestige for the third time, but this time i actually watched it, and it's crazy how much more i noticed. i guess i won't talk about it much, so as not to ruin it for anybody, but yeah, it's a good movie to watch again.

General conference is this weekend, which is always a good weekend. It sleeted yesterday, which is about the worst possible precipitation (except maybe freezing rain), but the snow in the mountains looks cool.

Friday was lots of fun, i had a physics test, which i think i did well on, and then we hung out, played games, watched Batman Begins (also an awesome movie), went to denny's, and finding it rediculously full of people for 2am, went to IHOP. By about 5 am we were all pretty tired, so we just ended up watching boomerang until i decided to go to bed.

Thursday was pretty fun too, the office always makes for good times.

Wednesday was crazy busy during the day, as wednesday always is, but i went and saw Dan in Real Life with Cathy, which was fun. Dan in Real Life is a Steve Carrel/Dane Cook movie coming out in a couple weeks. You'd think a Steve Carrel/Dane Cook movie would be really funny, but it really wasn't. It was a nice movie, but it was closer to a chick flick than anything.

That's about as far back as i can remember interesting things happening. I got my bed lofted on monday, which was definitely a good decision. My room is about 100x as cool now. I decided i'm going to buy a hammock, which will make my room even cooler, if i can make it work, which i think i will.

I have a new roomate now, again, he's pretty cool, and he has a piranha, which eats little fish and is awesome. This week i'm on fish duty for Cathy and Madeline, i'm really worried i'm their fish are going to die this week, because while fish are relatively hard to kill, they're even harder to keep from dieing if that's the way they're going. Madeline said she's never forgive me if i kill her fish, and i think she's fairly serious, so there are some pretty high stakes.

Anyway, i'm going to watch the rest of conference and then wonder what to do on sunday night.

Some People wear glasses, Beth looks like a dude.

I had an awesome awesome fireside, and i need to write about it before i forget.

So the speaker was Shuan Perry, who is this broadway actor, dancer, singer extrordinaire, who, if you didn't know, you'd swear he was gay, he has that whole gay actor vibe, but he's mormon, so yeah. I didn't really know what to expect when i went there, because sometimes firesides are really kinda lame (like that sorority one a while back, although at the tabernacle), but this one was not. I'm not going to summarize all of it, because i don't remember it all. His main theme was how we need to put our trust in God, and let him lead our lives, and amazing things will happen. He was originally set on being a Doctor, but then in school he started taking some acting classes, and then he just ended up really feeling strongly that he should go into acting and all.

He referenced a fireside he had gone to when he was young, where the person said if there was one thing you needed to take home, was that you should always make your bed, and it will change your life, and he tried it and said that he did, so i think i'll try it. It is oh so easy to make my bed anyway.

He talked for a while on 9/11, and how he spent that time, which was really very beautiful. He was living in New York and so he spent the week doing everything he could to help, which ended up with him digging around in tunnels trying to rescue people, and he came very close, he heard noise, but all he could find at first was a Twin Towers Teddie Bear from the gift shop, but he had to evacuate because another building was falling in, and when he went back in the noise was gone.

All in all, it was just a great experience, i'm always disappointed with the inadequates of words to convey the emotions and feelings i feel.

That said, reflections, and thoughts i had during the thing:
The 9/11 story immediately reminded me of The Things They Carried. It all seemed so implausible, but i realized that whether or not it actually happened (i would be shocked if it didn't) it was very much a true story. Because the events are as true as anything, and the feelings felt were real as well. The fact that after all that he did, he didn't find anyone, is just too awful, and beautiful, to not be true.

He talked for a made a bit of an extended metaphor between ballroom dancing and God, which was cool, about being taken by the hand and all that.

I feel like there were other things i remember, but alas, the infrequences of memory strike again. Speaking of that my institute teacher spoke today on the importance of keeping a log of experiences, so that you can go back later and remember them. He said you should just keep a notepad, and whenever you're reminded of something that happened to you write it down, just a sentence or two, so that you'll remember. I think that'd be a cool thing to do.

Lets see, other news: This weekend was crazy, as the last two posts suggest. On sunday i went up to Hyde Park to eat dinner, spend some time with the grandparents, and get some of my stuff. That was nice, so now i have a piano again. Today i had calculus and physics, which is starting to level out a bit between unreasonably hard and easy, and then i went to the fireside, so yeah. All around a good day.
So now i need study for my cal test tomorrow, so i don't fail, lose my scholarship, and end up owning lots and lots of money i wouldn't otherwise.

~Au Revoir

So fill your lungs and sing it out and shout it to the sky

Wooo!

We just beat UCLA. Not only did we beat them, we demolished them. 44-6. This weekend is shaping up to be pretty amazing.

a Utah man am I.

Ki-yi!

Catch a wave and you're sittin' on top of the world

So, what can i say about to day. I went to a concert and heard the format (cool) and Jack's Mannequin (also very cool). I crowd surfed, which was awesome. And then i hung out and then got free ice cream and then watched anchorman, all or mostly with (in order of appearence) Cathy, James, Kelsey, Flora, and Vanessa.

I also have now met every single one of my hometeaching people, and my companion, so i'm pretty well set up. So yeah.

Good Day.

Buy Sneakers: A Note to Myself

It's 12:30 and i'm not really up to thinking of a clever title, and there's a sticky note on my compy reminding me what i need to do. Somehow the title comes off sounding deep.

Life of late has been tolerable. Monday night, and therefore tuesday, was completely crazy. I stayed up till 3am doing homework and not accomplishing anything, which was sad, because i managed to finish the whole thing in about 45 minutes on tuesday afternoon (although i'm concerned that i did everything wrong) Then i didn't have time to finish all my reading, so i missed a couple things on my odyssey reading quiz. I would have missed more, but memories ms. Mahan's 7th grade english class and wishbone came to my rescue. After that i pretty much hung out for a while, but probably due to lack of sleep, my roomate was really getting on my nerves, he really wasn't doing anything, and, true to form, just last sunday someone said something about how when someone annoys us we need to look at ourselves and think about what we are doing to be a good companion (on a mission) or roommate in my situation. That notwithstanding (a silly word), i needed to get out. So i sent James an SOS, and we played ping pong for a while, and then we met up with Cathy and Kelsey and hung out for the night, leaving my physics homework oddly neglected. At around 10am we finished our game (which consisted of a nerf football and a nerf basketball goal, and various variations on throwing technique) and so i went and did most of my homework, until i got frustrated at the world and quit, instead replying to an email and venting angsty angst while talking about how stuff was going.

Let me pause for just a moment here to point out the fact that i actually hung out with some people, a great step up from sitting in my room, or even hanging out with cami, which, while super fun, makes me feel like just a bit of a loser for not having any friends. So yeah, good stuff. moving on.

Oh, also on tuesday i tried to play intermural ultimate. I'm a 'free agent', a sort of ronin if you will, so i was looking for a team to join. What happened is a brilliant internal conflict. I got there at around 4:30 and it was the honors floor team vs. some other team. Now the honors floor team contains a bunch of members of the church, and through that i've ended up playing ultimate with them on thursdays, and i'm getting to know them and all kinda of good stuff like that. However, the honors floor team were getting their honors butts royally owned by the other team. So that was a little sad. But i asked them (the honors floor guys) if i could join their team and they said of course, and so that was all groovey. On the way back up to my dorm, i crossed paths with some people from the other team, and it turns out that they're my building's team, and they invited me to join it, since they only have around 9 players.

So, herein lies the conflict. Should i join the good team, under the justification that they are my building and they have fewer people and all, but in truth mostly because i want to be on the winning team (if the honors floor team had one i wouldn't even consider this) or should i stay with the honors guys, people i'm getting to know and be friends with. It's quite a predicament.

So, wednesday continued the stressyness of tuesday, but i felt a bit better. I didn't have any homework due, and i ran into cathy and kelsey at dinner so i talked to them for a bit, also adding to the not feeling like a loser bin. After that i went to volleyball though. now, for some more prologue.

A while back i went to plaza fest, which is basically a large convention type thing of all the different student organizations trying to get you to join them, there's tons of swag (or shwag, as it is more fun to say), music, free food, and other stuff like that. I gave a few people my email address, the ultimate frisbee and volley ball teams, Relay for Life, and something else that i don't remember at the moment. Anyway, i got an email from the volleyball team telling me that there'd be some friendly scrimages/practices throughout september. So i went, expecting your basic pick up volleyball game fun. As it turns out, these guys are playing volleyball at a level i've never even seen. There's all kinds of crazy jargon, strategy, spiking, all in all i was very much overwhelmed. The captain was really cool about it, didn't seem to blame me at all even though i probably made our team lose. It was at a point where i was probably doing more harm than good. But yeah, he told me i should come back next week, we'll see, if i'm going to be practicing with a team i have no intention of joining, i'll do ultimate, because in that i can at least hold my own.

This also made me re-realize that i really really hate to feel useless, or just generally fail at things. I've always known i didn't like failing, but somehow it's different and a lot worse in both active things (as opposed to, say, the last term of calculus), and especially in team games. It reminded me of ninth grade, and how i felt on the soccer team, where i definitely wasn't the best player (although i wasn't the worst, and that was nice) and snowboarding, where i fell over and over and over again. The best i ever felt that year may have been when i won the 200m butterfly and we won the swim meet, and the worst i felt all year was when i broke my arm and couldn't swim anymore. So from this, lets draw some conclusions:

I really hate letting people down. I don't mind failing individually, but when i fail others it makes me feel awful. Although i was getting a bit tired of falling when snowboarding, it wasn't until i snowboarded with a bunch of people and fell a bunch that i felt just stupid (and then breaking my arm didn't make me feel to awful. Man. that was a really bad night. i forgot how awful that night was. I had to walk home in the really very freezing night, and i had to use the bathroom really badly the whole way there.) Finally, i've concluded that i'm nowhere near as good at volleyball as the guys on my college team are.

This post is getting really quite long, and i'm geting really quite tired, so i'll wrap it up. Today was great. I'm a big fan of thursdays. I slept in until 10am, which i think has pretty much fixed my stressed outyness, and my eye twitch (my right eye's been twitching for the past few days. probably the most annoying thing possible). In physics discussion i learned almost nothing, but did manage to copy down an equation that made my homework tonight possible, even if i don't understand why (which i can't stand). I finished my reading before my class, and then on the way there discovered a 3 dollar pizza slice (wow. what a rip off. i was starving at the time so i didn't think about it, but that pizza was no where near worth 3 dollars) and a free doughnut (which was worth every cent). I played CIV III for a while, and i'm starting to get better, to teh point where i can compete with the computers, although i'm thinking that they cheat, both because they somehow go super fast, and because the computer keeps placing me in crappy spots without iron or gold, so i'm dirt poor and can't create a good army.

After that i played ultimate frisbee, and our team one, most definitely due to my impressive one man defense (there were about 4 people in the endzone, and i was pretty much the only one there still guarding them, and i stopped about 3 points). So that was fun. I have a gnarly battle wound, although nothing compared to my suitemate sam's gruesome mountain bike induced gashes. So yeah. I just finished my physics homework completely, so that was nice, and now i have to go to sleep, and dread the onslought of calculus, which is actually better now, both because we're doing new stuff, which i can learn as fast as everyone else, and because i've remembered most of what i've forgotten about calculus, which was really slowing me down in the slightly reviewish sections about sequences and such. So yeah, that is quite a post for only covering four days, but failure can cause me to wax poetic. 1am on the other hand, causes me to wane conscious, so i'm going to go to sleep now.

"We could close the curtains; pretend like there's no world outside. We could pretend it all the time"

~Hala ka ukelele

Family News Letter - September

This is my little update i'm going to send to my mom for our family newsletter. I guess i should keep it kinda short.

Greetings from Salt Lake

I feel fairly weird writing a newsletter since it's always been one of those things that older people did, like college and home teaching, but I'm doing that too now, which is odd. So far I'm enjoying the Utah life quite a bit. It's gorgeous outside right now, cool and dry, two things that are almost always missing in Mississippi. It's been great to be able to spend time with Cami, especially since I'm only just getting to know people on a 'hang out on the weekend' basis, and i think I'm saving around $100 by borrowing her washing machine. It's great to know I'm only a short drive away from extended family, and I'm looking forward to visiting Grandma and Grandpa, which looks like it will be next week.

I've gotten all set up in my ward, I even received a calling last week. I'm the Elder's Quorum Pianist, which surprised me a little bit, only because I didn't realize they knew I played the piano. The most difficult part of this is making it to church on time, since somehow waking up at 8am is difficult for me now, but I'm slowly getting better at it (today i overslept and missed Priesthood. I felt awful, but the first day I found myself utterly lost in the Labyrinth that is the Institute building, and didn't find my ward until Sacrament meeting, so I'm making progress) I was divvied up into a Family for Family Home Evening, and it seems like there are some pretty cool people in there, so I'm looking forward to that.

Otherwise I've mostly been enjoying college and Salt Lake. I was able to go to a fireside in the Tabernacle; and although the fireside turned out to be a drive to get me to join a fraternity, it was amazing to be in the Tabernacle. It's much smaller than it looked on TV, or maybe i'm bigger. That's about all that's going on here. I'll keep all of you updated as things unfold.

The Newest Utah Perkes (i think)
Ammon

~~~~

So yeah, that also, incidentally, is the gist of what's been going on the past few weeks.

Also today i had a fireside and met some people and that was fun, today was one of the first day i didn't feel like i was socially deprived, which is a nice change that i plan on keeping up. Otherwise, it's all quiet on the Western Front, hold tight my eastern bound readers (and cami, who i suppose is a south west of me)

~Jupiter
(from The Planets)

I've made an important discovery

I've discovered that there's really no way to mess up an Ice Cream Sandwich. There's never been an ice cream sandwich i didn't enjoy.

Also, i've discovered that waking up at 9:20 is no way to make it to church by 9.

1 Is the Loneliest Number That You'll Ever Know

Incidentally, i'm not actually that emo, or that lonely, but there is definitely a slight dearth of friendship at the U. I've met a bunch of people, it's not like i've been holed up in my room all day, i just haven't really met anyone i want to spend lots of time with. So yeah. It's also possible i just haven't really gotten to know anyone well enough to have a good time spending a lot of time with people, but i dunno.

In happier news, i've decided i'm not as behind in calculus as i feel, considering i did all of the homework last night without help, and when i got to class today a bunch of people were frantically swapping answers. So that made me fee a little bit more comfortable. Otherwise class is pretty groovy, i finished my reading for The Odyssey earlier today, that was good.

Church is fun, i'm glad i have it to get me out of my dorm and do fun things. I had my first Family Home Evening last night, we played tag and ate cookies, and brainstormed about what we can do. I need to pay my tuition today, because MTA is holding out on me, i also need to drop them a line and tell them to send me my $750 or i'll get out of this chair and drop them like 3rd period french.

Anyway, i think i'd better head to class, and then i hope to swim and register for intermural sports. I can't think of a witty ending, and i'm about to be late for class, so so long.

“‘Sort of’ is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It’s just a filler. Sort of - it doesn’t really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after ‘I love you’ or ‘You’re going to live’ or ‘It’s a boy.’” ~Demetri Martin

This is no freud.

1. You are not alone. You are walking in the woods. Who is with you?
My Dad

2. You are walking in the woods. You see an animal. What kind of animal?
Dog

3. What interaction takes place between you and the animal?
None

4. You walk deeper in the woods. You enter a clearing, and before you is
your DREAM house. How big is it?
Small

5. Is your dream house surrounded by a fence?
No

6. You enter the house. You walk into the dining room and see the
dining room table. What do you see on AND around it?
Nothing

7. You exit the house and a cup is on the ground, what kind is it?
Small, white, porcelain, and without a handle

8. What do you do with the cup?
nothing

9. You walk to the edge of the property where you find yourself
standing at a body of water. How big is the body of water?
Large, but not so big that i can't see the other side

10. How will you cross the water?
Why do i need to cross the water? If i must i'd choose kayak, but i'd prefer to stay.


Analysis:

1. The person who you are walking in the woods with is the most
important person in your life.


2. The size of the animal is representative of your perception of the
size of your problems in your life.


3. The severity of the interaction you have with the animal is
representative of how you deal with your problems.


4. The size of your dream home is representative of the size of your
ambition to solve your problems.


5. A lack of a fence is indicative of an open personality. People are
welcome at all times. The presence of a fence indicates a closed
personality. You'd prefer that people not drop by unannounced.


6. If your answer did NOT include food, flowers, or people, then you
are generally unhappy.


7. The durability of the material with the cup is made of is
representative of the perceived durability of your relationships.


8. What you did with the cup is representative of your attitude.


9. The size of the body of water is representative of the size of your
sexual desire.


10. The way you cross the water is representative to how easy or hard
you expect your life to be

I've decided that this is full of crap, and let me explain why. I was walking in the woods with my dad because that's who i most often walk in the woods with (not to say he isn't important), had it been somewhere else the person would have been different. I saw a dog because i had toyed with the idea of walking with a dog in the woods but i realized i thought of my dad first. I don't know what the severity of not interacting with wild animals is. I have a huge ambition to solve problems, but i don't have a huge ambition to live in a gaudy house, and if i'm in the woods, i expect a small house. The fence question may be true, but it's also very obvious. I am generally happy, however i keep my dining room table generally clean, and i don't know why there would be strange people at a house i've obviously never been to. #7 is kinda shady, how durable can a cub be? I guess medal or plastic would be somewhat sturdy, but it would also seem really out of place by itself on the ground. porcelain just seems earthy and appropriate with the earthy things. I suppose i'm apathetic, but what do you expect me to do with a strange cup i see on the ground, it's not like it's mad of medal, it seems very at home on the ground somehow. 9 is just silly, but i imagined the most recent lake i saw, which was in colorado. So how exactly does kayaking represent difficulty? I'm not sure, it seemed the only plausible way to cross such a lake, i obviously don't have a motor boat, and swimming seems like more trouble than it's worth to cross a lake for no reason.

so now that i've properly libeled psychoanalysis, i'm going to go get lunch.

I'm no Superman

hm, i was thinking about making a post about the glories of the interweb, but it just wasn't working right. Instead i'll just talk about what's been going on.

Not much. I'm getting into a bit of a routine with this whole college thing. I bought some oatmeal and water and cheeze-its which do a good job of keeping me going in between dreams. My meal plan is all worked out, so now i'm less hungry all the time, which is good. I know where all my classes are (although i forgot where physics was yesterday for a little while). I finally (for the first time in something like 6 months) have a working cell phone, courtesy of Katie and Logan enterprsies, and the glories of the internet, which gave me the code for unlocking it for freezies.

Otherwise, i've been watching a lot of scrubs. I finished off the 5th season, so now i'm ready to watch new ones (unless there's a sixth season, and then i'll have to quickly rent and watch it along with the office) So that's my life in brief. I'll update some more when more is happening. I'm hungry and my hands are cold, so i'm going to go back to my dorm and find something to do until 2, when i have my last class of my first week of classes.

"You Never Can Tell With Bees"

I was just gripped with a panic at the idea of having missed one of my classes today, but it was baseless. I misjudged how much time there is between 10:30 and 12:55, and so i've been getting pretty severely bored in the computer lab. I wish i could be reading gilgamesh, but i got the wrong copy, so that'd be kinda a waste. I must remember to find something more time consuming to do between Calculus and Math Colloquium, so that i don't get so bored. I'm thinking exercise might be a good option. Nothing much has been happening, i had my first American Institutions class, which was fun, and looks like it'll be a fun class, a sort of combination of Williams and Jones, which makes for some enjoyable classes.

My roommate asked me if i was homesick yesterday (by the way, i really wish roommate had one m) and i realized that i really haven't much. I mean i miss my family a bit, but nothing to the point i would call a sickness. I guess having lived by myself for quite a bit of this summer probably helped to dull the blade of home sickness.

I bought all my books, the amount of money i'm spending is a little overwhelming. Especially considering i still am going to buy a bike and a calculator. It's good that i worked a lot this summer, or else i'd be pretty poor. Anyways, i'm going to go eat my meager lunch and then maybe go to the book store, and hopefully by then it'll be time for class.

I'm Rumbly in my Tumbly.

If you've a date in Constantinople they'll be waiting in Istanbul

So. As might have been perceived by my relative lack on internet presence over the last few days, i have yet to get my computers internet to work. For some reason my computer and my roommate's router don't get along very well. Hopefully that'll get taken care of eventually. Luckily though, there's a computer lab a minute or so from my room, so it really just makes me spend less time in my dorm room.

Last night i had the second weirdest family night ever (the weirdest of course being the thumb tack maze object lesson) where i met some people, got to know some people a bit better, learned to swing dance very poorly, line danced a bit, climbed a rock wall, did an obstacle course, and got free pizza. I was a bit late, due to a miscommunication between me and the Trax intercom, which didn't tell me which stop we were at until after we were pulling away, so i had to walk a bit farther than i wanted to, but i survived. I now have a relatively good sense for this whole college thing. I know how to get food, mail, shuttle rides, and i know where all but one of my classes are (i'm going to find that class in a couple minutes).

Physics class looks like it'll be a bit dull, but calculus looks to be really quite hard (i also need to refresh my memory of L'Hopital's rule, which i never thoroughly learned in high school, so that's good. I have homework already, which i'm sure will be a bit difficult, and i'm considering capitalizing on that whole tutoring thing, or asking Cami, either way. Otherwise, life moves on pretty well. I've realized i can beat the Chartwells system by throwing a bit off non-messy food in my backpack for a small lunch (fruit works really well) and eventually i'm going to figure outt how my flex dollars work, and if there's any way to use them for ramen, oatmeal, or pb&j. So for the most part life out here is going well. Hopefully i'll find something exciting to do this weekend, but we'll see. It feels refreshingly like Cambridge, certainly not as urban, but almost. That'll do for now. Once i get my computer all working i'll be able to update more.