Guess who just got back today

I'm in Biloxi! Updates to follow as events unfold.

Already i'm so lonesome i can die...

Well, school is almost done. Tomorrow i have to do a project, and then i'm more or less done. Typical of my life, the days before i leave are the best of my stay here. Everything i have wanted this year has come about very recently. I have great friends, i have enough money, i can walk again, it's warm and happy, i even have a relationship of sorts (btw, i'm not sure whether or not it's worth dating in the weeks before you leave somewhere for 2 years. It does make that last little bit a lot of fun, but it makes leaving so very hard.) But i guess that's why it's called a sacrifice, and i'm sure when i come back, everything will still be here, though perhaps not through the same people. My friend offered to chip for a bus ticket, and it was really very tempting. But tuesday remains my departure. That john denver song is great, but it takes on so much more meaning when you're leaving someplace. Actually lots of songs do. We sang Improve Each Shining Moment and God Be With You Till We Meet Again in church today, which was nice, since this is the last sunday for a large portion of the ward.

I actually have lost my voice almost entirely over the past couple of days and have a pretty gnarly cough, but other than that, this last weekend has been awesome. Friday i had a linear algebra and a physics final, with a physical in between. The physics final didn't go great but it's awesome to be done. And in talking to other people i get the feeling that it didn't go great for too many people, so hooray for curves. Other than that friday was pretty chill, i watched doctor who, did something productive i think, and went to sleep.

Saturday was amazing. I don't think a day could be very much better than saturday was, except if you threw in like a temple trip in the morning, but otherwise it was a very complete day. We went to play baseball at the place where the sandlot was filmed, and also saw vincent's drug store (which looks exactly the same) and tore the skin off a baseball, and i bought glass bottles of pop and rootbeer, so all in all it was a very sandlotish day. After that i went to a modern dance performance, which was cool, if a little abstract. Then we hung out for a while, got hot chocolate, and watched august rush, which is a really sweet movie, and has a very cool soundtrack. That little kid is such a great actor. Also saturday night i submitted my misson papers, so that's almost done with

Today was nice too, i got to church on time so i got to play piano one last time. Sunday school was good, we did Q&A with return missionaries on stuff. And then the bishopric spoke and said farewell and that sort of thing. After church i got an interview with the bishop so now all that stands between me and my call is setting up an interview with the stake president. This actually may turn out to be difficult, but i'm sure everything will work out. After church i ate and took a nap and then went to dinner, ward prayer, and then we watched a couple movies to round the night up very late. Now i'm tired, and i have to get up tomorrow to do that project and hopefully have a bit of time for fun, so it's time for bed. The next one of these will most likely be from mississippi, so, until then, fare well.

~Roger the Shrubber

Oh, by the way, we can now rest easy knowing that i don't have Tuburculosis, or as some have loved to call it, "The Consumption!!" So yeah, physicals, while always extremely awkward, and great when they basically tell you that you are entirely healthy. Fun times.

A Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

It has come to my attention that some of you take issue with me calling my hair, which is a faux-hawk at best, a mohawk. While i did, in fact, call it a mohawk, i do understand the difference between the two. I also, however, understand that many people aren't as invested in the specifics of mohawks and faux-hawks, and many others don't even know what faux-hawks are. As such, i figured it would be acceptable to call it a mohawk for simplicity sake. I was wrong. I apologize to any of you and your respective hairs whom I may have offended. I'll try to be more accurate in the description of my hair styles in the future.

Sincerely,
Ammon Perkes

Seriously though, today has been interesting. I woke up early this morning to the dulcet tones of a jack hammer tearing up the sidewalk outside my window. That went on for about 2 hours, when i actually needed to get up. My clock deceived me, telling me i had already missed the bus, but when i actually left i realized i could have caught it but had now missed it by a few minutes. Not wanting to wait for the next shuttle i jogged to the trax and, realizing that it was already coming, had to race it, running about 200 yards which is probably the best possible thing for my knee right now.

I had my last day of institute today, and then some Linear Algebra review. After that i tried to print out my mission physical papers, but i realized that i couldn't remember my login name, so i had to head back up to the dorms. Luckily my ink didn't run out (it's practically printing on fumes at this point), and i headed over to the student services center for a pre-physical and to schedule a physical. I got on the wrong shuttle and by the time i got back to the stop the right shuttle had gone, so i had to run to catch the trax, again.

The physical itself was easy enough, although it did run late so i didn't get to go to my last physics discussion. Oh well. Here are a few things i learned at the physical:

Chronic itchiness can be a sign of cancer (i actually learned that reading discover while in the waiting room); the Student Center has the best magazines i've ever seen in a waiting room; for some reason a place that caters almost exclusively to college students expects them to not know their letters, and so has the awkward direction E charts for vision checks; you're supposed to wash blood out of pants with cold water and, just prior to learning that, I apparently bleed fairly freely when blood is drawn, all over everything; peeing in a cup is really much more difficult when you really need to go to the bathroom.

After that i caught a shuttle over to the end of my physics discussion to pick up my physics test. I got a 91, it would have been a 98 but i apparently lost all common sense midway through the exam, but a 91 is still great. I have to go back tomorrow morning to have them put in a little TB test thing, and then I go in friday to have my full physical. I actually forgot when my exam is, so the physical will require me to miss the first half hour of my exam, unless someone cancels, but last time i had nearly an hour left of testing, so i'm not overly worried. I accidentally stole a pen from the doctors office. I actually realized this before i left the doctors, but after i had played with it for a while and chewed on it a little bit. I figure after that it would be irresponsible to give it back, especially with all the signs everywhere about not spreading infection. I will admit, i'm sort of grossed out that i put a doctor's office pen in my mouth, but it is a nice pen, and my other one just died, so whatever.

Tomorrow night i have my crazy 25 page paper and presentation due, so i need to finish working on that tonight. I only have to write half of it, and last night i got about 6 pages, so i should be able to finish it up tonight. I think 25 page papers are stupid, especially this one. There are very few things in the world that take 25 pages to state adequately, and this most definitely isn't one of them. What is going to happen is i'll type everything i want to say, and then say it in more complicated ways, and then add quotes from other people to justify the things i've said. I could probably tell you everything you needed to know from this paper in a page and a picture.

Otherwise life goes as normal. I'm pretty happy that it's going to work out to have my papers finished before i leave, since there was some question before. It's unfortunate that it's cutting into my exam time, but with a bit of fortune it will all turn out ok. Tomorrow i'm going to make sure it's ok to miss the beginning of the exam and ask if it's remotely possible for me to stay later to finish it up. I doubt it, and i doubt i'll need to, but it won't hurt to ask.

Update:
The people called and there was a cancellation so now i'm going at 2:30, a solid hour before the exam, which will give me enough time for the physical and just enough time to make it to the exam ontime. Hurrah!

I said please don't slow me down if i'm going too fast

It's midnight, and by tuesday i need to have written half of a 25 page paper (my partner is doing the other half), not to mention the two tests, 2 projects, and an essay that all ought to be done before i leave utah. It's sort of scary how fast time is going, but i've decided that it's always best to have something your excited about come right after something you're dreading, that way it doesn't take forever to come. My hair is a little less extreme than it was wednesday night, i got my friend to go in and trim the top so now it's a somewhat respectable faux-hawk, which is good, mohawks, while fun, are quite silly. Silly Logan...

Anyway, this weekend was a lot of fun. Friday night i had a date. I dunno why i always do this to myself. A week before you are leaving town for two years is no time to think about starting up a relationship, and i'm not really, but it just makes me a little sad for what could have been had time worked out differently. It might have something to do with the fact that when i realize i have absolutely nothing to lose i have an easier time getting over shyness and the like, but mostly it's just unfortunate circumstance, a complete lack of serendipity. But yeah, friday night was fun, and the saturday was filled with church activities. We had a temple trip in the morning, another reason i was glad that i had taken care of the mohawk friday, then a church party in the afternoon. We got there late so the food was gone and i tried to play soccer and discovered my knee isn't better enough for that yet. It also got really gross outside saturday from all the wind. Then i came back and watched the doctor who season finale, they're playing the new season of doctor who on scifi, i'm going to need to figure out how to watch those when i'm back in mississippi. While i'm talking about doctor who, there's a whole bunch of old doctor who (mostly from the Tom Baker era) on netflix's watch now. You should definitely check them out, i do.

Anyway, after that was stake conference, which was nice, even if i did sleep through most of the first half. We went and ate dinner, which Karl paid for cus he's cool like that. Karl also gave me an old oil thing for my key chain, so now i have one of those, which is good. After dinner headed to jake's where we watched Ace Ventura. I hadn't seen the first one in a long long time, so that was fun. Then today i went to grandma's and ate lunch and we hung out and talked for a few hours and then i went back to cami's and did some laundry, had dinner, and watched Lars and the Real Girl, which was good. So here i am. This next week promises to be pretty awful, and the worst part is i don't really have time in utah after it's done to just relax and hang out. Sad. Well i'm going to start working my way towards bed, maybe watch a little doctor who first and stretch my knee out, since i don't need to wake up for another 10 hours. Ahh college.

~Mostly Harmless

"Roses are red, violets are blue. I'm a schizophrenic and so am I."

Today was a good day, except that it started out warm and then got freezing cold, windy, and snowed. Even with that, i'm super happy because i got 60 dollars cash for being in a study which only took me an hour and a half. That's 45 dollars an hour. Word.

Tomorrow looks to be a good day to, although one of these days i'm going to have to buckle down and do some work, making my days less fun but avoiding really terrible days next week. Because as it turns out, i only have 7 more days of class, and only 8 more days of school (all my exams are on or before the first day of finals. Woo?) A short two weeks from now i'll be in mississippi. Absolute madness.

Lets see here, what else is new...

Mohawk!!


So yeah, yesterday my suitemate borrowed some buzzers and so while he had them i decided it was time to be done with long hair. Fyi, this is how long it was 4 hours ago.



so yeah, it's nice to have short hair again. The mohawk is mostly a transition, and won't last long since it looks completely lame when it's not spiked, and i didn't do that outstanding of a job anyway, so i'll need someone to go in and even some spots out. but yeah, fun times. I now have a lot of respect for everyone who's cut my hair, because i have a pretty gnarly cowlick that really doesn't cooperate well.

Other than that my life is pretty much the same as always. Just entirely more hardcore.

I can tell that we're going to be friends

Report to Room 305 in Milton Bennion Hall on the University of Utah campus. If you have a cell phone, please turn it off before you report to Room 305. Please report to Room 305 within 5 or 10 minutes of the time you were scheduled to arrive. Proceed through the door to Room 305 and go to the back of the room next to the windows. There will be an envelope with your name on it taped to the wall of the cubicle on the left. Open the envelope and follow the instructions within.

When you leave, close the door to Room 305, but please do not lock it. Thank you for your participation.

I am a fricken spy!

Actually that's untrue, and if it were i would be a very poor spy for posting it on my blog. That's actually the instructions for a survey i'm going to be in tomorrow. I'm going to steal something and then lie about it and get paid. If that isn't in keeping with the standards of a soon to be missionary i don't know what is.

In other news, physical therapy is good stuff. Is basically guided torture, but i have, for all intensive purposes, regained complete functionality. I still probably can't play soccer, or even go for a long jog, but i can run again, and i'm about half an inch shy of being able to straighten my leg out completely. Now it's just an issue of getting the strength back in something i haven't really used for 4 weeks and then keeping my ACL from getting torn the rest of the way. The Physical Therapist said that the ACL felt pretty sturdy, not that it's not a danger, but it shouldn't keep me from doing things.

Lets see, other news, it was gorgeous outside today, upper 70's, sunny, i set up my hammock outside and got a bit sun burnt on my knee (i forgot to put sunscreen on my legs, oh well). School's still winding up, i leave 2 weeks from tomorrow, which is down right frightening. But it will be nice to get back and have nothing to do all day but watch isaac...i'm sure it'll be fantastic, and at some point i'll make it up to Jackson to say hello and goodbye to all my friends out there.

I want to learn to play the guitar, and ballroom dance. Those are both things i'm probably going to work on after the mission, since i'm sure i'm capable of maintaining motivation to start something for two years. The simple fact is that being able to dance would be way cool, mad hot, if you will, and i want to be that guy.

Someday i'll finally get settled in to someplace and then not have to leave it for a long time, but until that day, aloha.

I think i've used that title before, oh well.

And we're not little children, and we know what we want

April is a busy month. My normal calender has like three things on it, but april is jam packed. I dunno how i feel about that.

Today i had a dentist appointment at 9 in the morning, the shuttle was late, (or early, one way or another there wasn't a shuttle when there was supposed to be), and so i missed the bus, and so i had to wait half an hour for the next one, so i was almost an hour late for my appointment, but that was ok, they squeezed me in. All they had to do was take some x-rays and they found a couple tiny cavities in progressed, so i'm going to get that fixed up. All this is part of the ongoing process of doing all my mission stuff. Once my knee is working to my satisfaction, i'll go grab a physical and then i just have to find out a few things and i'm done. If everything goes as it should, i'll be done with it all my the last week i'm here so my Bishop here can send it off and we'll get the letter in Biloxi.

I've decided i like the college scene a lot more than high school, i've said this before, but this is in relation to relationships and dating and stuff. High school is so stupid. That whole casual dating thing just didn't happen there. What a strange place where you can be 'going out' without ever going on a date, and going on a date is practically an engagement. Is it embarrising that i listen to Popular by Nada Surf when i was figuring out how to keep this girl from getting the wrong ideas about how i felt? Probably, but that doesn't change the fact that that song is awesome.

That said, some people in college are way too dramatic. None of it has much to do with me, but yeah, i thought all the petty drama would surely end with graduation, but apparently not, oh well.

What else is going on, I went to a lecture by Stephen Dubner, the guy that wrote The Economist, and that was way cool. i pretty much forgot that today was thursday, so i got all excited for the weekend yesterday and then i had today. Thursday's are way chill, institute and a discussion, but it's no friday.

Friday looks to be awesome, another cheap concert and then watching the Sandlot. And physical therapy, which i've heard nothing but good things about. Well, i need to go to class or i'll be later then i want to be.

Here i lay dreaming, looking at the brilliant sun.

I don't need surgery!

The doctor called today and said i'm looking at a few weeks of physical therapy, if i start it soon i can be done by the time i go home. Win.

Of course having two partially torn ligaments in my knee means i'll have to be way careful about sports and snowboarding and extreme hide and go seek, but whatev, happy days

The teacher thinks that i sound funny, but she likes the way you sing.

Ahh, General Conference, always a good time. 10 hours of church will never pass as quickly. But yeah, it was cool to see Monson as the Prophet and President and really let it sink in. Sessions were great as always, and i think Thomas Monson wiggling his ears in Priesthood session was quite possibly the most amazing thing i've ever seen. I'm so glad our church is led by people with a sense of humor. But yeah, conference took up most of my weekend, but there were some other fun times. Saturday night i stayed out till 3ish at the after effects of a party at someone's house, talking about relationships and telling fun stories. I don't really like parties, i'm not too great at the whole mingling thing, but i'm good at hanging out, so that was fun.

Because i stayed up so late, i sort of slept through this morning's session (being able to watch conference from in bed is a way to ensure falling asleep) i woke up just as Monson was saying something to the effect that that session was the most spiritually uplifting ever, so i felt sort of bad, but 4.5 sessions of conference is not too shabby. I'm disappointed i didn't get to actually go to any of them, but what can you do?

Elizabeth Arnold told me saturday that some freshman girl thinks i'm cute. While it's always fun to hear, that really doesn't do a whole lot for me, but since i'm going to be gone in three weeks anyway i probably won't worry about it.

Today i went and ate waffles and then hung out for a while and then watched oceans 11 (still full of awesome) and then hung out some more. I was worried because i had physics homework, but that turned out to take me all of 5 minutes.

Tomorrow i'll probably find out what's going to happen with my knee, hopefully nothing major. I'm sad that i tore some ligaments, because those don't ever truly heal, so now i'm going to have to worry about that for the rest of my athletic life. Hopefully i can get something that'll protect it for when i do active things, because there's a pretty good chance that i'll be snowboarding after my mission, and i'd like to be able to take some risks. Either way, not living life because you're afraid of injury is no way to live...i should apply that philosophy to emotional things. Well, that's about all that's going on on my front. Back to you Jim.

I'm good at this.

So i just got a call from my Doctor guy, and i screwed the crap out of my knee. Partially torn ACL, MCL, and a very minor bone fracture. I'm going to find out more about what that means monday, but it's possible that all of them might heal up on their own. The break was so minor that it didn't show up on an x-ray (or the radiologist is sort of shoddy) so that will heal as long as i don't do anything crazy. Ligaments don't really heal, so depending on how serious the tears are i might need some surgery, but we'll see monday. So...yeah. That's what's wrong.

Merry Foolmas Charlie Brown!

Well April Fools has come and gone without a whole lot of fuss, mostly because of a lack of spare time, duct tape, and/or saran wrap. Today was a pretty average day, although i'm glad i had google to fill my foolishness quota.

Lets see, what's new: I have a physical thursday for my mission and to find out if i'm going to be able to walk long term. I'm thinking now with the way my knee is healing and reading up on some google that i messed up my Meniscus, which from what i've read would be ok because it's a fairly easy fix (possibly by just moving around my knee a bit, worst case scenario a bit of simple surgery with a relatively quick recovery). It's fairly easy to tear the meniscus a bit to where it gets in the way of the knee's movement, which seems to be what's happening now, since my knee is almost entirely ok if you ignore the fact that i can't straighten it out. The symptoms line up a whole lot better than more serious things like torn ligaments and broken bones, and there's nothing much less serious you can do that results in your leg not straightening out. So i'm pretty hopeful. If it's really bad i'd be looking at a few months of rehab, which would suck, but would only push my mission back by a month or so, which would be ok, if it's as good as possible the doctor could just wiggle my knee around and i'd be up and walking. So yeah, fun stuff. If you want to read a lot more about Menisci, check out http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/meniscusinjuries1/a/meniscus.htm although it probably won't be as interesting if you're not spending half your time thinking about your knee.

Anyway, other than facing longterm knee issues even worse than my genetics would suggest, life is good. I might be going to general conference, there's a shortage of tickets in our ward, but as a soon to be missionary and a kid from out of state i get some priority. I also might have a date this weekend, if i can work out the time, which would be cool. 50 dollars recently appeared in my checking account, which i'm pegging either to parents, or Bank Faeries. This is good news, since the pain research people that owe me 50 dollars are having a suspiciously hard time mailing the check to me, so i have 50 dollars less than i was planning to right now.

4 weeks from now i will be in Biloxi, so crazy. I'm sort of sad about leaving, but i'm definitely happy to be living with people that don't smell like smoke all the time and refrain from most if not all illegal activities. I feel like i'm finally settling in to Utah, making real friends, finding stuff to do, all that jazz, so it sort of sucks to leave now. But 2 years and however long it takes for me to get back into normal life, i'm sure i'll be just as happy as i would be if i stayed (more so actually, since i'll be on the other side of my mission, which by default makes me a man.)

Now that i'm looking at having a working knee again, i think i should go snowboarding again before the season is done. In fact, I've been getting pretty good, so i've been putting some thought into just dropping this whole college/mission deal and going pro. I think that's probably the best thing for me to do right now.

anyway, i should go to sleep, i'm planning on waking up an hour early (9a.m.) so that i can make sure i'm ready for a quiz tomorrow. So i'd better go to bed now if i want 8hrs of sleep. Oh, btw, it's still snowing in Utah, I thought it was crazy when there was snow in the mountains in march when Katie and Logan got married, there's still snow on the ground and feet and feet of snow up in the canyon.

"We used to laugh a lot but only because we thought that everything good always would remain, nothing gonna change there's no need to complain"