∞

I've decided rapid changes in humidity are the cause of my stuffedness. It dropped down to about 30% humidity the day before i got sickish, then i got better, and it just went back 80ish and now i'm stuffed up again. Luckily, in 3 days i'm going somewhere with no humidity, so i can expect my sinuses to defenestrate themselves.

So, other than being sick (again), life moves on. I went bowling yesterday, so now my hand is all sore from how i spin it, i imagine with poor form. I went to Baton Rouge with my dad today and helped clean out some people's yard. It wasn't as rewarding as the katrina removal, because it didn't seem to need it nearly as much, but it was still nice.

I'm going to kill this blog on monday, or at least close it, cus i don't want portuguese people who i'm trying to teach the gospel read about how i hate catholics. I really don't hate catholics at all, but i'm sure somewhere in my blog there's something that someone would take offense to. Plus, it has nice symbolism of me putting my life on hold and stepping back from my normal stuff.

So, i figure now's as good a time as any to point out my other blog. Just stick 'elderammon' where 'ammonsblog' usually goes, and you'll be there in no time. It's your one stop source for mission updates. I don't really know what it'll be like, but i'm sure it will be interesting.

Well, i guess that's about all. The air conditioner is dead so it's absurdly hot and humid in our house. I'm looking forward to utah, where it is never absurdly hot, or humid. This might be the last post on this blog for two years. So soak it all in.

blech

I feel like crap. I hate being sick, and i'm not even really that sick, but i still hate it. I don't quite have my dad's ability to suck it up and not talk about it (obviously). I can mostly suck it up, but talking about it is the best part. It feels like the front half of my face is going to pop any second. It really came out of nowhere, i was fine all day tuesday, and then before soccer i started feeling a bit nauseous, and then after i got back i started feeling dead and went to sleep and woke up with a sore throat. Hopefully i'm getting all the sick out of the way in the next few days so that i'll be healthy all throughout the Mission.

I got to play soccer yesterday in my spiffy new indoor soccer shoes. They're nice, but i still played really poorly. I'm going to blame it on being sick, i was just kinda off. Plus, now i have a gnarly blister where my foot would usually have a nice callous but for the fact that i've only played soccer a few times over the past year.

Other news: Crime and punishment has gotten a lot better over the past few hundred pages. Now i'm blazing through it. I also have a bunch of other books to read before i go, i'm definitely not going to be able to finish them all, but that's ok.

Well, that's about all. I think i actually might go to sleep before 11, having already slept 7 hours and then had a 3 hours nap (or however long it took for my cell phone to charge). If i go to sleep at 11, I'll officially be going to sleep earlier than i will have to at the MTC (if you count the time change) so if i manage to wake up at 7:30 (hah) i'll be all set. So that's about all that's happening here. One week from now I'll be getting ready for my first night in the MTC. How trippy is that?

Oh p.s. - the reality of the fact that i'm about to leave is starting to sink in. On monday we talked about how i'm going to keep in touch, and it was the first time i really grasped that i'm only going to talk to my family four times in the next two years. (We get two phone calls, on Christmas and Mother's day, otherwise it's letters). I'm also realizing that i really don't know what the logistics will be for keeping my blog going, so i'm glad i've sub-contracted by sister and that she's up to the task. It might be a lot easier for her to just transcribe some of my letters.

boa noite

An Epic Loss for Words

Update update update update update update

Now that word has no meaning, hooray.

Anyway, life continues, my departure is getting to be absurdly close. A week from tomorrow is my last day. i feel like i should have so much to write about right now, what with the impending leaving my family for two years, but i don't have much to say. I've realized that i generally don't have much to say about life changing events, it's the little things i can ramble on about for forever. But yeah, with the epic things, i always end up at a loss for words.

In other news, i'm getting pretty close to being ready to go, logistically at least. I got my contacts, and my motor history report (they charged me $11 dollars to print off an un-certified online document, plus a $2 'service' fee. That's highway robbery), i got a new driver's license (with my current address and the obligatory terrible picture of me.), registered to vote...it's been a comparably busy week. I need a hair cut sometime this week, and i need to buy some cheap clothes that will last a while (jeans, sneakers, that sort of thing). Also, posting is going to fall off quite a bit after next sunday, but i'm starting up another blog to chronicle my mission life. Sometime this week i'll finish up this blog for a couple years, maybe with some final, reminiscent post to wrap things up, and post a link to my other blog, which is currently under construction.

hm, anything else? I have to give a talk in church next week, it'll be pretty short though, so that'll be cool. Every time i do something now i'm like, "this will be the last time i do this." I'm reading Crime and Punishment still, i'm going to have to start reading faster if i want to finish before i leave. I'm only slightly motivated to do that.

Well that's about all that's going down here. I'll post once or twice more and then i guess i'll be signing off. Madness.

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony

I can't stand elections. I really can't. I hate that campaigns will lie and squabble about the tiniest things. I hate it even more that our idiot citizens just accept these lies and vote accordingly. Calling anyone who criticizes Palin sexist is so stupid, and in itself is a result of obvious sexism on the part of the Republicans. They assume that women will vote for a candidate just because she's a woman, make a huge deal out of the fact that she's a women, and then lampoon anyone who doesn't give said woman a free pass without making her answer for any of her policies, because to not do so would be 'sexist'. It's just aggravating, the obvious hypocrisy in politics. If McCain wins this election, i'm going to give serious thought to staying in Portugal, or maybe migrating up to the England for a couple years. I could get in touch with my roots. I realize this looks like obvious partisanship, whiny Ammon doesn't want another republican, but it's really not that. I had so much respect for McCain the last time he campaigned, i thought he was everything that is right with politics, but it turns out he's just another man willing to sell his principles for votes, and do whatever it takes to become president. In doing so, he's offered himself up as a tool of the Republican party leaders and Karls of the world, and lost pretty much all my respect (i'm sure my respect mattered a lot to him.) I wonder if he ever is ashamed of his campaign. I would be.

P.S. - I think the lipstick on a pig comment was extremely clever, and yes, it was an obvious insult on Palin and McCain, but it wasn't sexist, unless any mention of lipstick is sexist, and it wasn't calling her a pig. In this metaphor, she's obviously the lipstick and, by extension, a pit bull.

P.P.S. - I'm also disappointed with how willing the Obama camp has been to go back on his decisions when it's in the best interesting of the campaign. Campaign finance and off shore drilling come to mind. Don't say I'm holding one campaign accountable and ignoring the others rhetoric, because every time Obama engages in standard politics (i.e. deceiving americans) I die a little inside. However, the McCain campaign continually cheapens this election by its increasingly negative tactics and empty attacks. It's a shame that democracy ensures that the person most able to lead will always lose to the person most able to campaign. I can understand why the founding fathers didn't trust the huddled masses enough to leave them full control over who leads the country.

In this time of Introspection, on the eve of my election:

So first, my blog has become super popular over the last week. Not really, but four separate people commented, which is about even with the comments by people i actually know. I dunno what that means, but it's probably something big.

Anyway, i did manage to pull myself out of the wallow of inaction (evidenced by 3 blog posts in 3 days) and accomplish something. So that felt good, i went swimming, i read most of Ender's Shadow (not quite as good as Ender's Game, because i don't like Bean as much, he's too cold and calculating, but still a fun read) and started reading Crime and Punishment again. I only got to the Crime when i was reading it in highschool. It's still a punishingly slow book, and i can't read more than a chapter unless i've had more than adequate sleep the night before. I've started waking up at 9 in an effort to shift towards the 6:30 alarm i'm looking forward to in 2 weeks (holy crap, 2 weeks). As soon as i manage to work that out (not staying up to blog at 1am will be key) i'll push it back to 8. There's no reason to push any farther than that since with the time zone change i'll be getting up at 7:30 central.

My biggest difficulty with swimming for exercise is my attention span. I have neither the patience nor the personality to swim freestyle slowly for miles (except when it's a race and i'm pacing myself). The best part about swim teams (or any athletic teams really) is you have friends and coaches to motivate you and keep otherwise boring exercise interesting. So i've been swimming 100m I.M.'s to keep things short and interesting. I've been switching the Butterfly out for other strokes some of the time because i'm still really out of shape and don't want to throw up in the nice people's bathroom again. But i figure over the next couple of weeks i'll be able to build it up to 200m IMs, butterfly included, just in time to swear off swimming for two years. I guess in the MTC i'll have to go back to weights. Maybe do a bike machine or something. I have a feeling running would take it out of my legs really fast, my knee still gives me trouble sometime, and my shin feels like it did back when i got shin splints.

Mild pain aside, life continues hurtling forward at a crawl. 2 weeks from now i'll be packed. I don't know how to deal with that. I am sort of accepting the idea of myself going into the MTC. It feels a lot like me going to college. I still have no idea how to feel about it, can't believe i'm really old enough to be doing this, but am expecting it sort of. I don't quite know how to describe it. I never do.

Music is so amazing. Seriously. (I'm listening to The Killers again, Read My Mind to be specific.) Just the way music can not only convey emotions, but actually produce them. What is it that makes songs like this so beautifully perfect? (I originally phrased that as comparison to crap music, but even Brittney Spears, 'nsync, and Creed, the groups that came to mind for crappy music, aren't really that bad, they're just shallow. I can't think of any bands that are really pointless, just a lot of bands i don't like) Music is powerful stuff, more so maybe than any other art form, at least in it's directness. Art can make you think, and sometimes visualize the abstract, theater has a lot of potential for conveying ideas and even draw you in to the emotion of the characters, but music can, within about 5 seconds, create completely real feelings and emotions. (I didn't mention dance. Dance has never done much for me, yeah it's beautiful and impressive, but it always seems that when it comes to conveying things, which i think is what all Art is at it's core, conveying the inexpressible, it's a very convoluted method with definite limitations, and it almost always depends a lot on music. Music can make you want to do stuff, dance, cry, go to war, etc. I have yet to get anything like that from dance, but maybe i've just been going to all the wrong places. In a lot of ways it seems like dance is a combination of music, art, and theater, but without some of the best parts of each. I didn't mention poetry either, but that's good stuff.) Someone should make really really good music for missionaries. My problem with religious music, mainstream Christian music especially is that the thought is good, but the Music and the Lyrics suck. Maybe they don't fit, i dunno. My impression is that most Christian songs are created by picking a absurdly simple thought (God is Good), jazzing it up with a couple of adjectives (God is SO good) and repeat until the song is long enough. Then grab an acoustic guitar, pick three chords, and go nuts! Too much Christian music tries to survive on the fact that it's Christian music alone. It ought to be music first, that just happens to be about Religious themes. I think the real power of music is also drastically under utilized. Religion is full of deep and difficult to express things. Why waste a song on something that can be explained in a sentence? I'm sure there's decent religious music out there, there are a whole bunch of hymns i like a lot, so there's no reason people haven't managed to make decent music about God that isn't in SATB chord structure.

I totally forgot to mention that i played piano for a Funeral last week. Happily, that went a lot better than some of my wedding exploits. (Can a funeral really ever go 'well'? Do you go home saying, that was a great funeral!) It also made me give a lot of thought to being cremated. The thought of being embalmed, sitting in a box slowly rotting, being paraded before all my relatives, and then dropped in the ground where i'll gradually decombone*, not romantically back into the earth, but covered in my own compost, into a zombie like wraith due to the box and all the poison pumped into me. No, fire has a very nice romanticism and purity to it. I think if i could pull it off, floating into the ocean on a pyre that's lit by flaming arrows would be pretty rockin, but i imagine they frown on that these days. Also the whole scattering of the ashes thing is way cool. I would still want a tombstone though, but someplace cool. Cemeteries are nice, but it's a little scary how many dead bodies are below you, and they are very necessarily public places. I want a little tombstone at the top of a mountain or something. It would be nice for it to be somewhere accessible though, so maybe at the lip of a valley. Another problem with having a tombstone above your corpse is that it's hard not to go and imagine what their body must look like at that very moment, whereas if you're cremated you can only be remembered as you were. On top of that, ground space is bound to get harder and harder to come by as time passes. I dunno if the Church has any policy on Cremation, I know we have standard procedures for funerals, but i've never heard anyone say cremation was frowned upon, I can't imagine why it would be, the end result is the same, time is the only differential (and the amount of poison the dirt around your body will soak up). One thing i don't like is the thought of Cremation itself. Because that is almost necessarily unceremonious, which is a shame really, given how ceremonious it can be. My imagination is them tossing your possibly naked corpse into a furnace. I'll have to scope out some cremators sometime in my life. Someplace with a pyre.

Wow, this post has drifted towards the macabre, but now you know, just incase there's a freak vespa accident while i'm in portugal.

So, that's the news from Biloxi Bay, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.



*I obviously meant to say decompose, but i think decombone is a hilarious word that conveys what's happening quite well

The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds

Things i'm going to miss more than Biloxi:

Swimming - One of my first and most prolonged loves, and something i've just recently rediscovered. Swimming is so incredibly relaxing and feels so good. Every time i swim after i haven't for a long time i can't imagine why i would ever have stopped. It's not hard to imagine two years without swimming, i've nearly done it before, but i will definitely miss the ability to just dive into the ocean for kicks, and there are only a few forms of exercise i enjoy more.

Music - So much. I was listening to The Killers today, and it's just so perfect. I can't believe that the Killers have been around for so long without me listening to them. I really only discovered them this last year, and that was mostly due to Guitar Hero. I almost bought their original CD, but decided it wasn't quite worth having it for only three weeks. But it really almost was. There's good Mission appropriate music out there, but nothing like the bands I've discovered over the past year or so. (Sufjan Stevens is also amazing)

Google - I'm not going to miss the internet. Having something to constantly waste my time on is not actually something i enjoy. The instant communication is handy, but it somehow cheapens conversation. And Facebook saps productivity like nothing else. I am, however, going to miss Google. I am so used to being able to instantly find whatever i want to know. Soon i'm going to have a question and have no immediate way to have it be answered, i suppose i could ask people, but that's never very reliable.

My Family - It would be insulting if i didn't mention them. This is going to be the first time that I'll be in a place that really doesn't have any family. In Utah i could always fall back on Cami when there were no friends to be had. Even after i had made friends, hanging out with her was generally more fun, but it seems important to make friends. For all the crap i give Isaac, i'm sure i'll miss him. It's also a shame that i'll be missing the 2010 family reunion, i bet this one will be absurdly awesome to reverse the trend. What if it's the last family reunion? Our family is getting too big for these massive weekend getaways to remain feasible.

I've already been missing my friends, but i'm going to miss them in Portugal too. Two years is a long time to go without seeing people. In the last two years though i've already gone at least one year without seeing any given friend, so i think i'll deal.

I don't think other things will be a problem, movies and tv are cool, but i can survive pretty well without them. Sleeping late isn't really something i enjoy, and staying up late doesn't work when there's no computers or tv. So yeah, i think that covers most things. I'm not too worried about going two years without girls, although it will be weird to go two years without close friends that are girls. I've historically become close friends with girls before i've made friends with guys (other than in elementary school). I'm sure that has something to do with having three older sisters but i'm not going to worry about it to much. Normal clothes will be a bit of a bummer to lose, but i'll get to look forward to getting an entire new wardrobe when i come back, so that's exciting.

Speaking of new wardrobe, I got a new face! At least it feels sort of like that. I picked up my two pairs of glasses today.

Retro!

From This way to infinity

And, more normal glasses. I call this one Engineer Ammon (at 1 a.m.)

From This way to infinity

So, it's taken me a little while to get used to them, but i've decided they'll pass. Hopefully my loyal readers will approve, since i care a lot more about what you think about them than what i think (i spend a lot less time looking at myself, contrary to popular belief.) so yeah, feedback away.

Oh, there's also this picture from our stint in the church house, i think it's awesome.

From This way to infinity

One last glasses picture. It was unavoidable:

From This way to infinity

Things I Don't Get, Part 2

Or, in other words, Criticizing Everything

So, i hadn't planned on making this a multi-volume thing, but I was thinking about hurricanes today, and i just don't get the appeal of the Coast. I really don't know why anyone would choose to live here who could live somewhere else. I get that my Dad works here and gets a lot of fulfillment from that, but for people working at Walmart, or really any occupation that doesn't require the presence of a hurricane swept landscape, why would you stay?

First of all, there's the hurricanes. Having to board up your windows and leave your house with all your most valuable possessions is ridiculous. And there's always the chance that everything you own will be destroyed. Katrina was a bit of a fluke, but there are the average, run of the mill hurricanes that tear up the coast without generating quite as much media. So from a catastrophic point of view, the coast is one of the worst places to live, along there with at the base of a volcano or beneath a large and precariously placed boulder.

Now, i would understand living here in spite of the hurricane if this was a spectacular paradise. But this isn't the bahamas, it isn't even florida. The beaches crappy and fake. The water is brown and stinky. The waves are non-existent. At this very moment there's a cockroach roughly the size of a walnut climbing up my wall. There are these sand gnats everywhere that are even worse than mosquitoes (though on the plus side, there aren't so many mosquitoes as there are in jackson). The summers are hot, humid, and unpleasant, the winters are cold, rainy, and grey. Spring and Fall are ok, but they come and go without any of the spectacular colors of New England and other places. As far as the natural beauty goes, the trees are quite lovely, but there's aren't many things that can really impress upon you the magnificence and the magnitude of Earth. You can't even see the stars.

Then there's life itself. There's no great urban scene, or music scene, or college scene, or many things that are entertaining at all. I've realized, in making friends and hanging out, that there's just not that much to do here. And everything to do is so corporate. Sure, out in the boonies and around some places, you can a few quirky local restaurants or shops, but in biloxi proper, it's all chains, casinos, and shopping centers.

So, redeeming qualities: Sunsets are beautiful and there are lots of thunderstorms. Those were two things i missed in Utah. Utah just doesn't know how to do sunsets, and your average Utahn doesn't even know what real rain looks like. (the drops are really big). For those with a ruddier complexion of the nape, there's lots of good fishing and hunting, and you're never more than 5 minutes from a walmart. You can wade through the dingy water with lights spearing flounder and night, that's a manly thing to do, yeah? It's never gets too cold, so you need not fear the winter just because you don't want to invest in a decent coat. Life is quiet, so if you're the kind of person that just wants to sit on your porch and sweat all day, it's easy to do that here without interruption. If you've got lots of family here, which it seems most people do, you're always close to a bunch of people you love but don't especially want to see every day. There are lots and lots of churches and the people are nice. It's a great place to write a stirring coming of age novella, or make a quaint postcard, or get good barbecue, i just have never felt those were good parameters for a place to live.

Now, i'm certainly jaded by my family's preference to live in an Urban place. I cannot grasp what possesses people to live in a place that's truly in the middle of nowhere, so it shouldn't be a surprise that i don't want to live somewhere that's sort of backwater. Obviously not everybody wants to live in the city and that's fine and good (although i do think suburbs are contributing to the decline of our civilization), but there are thousands of small cities and towns around the country so much nicer than here. I think people wind up here by mistake, either their born here, move here for a job or get stuck here by the military, and they forget what it's like anywhere else. They make friends and form connections and seep so far into life here that they can't imagine moving somewhere else.

I guess what i'm trying to say is i'm not going to miss biloxi much. Which is good. In 3 short weeks i'll be in provo, and in 3 short months i'll be in Portugal. Maybe i'll write a letter about all the crappy things about Portugal. I think it will be rather short.

So, in less critical news, i read Ender's Game and Speaker of the Dead over the past couple days. They were both good, Ender's Game was lots of fun to read, but Speaker of the Dead left me with a sort of empty feeling. It was filled with portuguese, which was unexpected and interesting. It's weird that in around 6 months i'll be quasi-proficient in another language. I also read the whole Artemis Fowl series. Those were all good, although the 2nd and 3rd were a bit dull. I think after i read some more of the Orson Card books, i'll try to find some more mature lit to read between now and my mission. Something i can't read in a day. I ought to read crime and punishment for reals. So we'll see if that happens. Infinity is getting awfully close.

Those of weak constitutions may want to turn away

I spent the last two days sleeping at the church house, which was a little surreal. As a shelter, it works pretty great for us, quiet, cool, not too crouded, comfortable, and filled with people i don't mind spending several hours around. It gave me lots of time to read and play risk and do all sorts of fun things. At one point, while playing risk, someone brought up politics and was slamming Obama, not on any relevent issues or attributes or policies (well, they called him a Marxist, but whatever) and it got me thinking. I really don't understand people. Not at all.

A quick aside: I don't talk about politics generally, because I don't feel a need to alienate myself from people who might hold idiotic political beliefs. It doesn't help that i call their beliefs idiotic, so it's generally best for me to avoid stuff like that, however, this is my blog (oh, and a quick shout out to my Uncle Ken, who might be joining the ranks of people vaguely interested in what's up with me), so prepare yourself for:
RANDOM POLITICAL RANT 2008!!!


Anyway, back to the point, i don't get people. I don't see how people don't recognize how terrible the Bush administration have been, and that it isn't just them. It's not like Bush is this crazy rogue republican that has somehow betrayed the party into going somewhere it didn't want to go. It seems as though the Republican party molded him into what they wanted him to be. I don't understand how people don't see through the lies and half truths that are our election process. Factcheck.org should be required reading for anyone wishing to vote.

There was this girl I knew whose family firmly believed that Obama was the antichrist, or at least a antichrist. First of all, how absurdly melodramatic is that? Secondly, as someone who thinks Obama has a good chance of changing our country from the embarrassing, hypocritical joke it has become in international and domestic affairs, the idea that he's conspiring with the armies of evil is a bit far fetched.

But i'm not talking about them really, i'm talking average, decent people who i generally respect but who still firmly believe that voting republican is not only the best thing to do, but the only morally correct thing to do. A party whose two basic principles are legislating morality and helping the rich to become richer at the expense of the poor. A party who has lied without blushing in order to start a unjustifiable war. A party who has somehow managed to claim my religion as theirs. I really just don't get it.

I should say now, that i don't think voting republican is somehow morally wrong, and i don't think all republican politicans are bad people, i'm sure most of them are great people. I just don't see how the idea that those born into poverty deserve it, and those given a free ride should be helped along, became synonymous with conservative moral values. It bugs me, especially, that Mormons vote so unanimously Republican.

This seems a good a place as any to tackle morality (heh, attacking morality, i must be a democrat). I share a lot of beliefs with the conservative demographic. I'm generally opposed to drinking, smoking, pre-marital sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, homosexuality, all manner of lasciviousness, and most types of fun. That said, i strongly support personal choice and accountability. I don't think that our government ought to be in the business of creating laws to enforce my, or anyone else's religious beliefs. I think morality and religion have to come from somewhere other than the government.

By the way: Whats the deal with capital punishment? A book i read had a long discussion of the obvious contradiction in supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion. I don't think we, as a country, should be killing people generally. And trying to make a distinctions to say when it's ok to kill people and when it's not is pretty slippery, as far as slopes go. Whatever happened to loving our enemy, turning the other cheek, and judging not. Preventing crime is important, but the death penalty has always seemed a little too much like revenge to me.

These are the types of things i would say if i didn't care about offending people, or if i had a few political vertebra. Most of this came out of reading a some political discussions on my family's website, and an overabundance of free time over the past couple days. Maybe later i'll make a more autobiographical post, but i think i've vented enough uninformed teenage angst for one post.

~Ovaltine <- (this isn't actually completely random, gold star to anyone who understands why)

P.S. - I found out today that the republican vice-president lady has an unmarried teenager who is pregnant. Now i'm not saying that that will have any major effect on her merits as vice-president. i do think her own 4 month child will. A lot of people are talking about how great she is because she knows what it's like to raise children, especially one with disabilities. But if she's planning on moving across the country to take on one of the most important offices in the world, all i see her knowing how to do is being prepared to leave her a child in the care of someone else for her own career. hm, that's pretty cold. I almost took it back, but then i found out she doesn't believe global warming is man made, and supports aerial hunting of wolves (so that there will be more mooses for hunting, duh). I don't think all this prying into candidates personal lives is necessary or healthy, but i think a lot of people do. I also think she was a terrible choice for McCain and seems to be almost construed to undercut his message in every way possible. If he needed a woman to pander to whiny Clinton die-hards, it seems like he could have chosen someone who was qualified for the job, and who had a little less baggage. Bonus points would have been awarded for picking a woman who wasn't the ideological opposite of Clinton, but why should that make any difference? Silly people.