"One part ice cream, two parts awesome! "

Wow, it has been nearly two weeks since i wrote anything. Now there's only five weeks between me and the next two years of my life.

I went to jackson over the weekend, and it was pretty great. I actually managed to see everyone, if only for a few minutes. Friday night i drove up to jackson. It was a pretty nice drive, nothing crazy, not like the drive home, but i'm getting ahead of myself. I had this genius plan to call in a take-out order with a fake voice (under the name Dr. Payne) and give johnny all sorts of hard times, but then my phone died on the way up. That also meant i couldn't call ahead and figure out what was what, but luckily everyone in the known universe works at Sal and Mookie's now, so I headed there first. I talked to caitlin and johnny for a bit and found out that everybody was over at Jerusalem Cafe, so i went over there and got to hang out with a bunch of people for a while. After that we went over to the McCrazies house, for a weird party with a bunch of high schoolers. It ended up with all the people over 18 hanging out on the steps where it was cool and mature or something, so that was fun. After that we hung out at emmett's for a while while johnny and emmett decided what their tattoos were going to look like.

The next day I had planned to set up ultimate, and it looked promising, the McIntyre's were in, as were kyle, mcnally, spencer, michael, me, maybe ian, and whoever else happened to show up. Unfortunately, i was the only one who showed up, but i ran into Mrs. Van Uden at the park, and talked to her for a while, so that was way cool. After that i bought a tooth brush (i had left mine in biloxi and was feeling pretty gross) and some breakfast and found McNally and tried to figure out what to do. We ended up going to Sal and Mookie's for a while and then met up with Johnny, Caitlin, and Emmett and headed downtown to where Emmett was getting his tattoo. From the outside, the place looked like a good place to get shot, but inside it was pretty urban and awesome. Hopefully jackson's downtown can keep getting hip businesses where old rundown buildings are so that downtown isn't just a place to go to work and/or get mugged.

Somehow, i ended up responsible for giving emmett a ride home, and apparently when a tattoo artist says 45 minutes, what he really means is two and a half hours. So that was sort of frustrating. After that though we did...something. I think maybe we went to spencer's house and played video games. We also watched Michael Phelps be incredibly awesome, so that was pretty impressive. After that we played some more video games and went to sleep.

Sunday, i went to church in madison, that was way cool. I got to see a whole bunch of people i haven't seen in a long long time. After that i went to caitlin's and ate lunch and eventually johnny came over and watched psych. Then we went and had birthday festivities at Johnny's house, they got presents and we got cake and dinner courtesy of the Breauxs. (i've never pluralized breaux before, it looks wrong) Then we went back to caitlin's and hung out for a while and i learned how to open a butterfly knife awesomely, but then the awesome was too much for it and screws started coming loose, so i had to stop. I watched mythbusters and actually managed to get an indecent amount of sleep, having gotten around 5 hours the last two nights. Monday was my last day in town, so after sleeping in until noon, i got some breakfast and i then went to Murrah to visit teachers. I ran into melissa on her way out of murrah, so that was cool. I saw Ms' Williams, D, Lamb, and Van Uden. Ms. Brierly was out on maternity leave, so i didn't get to talk to her, but i think it was still a pretty good run. Michael and Spencer met up with me at murrah, and then we went to his house for a while and then met up with a bunch of people at Kiefer's. That was pretty delicious. Then we went to Emmett's and partied the night away. It being my last night, i had to say goodbye to people every time they left, it was sad. We took a bunch of pictures though, and had generally good times. I slept at emmett's that night, and headed out the next morning, today, saying Adeus to Spencer on my way out.

All in all it was a pretty great Jackson Trip. The drive home was probably one of the more exciting drives of my life. The first half was pretty smooth, i made great time (which is always tricky on 49). At some point i got stuck behind a truck carrying these giant bridge looking things. It was taking up both lanes completely, and the escort guys were going a terrible job. The truck was just small enough that it would probably be possible to get around it if you went on the shoulder just a little, and it was driving sort of to the right so this little suv kept trying to get around it but the little escort car kept cutting him off. Had the truck just driven in the middle of the road it wouldn't have been a problem. So i had been stuck behind this truck for about five minutes, but we were cruising along in the upper sixties, so i wasn't too upset, when suddenly the truck just plowed through a sign on the side of the road. It wasn't like a mile marker sign either, this was a substantial, six foot wide sign with two bars behind it, but it was completely destroyed. So at that point i lost a lot of respect for this guy who before was just doing his job, but now was doing his job really badly and if things had gone a little differently could have caused a pretty serious collision. Anyway, eventually the lanes widened a little and we got a better shoulder and i managed to squeeze by him (which seemed a little dangerous and is the sort of the escort guy is there to prevent from happening, but after he blew up a sign, i decided i was getting far away from him.)

Things smoothened out for a while, but then it got really rainy, and i experienced my first high-speed hydroplaning. That was exciting. I started drifting off the road as the road was turning a little and completely covered in water. But like a good driver a eased off the gas and steered very gently. Happily i didn't run off the road, and i got back to biloxi without any further incident, so that was cool.

So yeah, all in all, a good trip to jackson. I think this entry is long enough without any further comments.

~Something clever

"We wait. We are bored."

August. I go into the MTC in September. I am just a little incredulous that this is actually my life, clearly, I am in the future.

Anyhow, the past week has been considerably entertaining, despite titular evidence to the contrary. On thursday i totally forgot about institute, but got a call on friday that there would be an okatoma trip on saturday, so that had promise. At about 6a.m. saturday i got a call saying that the trip was cancelled, but then my dad and I went kayaking on the Wolf River (which was longer and less exciting than promised, but still cool).

Friday I made the first real progress in teaching Isaac to ride his bike. Rather than keep trying to power through it on the road, which forced us to stop every time a car drove by or isaac cried from chronic falling into the ground, we went down to isaac's school, which has a big, soft, grassy hill with a slight decline. There i could just balance him and push. It was pretty effective, and hilarious to boot. We managed to get to the point where Isaac could get about 50 yards, so that was cool. Monday we went back and managed to get him riding on the concrete without falling too much. he still can't purposely turn, or stop without falling, but if there's a straight line without any obstacles or distractions he can go for days. I spent an hour or so adjusting his seat, fixing up his brakes (they're still essentially useless, but I blame Walmart for that), and taking off the completely pointless pegs (lucky). Now that he can actually reach the ground, i think we'll start making some headway with stopping, and hopefully he won't have to turn often. As proof of this accomplishment, documentation:

there was a lot of this

and a fair amount of this

but eventually he got the hang of it.


So yeah, that's cool. What else?

I go through waves of disbelief that i'm actually going to be on a mission soon, and then the occasional surge of overwhelming shock at how soon it is and how completely unprepared i feel, but generally i'm excited and ready leave. It's weird to think that people are revving up to go back to the U soon, and i'm not. I feel sort of left out, luckily i'm going to Portugal, which, in my book, trumps Salt Lake almost every time. Isaac goes back to school tomorrow, that's a bit of a surprise (the best sort of prize), i'm glad my summer isn't 2.5 months long, although nearly 5 months is a while.

So i think that's about all that's going on down here, at least all the comes to mind.

Random Thought of the Day: I wonder what ever happened to Peter Johnson. He's probably off somewhere on a mission. Weird.



Tchau

2 days ago I killed a pizza.

true story.

I actually did something yesterday. Realizing that 3 months is far too long to go without knowing anybody in biloxi I've started going to institute and singles activities. So yesterday there was this dinner thing that i went to, and afterwards we drove up to Hattiesburg for a singles dance. That was pretty fun, especially because i got to see all the jackson stake girls (all the guys i know from there are either on missions, married, or are not yet 18) and got to know some gulfport stake people to boot. So that was cool, hopefully i'll have legitimate friends sometime soon, not having any friends is boring.

It's amazing how quickly i've become used to the idea of going to portugal, and now i can't imagine going anywhere else. I am a little worried about learning a new language, but i'm way excited about being proficient in another language. There are two people i've met down here that speak portuguese, one from brasil, on a return missionary, so that's cool.

So i think it's ridiculous that we change the names that countries choose for themselves. In some cases, like when it's really hard to pronounce or i guess if the spelling doesn't sound look the pronunciation to english people, it makes a bit of sense, but there's no reason to call Italia italy, and spell Brasil brazil, so from now on, in the interest of Globalization, i'm going to follow Google Maps' lead and try to call countries by their actual name. We'll see how that turns out.

By the way, here's the address for sending me stuff in portugal. There'll be a different one when i actually get there, but that one will still work. Eventually i'm going to turn this blog over to a responsible adult who will be able to add my MTC address (which i don't know yet) and my real address, and keep this blog updated with letters and stuff so that you guys can keep updated at the speed of the interweb.

Elder Ammon David Perkes
Portugal Lisbon Mission
Apartado 40054
1500 Lisbon
Portugal











~Here, Dear, alone with all your letters

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

So, i'm in jackson. I've actually been here since friday, but being without a house or a large amount of spare time, blogging hasn't been my main priority, but i figure i could update while i'm waiting for spencer to drag himself out of bed.

This jackson trip has been quite a bit more fun. The drive up was nice, although i got a gnarly sun burn on my left arm, including a nice t-shirt line and a stripe where my wristband was. Friday i came in and, after running some errands, swung by Sal and Mookie's and got to see a whole bunch of people who I'd worked with, and a lot of new people that i haven't. After that i went over to spencer's and hung out for a few hours, and then went over to Emmett's for a party where i saw lots of other people i hadn't seen for a long time, so that was fun.

Saturday i got up pretty late, on account of the party, and then...did...something. It was awesome. Oh right, we went bowling eventually, and that was way fun. I ended up bowling six games, one of which i did pretty good, but that was the one i was really trying, so that's all that counts. That night i slept at caitlin's, and had planned to watch Doctor Who that night, but i realized at 2 a.m. if i wanted to wake up for church i should probably get some sleep.

Sunday i went to church in jackson, and that was cool, lots more people i hadn't seen in a while. After that i went back to spencer's and ate lunch/breakfast, and then we watched Doctor Who, which was cool, although not one of my favorites. It was a little more dramatic and less witty than some of them, but i'm ok with plot development. That night we played risk which, despite some unpleasantnesses, was pretty fun.

Monday we went to the lake, and that was cool. We swam/floated across to the lake house again, and hung out there for a while. At some point this old lady wanted to kick us out. After that, and some confusion, we got papa john's and watched TV at caitlin's until it was bed time.

So now it's today. I'm thinking i need to talk to Melissa and Hunter before i go back to the coast, so i think i might go to Broad St, because that stuff's delicious.

Challah back.

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.

Almost there...

Tomorrow i have my second physics midterm, and i'm a little worried. I know pretty much everything he's taught us, but that's never stopped me from failing a test before. In happier news i got a 92 on my math midterm, one i was pretty worried about. Over the past couple of weeks i've very dramatically discovered a new group of friends, and i have to say, it's pretty rockin. Dollar bowling, mafia, midnight eating, it's good stuff, this is the end of something that's been going on for quite sometime, but i'm surprised how suddenly i found myself in this group, so yeah, fun stuff.

In other news, this week has been rough. It seems like i'm just staying just ahead of this wave of work and tests and stuff, trying to make it to the weekend without crashing. But i'm doing ok for the most part.

In political news, it looks like Obama is pulling ahead of Hillary, which is awesome. I think i might donate some money to the campaign, since his facebook group asked me so nicely. I figure since i'm not voting in the primaries i'll feel like i'm having some influence. It's been a pretty crazy week in the world, Kosovo declaring independence, Castro quitting (i'm still convinced he's been dead for years), Allegations of a McCain affair (which if it pans out, could mean a Huckabee Colbert ticket), this afternoon while walking around campus and looking at some construction i thought about how different everything is going to be in two years when i get back from my mission. madness.

I think that's all that's been going on with me. I can honestly say i'm getting a little antzy for spring, grass and warmth and all that jazz. Just as long as i get to go snowboarding a few times before then i'll be great. Well, i'm off to bed. Until the next time i don't feel like going to sleep, adieu.

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

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

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.

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

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

College Ruled

Well, i'm now definitely a college student. I slept in the dorm, and that's obviously all it takes. I still haven't figured out how to get food, which is an increasingly fatiguing problem. But otherwise life is good. I've met 2/3 of my roomates, the other one hasn't shown up yet, but if he doesn't his spot will get filled, cus the dorms are on a wait list. My roomates are cool, they remind me a lot of my cambridge friends, especially the soccer team, i guess that's the typical guy personality up in that area. Otherwise i've just been hanging out with Cami a lot, which is a good way to pass the time, although it makes it easier to not make friends up here. I'm not a big fan of making friends, i'm a big fan of having friends though, and one of those desires is going to have to suffer for the other one. I start having church and classes tomorrow though, so meeting people will be easier than it is now. Anyway, a thing is about to start that'll give me free food, i'm going to jump on that, then head out to Logan to see family and get my computer stuff.

A Vacation...from my problems

I was feeling like posting a picture, and that one caught my eye for some reason, then i messed with it in Picasa for a while, and so there you go.

I've been reading The Poisonwood Bible for a while, delaying the aweful amount of calculus take-home test i need to do, and generally relaxing. Church today was normal, i wore a suit, which isn't normal at all, and that was fun. I also pissed off my teacher by unintentionally calling him a bad teacher. In truth i was frustrated at the inefficiencies of the Socratic Method for teaching, mostly in the way that i answer a whole bunch of questions. I tried to steer us into a nice socratic debate about what freedom is as penence, and that seemed to cheer him up, so i felt a little better.

After church i came home, meandered around as is my custom, and eventually took a stats test, which wasn't so bad. I studied the stuff i figured would be on the test, so i was ok there, but then i kinda blanked on the process it was testing. Luckily it was mostly multiple choice, so we'll see how that goes.

I'm realizing the inherent inefficiencies of having two seperate blogs. Instead of digressing into happy philosophical thinking, i keep myself talking about my day and stuff like that. I guess i'll consolidate my blogs someday, till then i'll leave them. It does make my other blog a bit more interesting to read perhaps, although i'm really not sure which is more interesting, my emo teenager thoughts or my mundane daily toils. I think i'll just let this turn into a thoughtful blog and stick it on my good blog.

I'm realizing i need a break from my friends. I like my friends, they're fun, but when I need a bit of time to just relax and not do a whole lot. My vacations seem to become very busy. I'm looking forward to camping, and wondering how exclusive i should be. It is one of the last big things we'll do together, but in all honesty, i just don't want to go camping with everyone i'm friends with. And as hard as it is to explain, there is a very noticable and enjoyable difference in hanging out, especially camping, with no girls. I don't want my nice small camp get away to be turned into just a normal day but with nature. The other thing is that guys hanging out with their respective girlfriends and/or crushes just aren't as much fun. It's fun for them, but yeah. Maybe i just need a girlfriend. So i'm debating how this camping this is going to go. I also am wondering how everyone and their mom now knows about the camping thing. From my memory i've only told like 4 or so people. Everybody knowing complicates things.

So i'm realizing this blog is fairly revealing, and although only a few people read my blog, it's pretty thoroughly public. Chances are if you're reading this i'm not talking about you, unless you're spencer, and then i most definitely am. Sorry about that, just the way it goes.

Well, it's 7, so i'm going to start working towards doing my homework, starting with writing a quick review of Ghost Rider. Forsooth.