No Crocodiles, or Rhinoceroseses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Sister Susie sittin' on a thistle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~The Down of a Thistle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need to go snowboarding.

~Linus, not Lucy

My Name is Jonas

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

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

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

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

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

~Iron Man

weak, BYU won by 7.

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

Happy Birthday Katie!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fin