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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm good at this.

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

Merry Foolmas Charlie Brown!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waiting for my invitation to arrive, walking with a deadman

It's been a while since i updated, crazy days. Lets see, last time i had just hurt my self snowboarding, since then i recovered and went again, and did nearly the same thing again, minus the concussion, although that just meant i was conscious for the actual leg injury, which was really quite painful, so i'm once again recovering, i have to say i'm getting sort of tired of limping, but such is the price i pay for awesome, i think i'm getting to the point where if i don't push my limits too far i'll be able to have a lot of fun snowboarding without hurting myself at all, which means i'll be able to go a lot more often. Unfortunately this comes both at the end of the season and as i'm getting too close to my mission to risk any debilitating injuries, so i think i'm done for a couple years, unless i go to the swiss alps on my mission, but even then i doubt they'll let me snowboard on p-days.

Speaking of missions, i've started filling out my papers, which is exciting. My Bishop told me that i need to cut my hair, which will be interesting. I haven't gotten a haircut all year, it's fun to have long hair, and i'm guessing i'm going to look about 18 years younger with short hair, but whatever, it has to happen sometime, it'll be nice to not have to keep pushing my hair out of my face.

I've grown fairly broke over the last few weeks, although Colin spotted me some cash and i'm supposed to be getting $50 dollars in the mail in a couple days. I need to remember to do my taxes since that'll get me a bunch more money so that hopefully i won't have to donate plasma for a while.

I went to Amy's for Easter Break/the end of spring break, and that was lots of fun. I hadn't seen Amy in quite a while, and i hadn't seen her kids since one of them was a baby and the other one didn't exist. I must say, those kids are pretty adorable, Carter is much cuter in person than in pictures. We couldn't do anything to crazy awesome since i wasn't really in peak physical condition, but we went to the beach, and the farmers market and played games and all those fun times. The flight back was pretty long, since we had a 2hour scheduled layover in San Fran and then our plane was an hour late coming from Boise...stupid Boise, so i got back last night at around midnight, and then of course stayed up for a couple hours to watch the end of lost and post some pictures on facebook, i think everyone who reads this has my facebook, so i won't post them here. But yeah, all in all the last couple weeks have been lots of fun, i go back to biloxi in 5 weeks. Madness. I realized that i'm Utah is quickly becoming home to me, since jackson is missing family and biloxi is missing friends, i have both here, so yeah.

That's all, i have physics homework and i have to design my own personal Hell and describe it and those in it in a four page paper, so i have a long night of figuring out ways to procrastinate ahead of me. Auf Wiedersehen

Busted Stuff

Well, i did end up going snowboarding today, which was great, i'm getting to the point where i can turn and stop and carve without falling and such, which makes the whole business a lot more fun. Despite this, i did fall and get a mild concussion, which wasn't fun, i don't remember falling at all, i just remember sitting for a while until i got to the point where i could go again. I was wearing a helmet, so that's good, and i'm pretty much better now. I also hurt my knee a bit, and i have a bit of a black eye, but all in all a good time, and will probably be the only time i can snowboard during the day out here because it's so expensive. I also got a pretty attractive sunburn on a very small part of my face, so it looks sort of like a rash.

The moral of this story is that i'm going to look way busted up for the formal tonight. I was going to try to make my hair somewhat formal, ala Christian Bale in batman (i totally don't have a man crush on christian bale, don't listen to such lies...), instead of the little mushroom thing i have going on, but instead i think i'm going to use it to hide my black eye. An additional moral is that it may not be the best idea to go snowboarding right before the church formal, but c'est la vie.

Those concerned about my health and decision making ability should know that i resisted the urge to go on that last run when i found out i had hurt my knee, which turned out to be a great idea since a little while later i realized that i was concussed, and just how much my knee hurt.

So now i'm hanging out until the formal wishing i could take a nap but would rather not go comatose, so here i am. I bought super smash brothers brawl yesterday, meaning that between snowboarding, the formal, and that i've spent over 100 dollars in a period of less than 24 hours, but i have tax returns coming up and i'm donating my life energy next saturday, which should cover the bills. I should clarify that while i paid for it yesterday, i'm picking it up tonight. I couldn't do the tournament they were doing because i decided that would be a little messed up to leave the dance about 45 minutes into it.

So yeah, good stuff all in all. i believe this is the first time i've had a concussion, at least that i can remember. On the other hand, i don't remember actually getting the concussion, just the after affects, so it's possible i've gotten concussions before but just mistaked them for being tired and having a headache.

I decided that from what i've heard, being concussed is fairly similar to getting drunk, and considering the way bashing my brain against the inside of my skull makes me feel, the appeal in alcohol alludes me.

Now i'm nursing my snowboarding hangover, i really wish i could take a nap, oh well.

"Oh, all that i know, there's nothing here to run from...

It's going to be warmer in Utah than in mississippi tomorrow (by one degree). Madness.

In other maddening news, I found out today that my Dad has to have an operation tomorrow for Colon cancer. From what i've heard, it seems that after the operation it should be fine, but still, it's scary and weird. That's twice this year that someone i've cared about has had to deal with cancer, i still don't know what to do with it.

This is also weird because i have a very hard time imagining my dad sick. He's never sick, i honestly can't think of a single time in my life that he's been sick, i'm sure they've happened, but i can't remember them. I think i have this image of my dad being above things like disease and age, which is sort of how i feel about myself as well, which adds to the weirdness of all this because if he's not immune to things like that, i don't suppose i am either. Without a doubt one of my greatest fears is becoming old, or more specifically, incapable. But yeah, if you're the type to pray, it'd definitely be appreciated.

Despite this, and to my surprise, life continues. This weekend looks to be enjoyable, although i expect tomorrow will be difficult, 4 straight hours of class, that on what looks to be very little sleep, but once that's done i can relax and enjoy my weekend. If i can convince Kelly to take me to donate plasma i'll go snowboarding on Saturday. I've realized that this friend i've made is a whole lot like Logan, it's sort of weird, but Logan (and therefore jake, said friend) being a righteous dude, it makes for some fun times.

I don't know...little things seem so pointless at the moment, i need to sleep.

...and there, everybody's got somebody to lean on"

You're the best around, nothing's ever gonna keep you down...

So i just bowled a 170, best game of my life so far, i think the next best was 162 or something, and after that i've mostly cruised in the 140's, but yeah, i was amazed. Best of all, i did the whole thing while curving the ball, although i still snipe off little pins by bowling straight, which i can do surprisingly consistently now. The best part of all this is that Jake, Murph and I decided that whoever won would get treated to a free movie by the losers, so chya, free dollar movie for me.

Otherwise, life is pretty basic these days. Super smash brothers Brawl comes out saturday night, so i've been playing some melee to remember how that game was. The need to release the original on virtual console, and i need to make my wireless internet work again so i can use virtual console. What else...i'm going to a church formal saturday night, which reminds me, i need to find a bow tie, and figure out how to make my increasingly long hair formal.

I was watching napoleon dynamite the other day and it made me remember how much i disliked high school. High school is so dumb, with the drama and the teachers and the ridiculous rules. I can have cell phones and food in class and it doesn't seem to detract from the learning environment. So glad that's over with, college is way more fun. I highly recommend it.

Oh, i also might go snowboarding on saturday if i manage to go donate plasma so that i can fund it. So that could be some more fun times. Well that's about all that's going down here. Clinton has slowed obama's momentum by playing dirty, but with two states Obama is pretty strong in coming up he can probably get that back and become president. Hurrah.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.