Due to lack of interest, tomorrow is cancelled

I learned recently that May is national bike to work month.  I'm going to celebrate by biking to work like always.  I did,in fact, fix up my bike today.  The last time i had fixed flat tired I was lazy putting the brakes back in place and so my brakes were more of 'gradually slow downs'.  Last week my roommate and I went mountain biking, and it turned out that my brakes could only slow me down slightly on the down hills.  So that was a little terrifying.  I also pumped up my tires, last time I didn't have a pressure gauge and was afraid of over inflating them, so they were about half empty.  Luckily it was the top half.  I took some broken, unnecessary pieces of my bike (an old light and water bottle holder, both broken and without corresponding light and water bottle.)  I even oiled up my bike lock so it wouldn't keep getting stuck.  It was nice to finally get around to all these little things that've been piling up and slowing me down.  There's something very meaningful about riding my bike up hill to the mtc.  It seems like some sort of spiritual allegory, the long and seemingly unending climb up hill to get to a higher, more holy plane.  It's even worse/better to ride all the way up to the temple.  That said, I don't think it will mean any less if I don't have almost flat tires slowing me down.

By the way, mountain biking is a lot scarier than I thought.   The trail we went on had some pretty significant down hill, which I assumed I would love, but it turns out scarier than snow boarding.  I know how much it hurts to fall on snow(which can be quite a lot, given the concussion, two broken bones, and torn ligaments i've sustained over a few trips), but I can only imagine how much it would hurt to fall off my bike and high speeds on dirt.   I bet it wouldn't be so bad.  Maybe i should just throw myself down a hill and get it over with so that i can move a long with my life and go fast down hill.  I was having flashbacks to being a little kid and being very much afraid of falling.  

Today has been good.  I think for me the key to happiness is being busy.  It doesn't seem to matter all that much what I'm doing.  So now I'm going to go play Ultimate Frisbee and/or football.  The sun, against all odds, came out and it's beautiful outside.

Oh, a special shout out to my nephew Soren and my Dad, who both had their birthdays yesterday.  They're sort of like bookends of my family, as the oldest and almost youngest.

This just in: Life continues as usual.

So nothing too exciting has been going on.  There's been some progress on the making new friends front.  Being social again has been entertaining.  So far I've gone mountain biking, had a snowball fight, found a robin's nest, upset a very protective robin, played football, ultimate frisbee, and night games, watched I am Legend, and The Great Mouse Detective, and played ping pong.  So it's been fun.  I've been working up at the MTC quite a bit, I finally have my own district to teach, so that's a lot of fun.  There's still something so surreal about leaving the mtc, changing into regular clothes and doing regular things.

So yeah, I'm still alive.  That should quell all those silly rumors.

Ammon's Hardcore Adventure:

So today my roommate texted me and asked if i wanted to go for a bike ride.  So first we went up to Bridal Falls.  When we got there, we decided it would be a good idea to climb up to the top of the falls.  So that was fun, and we didn't even die!  After that we rode back down the canyon.  I thought we were going home, but Kevin turned down and followed the river and we ended up going all the way to utah lake, and then we came home.  It ended up being 32 miles, the whole thing took about 4 hours.  It was definitely the most hardcore thing I've done in a while, it was a lot of fun.

Gatos e Cães

Today I left my house to go to work and saw clouds of impending doom baring down on 9th east.  Sadly, I had left my rain jacket up the the mtc, so I just hoped for the best.  Shortly afterwards some of the best rain drops i've seen in a while started drenching me.  Happily, as I crossed 8th East a very wonderful man in a pick-up truck stopped and offered me a ride.  That turned a terrible experience into a nice relaxing drive.  Teaching was fun, on wednesday I get my own district.  So that's exciting.

Not with a bang but a whimper

Lindsey broke up with me.  It was not entirely unexpected.  She's been unusually busy to the point where it felt a lot like she was avoiding me, and then I got a text message asking if we could talk.  Nothing good comes of those text messages.

So I'm sort of sad, I really liked her, much more than any girl I had dated before, and it was in a lot of ways my first legitimate relationship.  I suppose that trivializes every other relationship I've had in a big way, but they were all pretty trivial in comparison.

That said, I'm ok.  In this brave new world of high stakes, post-mission dating, I often felt like I wanted to get to know more people before settling into something long term.  So it's probably for the best.  And if we were going to break up, she chose a very good time.  It gives a nice clean start to the beginning of summer.
So, off we go!

Ah, a beleza que existe

I'm sitting in the court yard on a bench listening to The First Circle, by the Pat Matheney group.  It's sunny and warm (relatively speaking), it's probably the most relaxing study session ever.  Right now I appreciate jazz.

Life is still going strong.  Yesterday we had a big turkey dinner, after church.  Kevin, my roommate, had gotten a turkey way back around christmas, and it's been sitting in our freezer for 4 months now (what do you do with a turkey when you're a single college student.)  So we gathered up a bunch of people and had an april thanksgiving feast.  Lindsey prepared the turkey, I made brownies and banana bread, Chancho and Rich competed for best mashed potatoes, and we also had rolls and corn and yams.  And now we have a bunch of left over turkey that'll be feeding us for a good little while.  It was really good, we even went around and said what we're grateful for.   I've grateful that I ended up where I did, although i suppose life could have been good anywhere, it's weird to think how much deciding to live at centennial on a whim has done.

I have two tests tomorrow that I need to study for, as well as a little report tonight, but it's' looking pretty good.  Wednesday is my last day of classes, this semester has gone fast.

So now i'm listening to chameleon by Herbie Hancock which is very 70's, I'm getting some weird looks.

This is the part where I take off my shirt and turn it into a personal floatation device.

So things are getting kind of crazy.  I have an exam today, i have two more exams this week, I have a meeting at the mtc today, two tomorrow, one wednesday, two thursday, and another meeting at some point, plus i ought to be reading my orientation stuff and preach my gospel.  Finals start two weeks from now, so i should probably start studying for those at some point.  It feels vaguely like I'm swimming across a lake or something, and i'm almost there, and i'm almost drowning.  But I'm betting i'll just make it through finals, and then it's summer, and I can sleep for a day or so.

I went to conference this weekend (which actually has something to do with how i feel a bit behind, these weekend was sort of a blur of conference madness), and that was amazing.  We got lost several times on the way up, and it was snowing like mad, but walking into the conference center you're just sort of overwhelmed by it all.  Then we found our seats, and they were incredible.  We were only about 15 rows back.  It was definitely worth going, and getting lost.  I'll put some pictures up later.

So life's pretty good, even if it's a little hectic.  I'm not yet sleep deprived and i'm still getting good grades, so I'll take it.