This summer is...

• Going to bed before 11, waking up before 7
• Outside. Lots and lots of outside.
• Working with mom to finish all of her landscaping/misc. projects. Basically using a shovel in countless ways.
• Driving around in the Jeep
• Counting down the days until I enter the MTC (90) and Sweden (153...I think) and trying to read The Book of Mormon (following along in Mormons Bok) before then.
• Golf
• Grilling hot dogs and watching an episode of Star Trek (the Original Series) with mom during our lunch breaks.
• Rummy/movies with the family
• Dogs. Lots of time with the sheepdogs :)
• Leaving my blackberry/laptop unattended for long periods of time. It is like weaning myself.
• In a word: excellent.
• In two words: most excellent.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse...

Wow it has been some time since I have posted anything on here. So what is new in the life of Jon Youd?
First and foremost:

I finally retired my laundry hamper! It has served me well for two years, but there isn't much left.

As a side note, I've been called to serve in the Sweden Stockholm Mission as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

So that is pretty cool too :D Cool enough to make me use a smiley face. Yeah. I can't express how excited I am to serve the Swedish people and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ for two years.

I'm all done with school for two years. It is weird, I haven't taken this much time off school...well since before I started preschool. Kind of mind blowing. Kind of makes me step back and admit that I LOVE being a student and learning and all that stuff. 

Headed back to the homeland in a few days. Packing up kind of makes me sad, no matter where the destination. I am a homebody who gets attached to wherever I call home. I want to see/experience the world; I just want to come home to a hot meal and comfortable bed at the end of the day. Not as in every night, but I think that those of you who actually read this blog are intelligent to understand what I'm talking about. Y'all are pretty smart.

Saying goodbyes for two years/forever are kind of not my strong point. I'm trying to be honest and casual about it, which is hard in an environment like BYU where most people are taking the exact opposite approach. I've watched two years of goodbyes in freshman housing complexes and seen (twice) approaches to the situation which are rarely honest or rational. In my best Spock impersonation, they are "Highly illogical." *raises eyebrows*

Anyways. There are a few solid paragraphs of rambling to make up for my month absence. I'm just weaning you guys. Unless you write me on my mission (hint: you should.)

Youd out.

My inspiration for this (crappy) week

 "Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed.
Most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.
Life is like an old-time rail journey -- delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.
The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride."

(Quoted by President Gordon B. Hinckley)

Counting down the days until summer!

One, two, free four.

As the sands of time continue to chip the paint off my car, my blog has kind of fallen by the wayside. Sorry, buddy. It isn't that I haven't had anything to say. That rarely happens.
Life has been...life. I'm just in the busy routine and haven't had too much time to let drama enter my mind or anything like that. Just keep going from one day to the next. I'll hopefully get my mission call sometime in the next few weeks, which means other than a short summer, I won't have too much downtime to let drama get me down. Not until I talk to other people about my mission do I even consider how unique it is for me to "put my life on hold" right in the middle of my schooling like this for 2 years. I'm stoked.
...but I feel pretty old.

"Life is a short warm moment
And death is a long cold rest
You get your chance to try in the twinkling of an eye:
Eighty years, with luck, or even less."
 Free Four- Pink Floyd
Thanks for the morbid reality, Roger.

A comprehensive strategy

A few ways to get rid of the gloomies:

Sleep in
Cut my long, shaggy hair and look like a respectable citizen
Laundry...all 4 loads of it
Intense cleaning
Read a book...just for fun, not for scholastic purposes
Write a friend
Work on my mission papers
Driving around the block to finish a song before I get home
Music music music
But most importantly:
Peanut butter, nutella, banana sandwich and Vanilla Coke Zero

How does it feel?

Tonight, I am:
Tired after going all day on about 4 hours of sleep
Full from delicious Indian food
 Appreciative of good music with good lyrics
A little less sure about everything than when I woke up this morning
Mostly comfortable with who I am, just not enough to go out on any limbs
Afraid of letting others down
Deciding to not take my physics test tomorrow, but to procrastinate until Monday
Really sleepy
Listening to my stranger music
But mostly just
In one of those funks.

P.S. Happy 50th post, Mr. Blahg.

Привет из дома

Hi, I'm Jon and this was the sunrise this morning. Standing in our yard, by the picket fence we built this summer. And Yuki is in the second shot. It is completely beyond me why I leave this place. 

(Especially when there are puppies falling asleep on my boot.)

 More pictures tomorrow, probably with a real camera instead of the cell phone.

Surreptitiously

That is not a fun word to spell, and I have no idea how one would go about saying it.
Have you ever hit a complete brick wall with your school work? I'm not talking about "I really, really don't want to do this junk" kind of wall, but sitting down and being completely unable to accomplish what you set out to do? 
Winter semester blows. Sometimes (when I'm not thinking about the possibility of losing my scholarship) I wish I was the kind of student that could just not do work and still sleep at night.

LAS, failure isn't in my blood (the last time I had it tested.) Failure doesn't run in my family, though I do have the same obnoxious mole on my neck that my mother and her mother have. Failure isn't stamped across my forehead- that would probably be against the dress and grooming section of the honor code. Failure isn't my middle name - Alan is. "Tramps like us, baby we were born to run" is not my personal motto, it is just a line from a Bruce Springsteen tune. Sure, sometimes I imagine how I would escape every building I enter in case of a large, stylized fight sequence, but the team of doctors insisted that I'm not really an ex-spy with amnesia, I just live a really average life. Most importantly, this time could most definitely have been spent doing homework, but blogging is just so much more fun.

That's it. I'm unplugging the router. 

What is and What Should Never Be...

This was on a note that I found in my scriptures and subsequently hung above my desk.
It was a note I made about ways in which we can "waste the days of our probation" (2 Nephi 9:27) that included things like "worrying about all you can't control," "living in the past," and "watching clocks."

Doctrinal? Largely, no. Valid? Absolutely yes.

Cold Hands (Warm Heart)

Not a bad weekend (as far as weekends in Provo go...maybe it is because we left Provo!) Me and Kaitie went up to Salt Lake, braving both my lovely city driving and the mammoth snowstorm on the way home to see Brendan Benson do a free acoustic show at the Graywhale. I decided a few things:
1. Graywhale is awesome
2. Brendan Benson's solo stuff is nice and light. Even though my favorite band is extremely mellow, I'm not sure that you could call Pink Floyd "easy listening." It is nice to have this in my music library to switch things up.
3. The Raconteurs really, really need to get back together and make more excellent music.
4. Good music makes you appreciate the goodness of life. I have a good life. It rocks, really.

Somebody uploaded all 3 songs he did onto youtube in super high quality. This is probably my favorite one that he did.

Four things you should know

1. It is the weekend.

2. "Community" is the new "The Office." Meaning that it is now a lot more amazing than new episodes of "The Office."
3. I am listening to "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" by Barry White

4. This post started out entitled "Two things you should know," which was then changed to "Three things you should know," and then "Four things you should know," and when I decided to not share the fourth thing I also decided to make this note. And so it remains four things you should (and now do) know.

(They Long to Be) Close to You

Today is a rainy day AND a Monday, and I'm feeling like a Carpenter. Though it is MLK Day, so there is no school.
Even when I'm not in class, I still try my best to learn something new everyday. Today's lesson?

Don't use a plastic fork to cook bacon.

Unless you want a really good laugh at 9:30 AM

The only thing better than one blog...

Is two blogs? For Russian 202 we have to create a Russian blog, so I just created a second one on this profile instead of starting a new profile. In case you are wondering why I have switched all of my profile from a single Pink Floyd lyric to a whole rambly Russian paragraph. Either that, or I am KGB (as my fluent, broad vocabulary would suggest...)
Being back at school isn't too bad. Minus one meltdown on Saturday that resulted in me doing some laundry and staring at the TV for the entire day (neglecting my weekend assignments,) all has been pretty good! I only have four classes, though I feel almost as busy as my 18 hour mega semester last semester. Which I somehow survived with a wonderful GPA (miracles happen!) I'm enjoying my physics class (as it is simple thus far,) trudging through Russian (as I always have,) struggling with calculus (...no comment...) and loving mission prep.
Oh! I started my mission papers last week. Completely stoked about that. I am going to list my availability date as June 15 (so I can meet Baby Jones!) so I can't turn them in until March 15. Yet the night I could start, I spent 2 hours filling in information. I kind of regretted this the next morning, but I was on one of those "EFY/Freshman at BYU" highs I so adamantly try to avoid. That makes me sound a lot worst than I intend, but hopefully you understand...
I am going to start blogging all of the funny/ridiculous things I see and overhear at BYU. This will require a pocket notepad because I am usually so overwhelmed by the end of a day that I forget all of the wonderful things. We are indeed a "peculiar people" (in this case I mean "hilariously odd at times.")
After that set-up, I actually can't think of any good stories right now. So here is a picture I took last week.
Jon out.

The printer then proceeded to sing "Don't Stop Believing" and shoot flames. It was pretty weird AND a reason to beware. Thanks for the heads up, Front Desk Attendant. 

Wisdom teeth fun

I was a little worried that for some reason I wouldn't go all the way under. They told me they would gradually administer the drugs until I was "unaware" or something like that. So they had the IV in my hand and they started putting their masks and stuff on and I was super ticked that they were going to start while I wasn't all the way under. I was looking around the room waiting for something to happen and then...
...the nurse was standing me up and walking me across the hall. They laid me down on a bed with a blanket and I couldn't stop laughing. I was awake and aware of what was going on but couldn't make me eyes focus and kept laughing at everything that was going on. My dad was in the room and I knew that he felt bad and was trying not to laugh. I wanted to let him know that I thought it was really funny too but everytime I tried to start talking, it just came out as really loud laughter. I wanted him to take a video of it on his cell phone so I tried to point at it but when I would point I would start laughing really hard again. Michael shot this video in the car on the way home. My laughter was pretty calmed down but he still caught a part of it.

Trees, trees, trees!

And all was muddy and brown in Missouri. This would not do on Christmas Eve.

And so I set off on a mission to capture pictures of all of my mom's wonderful Christmas decorating.

In the front room by the piano stands this happy tree with lots of the family ornaments on it. I like the family traditions that last year after year.

The piano of course has the Christmas sheet music and decorations on top. I love the influence of music in my life; the way a good song can completely change my attitude. It makes the bad days happy and can make happy days live on forever.

The most beautifully decorated tree in our house stands in front of the window overlooking the beautiful Missouri landscape. I am always grateful for the beauty that surrounds me - this earth and this life.

This tree is bright and funky and different. It always makes me think of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I'm grateful for the wonderful blessing of humor in my life. I should probably be serious more often than I am, but there is nothing quite like a good laugh.

This tree, decorated with western-type ornaments stands in my parents room. I am grateful for my parents beyond words. Their good influence and loving kindness has made me into the good person I am. My less positive characteristics are no fault of theirs, and stand as a witness of their undying patience for putting up with me for so long.

This one is in Michael's room (in front of his map plotting out world domination)

And this one is in Kaitie's room. My siblings are the best. What else can I say?

This little guy had the misfortune of ending up on my very cluttered dresser. Having a warm bed to sleep in every night is one of those blessings I'm never quite grateful enough for.

 

Of course there are Christmas presents. This year, for church, I got to kind of take charge of a Sub for Santa drive we did as a ward. Delivering the gifts to the families (with my lovely assistant Sarah) and seeing the gratitude of the mothers was one of the best moments of the entire semester.

This fella is the most real looking tree out of all of our fake trees. Let me reiterate how much I love nature, and throw in how much I love all of our animals. Sometimes I think I miss my dogs as much as my family while I am away for college...

When I started taking these pictures, I realized just how many trees my mom has around the house. Like this little chili tree.

This kind of odd little guy on my parent's dresser.

The hallway tree with little pink ornaments, but no lights.

And even the tree in the bathroom.

I won't take the time to post pictures of all the other beautiful arrangements my mom created, but I will leave you to enjoy your Christmas with one last picture of decorations. The picture that sums up the reason for all these trees, lights, and reflections of gratitude.

 

The beautiful Nativity scene: the truth that Jesus Christ was born of Mary and lived a perfect life so that we may all return to live in His presence someday. Through His perfect example, let's work towards peace on earth.

Merry Christmas!

(P.S. I stuck my camera out the door just after the clock turned from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, and was greeted by a beautiful fresh layer of Christmas snow! Epic win.)

"Did you just say "I have tourettes" ....?"

So after a finals week that was pretty successful and entertaining, I hopped on a plane and headed back to Missouri today!

Though I mention with bitterness that the RA made me cut down my Christmas tree...

The plane ride felt really long and it was kind of a small, uncomfortable plane. Also, I was patted down in the airport, because apparently I look pretty suspicious.

 Aww look at the cute little plane. Isn't the lack of personal space adorable?

Just a guy lurking in the shadows wearing a beanie and Star Trek shirt. Not a security threat.

It is so incredibly nice to be back here! The Midwest is definitely the place to be. The trees and the rolling plains of nothingness received me home with open arms. I spent quality time with my dogs (who I have missed incredibly) and then me and Michael turned on 101.1 The Fox in the Jeep and cruised around backroads to some most excellent tunes (Bohemian Rhapsody, Sweet Emotion, Dazed and Confused, etc.) The family time night ended (of course) with a hand of contract rummy and watching old episodes of LOST on DVD. Me and Michael ("Xavier") commenced to play the Wii, and I closed out the night by wrapping Christmas presents. I feel confident saying that I would be unable to make a career as a professional wrapper.

Though I could probably still be a rapper

This break is going to be amazing.

Free at last, free at last!

Finals are done. I think they were done pretty well, but I guess we will see if that was good enough when my final grades come out.

Дметри Менделеев был русским учёным, химиком и физиком. Он родился в 1834 году. Он был женат два раза и у него было пять детей. Когда ему было 35 лет, он открыл переодическая система элементов.

Yes, I had that all memorized but my professor went with a much easier oral question. Alas, I will forever know a little blurb about Mendelev. In Russian. In case I ever need it. Hmm. (Also, I learned to type pretty quickly in Russian after a semester of looking up translations online.) Who says you don't learn at school?
Probably my best academic semester at BYU.
And what's more? I'm getting on a plane back to Missouri tomorrow. Epic win.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

The man quoted in my title and all my post it notes with finals junk...

Finals week is upon me, and it is...exciting? I have lots of studying to do, but the whole thing feels like an exciting challenge to see how good I can do. Someone tell me I'm crazy.

Who's excited?

Jon is.

My grandparents gave me a rice cooker for Christmas. I am now in the process of making rice, though I have no idea what I will eat with it.

Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air...

I've heard that you can tell a lot about somebody by the condition of their desk.
Can you tell that finals are approaching?
Yet...notice that facebook is still open.