Ammon Lauritzen
This section contains a bit of biographical information on me. There is nothing that anyone should find objectionable or anything like that. Largely, it is just the boring story of my life in as much detail as I care to go into at the moment. -- [Dec 3, 03]
My full name is Ammon Reid Lauritzen.
My given name comes from a great missionary and servant of the Lord who lived around the end of the first century AD. His story is found in the Book of Mormon; starting in Mosiah 27-28:10 and picks back up again in Alma 17, where it continues until about chapter 21. He does, however, continue to have an active role in many of the events that occupy a good portion of the rest of Alma's record.
My middle name comes from my uncle. Specifically, my mother's younger brother who was serving as a missionary in Bolivia at the time I was born. I don't use the name very often, preferring to go by the former.
My surname comes from the scandanavian patronymic tradition, though I have much more Brittish ancestry. My great grandfather immigrated to the US from Denmark around the turn of the last century.
I am 29 years old (all ages given are according to this server's clock) and am studying at the University of Arizona. My eventual career goal is to go into teaching and try to return to society the favor that I have been given (ie, good educational experience with influential, effective, and caring teachers).
History
At around 8pm on Monday, September 10th, 1979, I was born in Plano, Texas (north of Dallas) and have spent roughly half of my life in the Dallas area (11 years off and on, composing almost all of my childhood). When I was two years old, my family went up to Ogden, Utah, where my dad finished up his undergrad degree at Weber State and my little sister (Stori) was born.
We returned to the Dallas area when his school was done and my sister and I were joined by two little brothers by the time I was 7 or 8, Jacob and Kyle. Halfway through 3rd grade, we moved back up to Utah - this time to Provo so Dad could get his masters degree from BYU. While there, my last sibling, Dallin, was born.
One other thing of note that happened while we were in Provo... I met up with Adam.
Anyhow, upon our return to Texas again, my father began looking for work in education (He had been working in aerospace for as long as I could remember). After I finished up 5th grade, he got a job teaching CAD at a technical college in Harlingen, Texas (south... waaaay south).
And so, we moved to Harlingen. I attended my 6th-10th grades of school there (at Coakley Junior High and Harlingen High School South), and made a lot of good friends (most of whom, I have unfortunately gotten out of touch with... and am currently in the process of attempting to recontact).
Actually, the bulk of this document was originally written back in '03. I have since re-established communications with about half of the friends I was looking for. There are still two or three that I am looking for... but this is progress after ten years having not seen each other. -- [Jul 13, 05]
In Harlingen, I got into the choirs at school (I sing second tenor but am woefully out of practice now and only ever sing in church any more). I also got into the academic teams and participated in a veritable bucketload of math and science competitions (as well as the occasional literary event).
I ran track for a while, but decided to drop it because
- It was conflicting with my academic competitions (which I was much better at), and
- I was injuring myself too much and decided that it simply wasn't worth the hassle.
Also while in Harlingen, I wound up being accepted to the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, a very cool program that allows highschool age kids to attend the University of North Texas as full time students.
So... I went up to Denton and began my short career at TAMS (Meanwhile, my dad got a better job in southeastern Arizona). TAMS was great, I think I learned more in one year there (after which I dropped out for personal reasons) than I did in the other three years of my "highschool" career put together.
Two big things that TAMS introduced me to (other than of course the internet) were UNIX and MUDs. I bless the first and curse the second (but accept it, grok, and move on, flapping and blahing and coding on my mudlib until the wee hours of the night when Penny makes me go to bed).
Since then, my computer has always run Linux. It has taken that many years for me to achieve what I consider to be a level of reasonable competence. I now no longer dual-boot. The 486 that went through high school and TAMS with me was once Hedwig, our email server. (Hedwig has since been upgraded beyond reason and is a whopping beast of an overpowered machine now)
I am currently involved in the TAMS Alumni Association as the server's owner/administrator. It's kind of neat being associated with them even though I didn't finish the program.
Anyhow, after TAMS, I left Texas for Thatcher, Arizona, where my family was now living. Dad was (and still is) teaching at Eastern Arizona College. I went back to high school and graduated from Thatcher High at the age of 18.
That summer, I received a call to serve the Lord as a missionary, and spent the following two years preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Michigan (specifically, I was in Kalamazoo, Owosso, Traverse City, Bay City, Hillsdale, Alma, and Midland).
Upon my return from Michigan, I fell thoroughly in love with a young woman for whom I had developed a fondness during my time in Thatcher two years previous. We were married 6 months later.
Our anniversary is on March 2nd (we were married 03/02/01, there is no way on earth I can justify forgetting that one :P). Therefore, we have now been married for 7.67 years. (Since I can give the number in silly amounts of accuracy, I choose do to so).
We have lived in Tucson for our entire marriage. She moved in with her sister shortly before I got home in order to enroll in the dental assisting program at Pima Community College. I followed her to town and have been a student at the University of Arizona ever since.
Present
After having received my fourth notice of rejection, I have given up on getting into the Computer Science major at the university and have officially declared my major in East Asian Studies (specifically in Japanese literature) and my minor in CS.
Original plans were to receive my degree the other way around (CS major, EAS minor). However, things don't always work out as planned. They rarely do in my case it always seems. My grades started slipping right before I started trying to apply for admission to the program, and there was really not much else that could be done at that point. Besides, the EAS program here is incredible and the computer program is rather sub-par.
Penny is working as a dental assistant at Southern Arizona Endodontics and I am currently employed as a systems analyst and general webmonkey for the College of Engineering and Mines. My resume is available in PDF form here and references are available upon request.
It turns out I've been suffering from a sort of low-intensity clinical depression for the bulk of my life (definately since Harlingen, probably dating back a little earlier). In March of this year ('05) - shortly before spring break - everything finally caught up with me and I experienced what I guess qualifies as a nervous breakdown.
After two months in shutdown mode and a lot of prodding from Penny, I finally worked up the motivation to seek help. I have been talking to folks at the campus head shrinking office and have been on perscription happy drugs for a little while now. Things are normalizing.
Family
Stori is currently 26 years old, and is attending the University of Nebraska in pursuit of her Masters of Fine Arts. She earned her AA from EAC and her BA from BYU and specializes in scene design. She interned as the props master at Tuacahn this summer, and after she finishes up school, there is a very high possibility that she will be given a real job offer by them.
Jacob is 24, only recently returned home from a serving in the Idaho Pocatello mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Before leaving, he had also graduated from EAC's theatre program, and had spent a semester or so in Salt Lake, at the University of Utah. He is more interested in film, both as an actor and a director; Stori's interest seems to be more geared toward live performance. He is currently enrolled at Utah Valley State College in Orem and will probably beat me to graduation at my rate.
Kyle has also graduated from EA by now, but because he is only 21, Mom and Dad are encouraging him to take his time with things. He has been accepted at BYU for the fall semester, but not as a music major - they are insanely competitive. So, he's shopping around for degree program ideas. Not that it matters, as he turns 19 in -35 months and is planning on leaving on a mission after the semester.
Dallin is the baby of the family at age 19. He seems bound and determined to do school the normal way, and has not enrolled in any advanced pace programs, thus he's also the only one who's not had any college. (And is actually the only one other than me who doesn't have any sort of post-secondary degree :P) I have been fond of describing him as a copy of myself minus ten years, only smarter. He seems interested in everything and manages to do well in everything he does. Recently, he has been following a bit in my footsteps and has been seeking instruction in software design. I am not discouraging him.
My Parents are boring. They live in Thatcher. Dad is still teaching at the school and Mom has set up a piano studio in the house. They own two rent houses and generally try to keep themselves out of trouble as much as is possible for the two of them. Oh, and their ages are somewhere between 40 and 50. The details are kind of fuzzy when it comes to that sort of thing.