Updates On Life.

Well, I think within the past year in general it would certainly be true if you accused me of not keeping you guys constantly updated on my life. That’s a shame, folks. However, I’ll try to renew my efforts.

Academically, life is splendid. In fact, things are more than splendid. I share the following at my father’s request – I think he just wants to be able to brag, and if I back him up, it must be true.

I’ve been quite sick as of late, which I’ll update you on later, but I’ve been working with my professor to make sure I don’t get too behind. What I figured out is this: there are periods of acute energy and productivity, and there are much longer periods of energylessness and such. I explained this to Dr. Macedone, and after some discussion, he decided that he’d let me work at my own pace on turning in lab reports and homework and such.

That was pretty darned nice of him, so I’ve done my best not to be behind the rest of the class, so he can stay on top of everyone’s grades.

After the first exam, I went to his office to turn in a homework assignment. However, I couldn’t just leave after that. Dr. Macedone is the sort of guy who is genuinely interested in how his students are doing and color coordinates his PowerPoint presentations to match the shirt he happens to be wearing. So we got to talking about how I’m doing.

“How’d the test go for you?” he asked.

“Pretty good, I think.”

“What was your score?”

“67…” The test was scored out of 71 points.

“Hey! Wasn’t that the top score?” he beamed.

“Um… I don’t know?”

Pretty darned excited all of a sudden, my chemistry professor whirled around in his chair to do some tapping at his computer. “Aha! It was! Ooooh, that’s pretty good!” Dr. Macedone sometimes gets ridiculously excited. This was one of those times. He’s also fascinated with grades. In his spare time, he reads the writings of Joseph Smith, plays with lasers, and runs statistical analyses on grade data. I’m not kidding.

In his excited frenzy, my chemistry professor informed me that I’m doing spectacularly well in my chemistry class. In fact, I have the highest grade– I have high scores on all my labs, my quiz and test scores are ridiculously high, and I have a perfect homework score.

Dr. Macedone then continued to rave – and then started to tell me how impressed with me he was. He had expected me to struggle in his class when he found out how sick I was, and he was extremely surprised to find that I was doing as well as I was. He complimented me on my attention to detail, citing numerous impressive discoveries I had made in lab that no one else had noticed. After five straight minutes of heavy praise, he says, “Every once in a while you get students who stand out from all the others… Well, what I meant by all that is, what are your life plans?”

I blinked. “Erm… well, I’m planning on medical school at the moment…”

“Yes! Okay, do you know what this means? Okay. Okay! What I wanted to tell you is that when you need a letter of recommendation, I would be more than happy to write you one. I have all sorts of impressive stories I can tell them that’ll make any medical school want you real bad. Okay?”

“Okay.” I smiled. I need to figure out how to handle excessive praise. I’m still not sure how to react, especially when it comes from someone in authority.

There, Dad. I did your bragging for you. :)

In other news of note – I am single again. Which I have decided is acceptable, despite the occasionally overwhelming longing to be held and having no one to hold you. (I haven’t had this problem for a few months. I suspect though that at some point in the near future I’ll have this problem, worse than I did before I dated Jared.)

Jared and I dated for two months, and Friday night we decided to break it off. I’m okay, really. My side: I was getting extremely frustrated because I’d never see him and then when we’d try to arrange to see each other more often, it never worked out. Ever! Although I didn’t like him any less than I did before, I was really starting to get mightily stressed out about the whole thing. Taking that and several other factors into account, I decided that I’d bring it up on Friday night when I saw him.

Only Friday night came, he showed up – and he was the one who brought it up and suggested we break up. I wasn’t expecting that… he still likes me an awful lot, but he had been thinking about getting more serious. And seeing as neither of us had had a boyfriend or girlfriend before, he didn’t see how we could make a wise decision about that without having dated other people. Not to mention that the relationship was getting ridiculously hard to maintain, and was likely to only get worse. We are both rather busy people, and it seems that we’ll be even busier people in the near future.

So really, it was quite possibly the easiest breakup in the history of the planet, at least that I’ve ever heard of. We both agreed, and after that, it wasn’t awkward. It was just casual. We were just friends again. And if I need a ride to the grocery store, or he needs a buddy to do something with, we’ve still got each other. It’s pretty nice, actually.

The few of my friends who I’ve told about the breakup immediately demand, “Are you okay?” And I just respond calmly, “Completely.” And then they just kind of shake their heads a little in a sort of disbelief. One commented that Jared and I are both too level-headed and logical about everything. I laughed and responded that I do indeed freak out about stuff. The retort to that was that I’m levelheaded even when I’m freaking out. Someone explain that one to me. I don’t understand how you can freak out in a levelheaded manner.

More news! In the health headlines…

Mostly I’m doing quite all right. My immune system is still attacking my life. The most recent immune problem to befall me? I may have developed an allergy to something in bread. When I eat a lot of it, I get sick. One day I ate four slices of bread – but that resulted in vomiting for about an hour and feeling awful the rest of the day. And whenever I much bread, I start feeling a tad sick again. People keep saying, well then, you’re probably gluten-intolerant.

What do I say to that? Well, I suppose that’s possible, but there’s a lot of stuff in bread that could be causing violent illness when I eat it. Yes, the gluten is one suspect, but there’s also the wheat and yeast that could be the culprits. I personally suspect wheat – because my little sister is allergic, and my mom says she has a hard time with it too.

It’s so sad, though. The bread sickness is a recent development – bread has always been my favorite food on the face of the planet. I make ridiculously good homemade bread – and now I don’t have much reason to make it. I made some last Sunday for the sacrament (my ward has something against store-bought bread methinks), and when Brad raved about the excellence of the bread, I told him to take the extras home. No one really believed me when I said I didn’t want it. But I didn’t. Really.

People give you funny looks when you’re at a fast food place, and you really want a hamburger, and you ask for lettuce instead of a hamburger bun.

So… once I find some rice flour, I’ll experiment with that, and if it turns out rice bread makes me sick too... that rules out both wheat and gluten that are making me sick, and probably means it’s the yeast I have a problem with. Meh.

It’s so sad. I love bread. But now, my life is turned upside down. I see a succulent hamburger, and shudder at the sight of the bun. I see cake, cookies, or donuts and wince… And buttered toast, one of my all-time favorites, makes my stomach drop. I have very little desire to eat anything of that sort. I can eat wheat in small amounts… for instance, a wheat tortilla stuffed with refried beans or hummus gives me no problems whatsoever.

Among other things that haven’t been working so well for me – white sugar, chocolate, caffeine, and soy. A few weeks ago, I ate a chocolate bar I received for my birthday and some bread (before I figured out that the entire bread population was out to get me) – this resulted in lots of shaking and vomiting and just general blegggghhhh. It could have just been the bread, but I don’t think the chocolate helped.

Aside from that, when I eat things that don’t make me sick, I feel quite well. It’s just so strange that the bread sickness came. Coincidentally, when I did a lot of praying and consulting with the Lord on how I could improve my health… One of the few very concrete things I came up with was to avoid bread, although I felt like I should substitute wheat flour for white flour. Crazy. I am beginning to wonder if the wheat flour substitution was counsel given so that I’d discover that wheat isn’t such a good idea.

Random: I think my scripture plant is inseparably connected to my soul in some manner. When I am tired and hurting and sick, the plant wilts. When I am healthy and perky and bright – so is the plant. Just a little bit freaky sometimes. No, really. It freaks me out.

Guys. I finally have a calling. I’m the Enrichment leader in my Relief Society. Although I had a calling in last year’s ward, I never got to do anything with it. I was on the Literacy Committee, whose normal responsibilities include making sure all ward members know how to read. Except this is BYU. Everyone knows how to read, or else is a genius that somehow they’ve gotten by in all their classes without such a skill. So when I’d talk to my Relief Society president to ask what I should be doing in my calling – she’d say, Oh, go talk to so-and-so! And when I’d talk to so-and-so, I’d be referred right back to the Relief Society president. ‘Twas mightily frustrating.

And I love this calling. So. Much. I actually do stuff. And organize things. And plan things, and go to meetings, and ooh! I love it. So. Much.

Well, spring term is almost over. And summer term I get new classes… psychological statistics and some religion classes. I decided to forego taking any dance classes during the summer because I’m going to miss an entire week of school to come visit Arizona in July. So I might see some of my Arizona fans soon. :)

I hope to regularly attend the Social Dance Club on Tuesday nights, and the ward ballroom dance night every Wednesday. So no worries – I’ll still be keeping up with my dancing skills. In fact… maybe if I work really hard, one day I might make it onto team during a spring/summer term so I can declare a minor. (Erm… yes… that would be minor option #4… do I actually plan on having three or four minors? No. So far I only have chemistry in the bag.) However, I do not have the time or effort to try for a fall/winter semester team… not even back-up team. It’d eat up all my time, and it would be take more practice hours than I have to build to skill to even be seriously considered good enough to be on the team. So – spring/summer term team. That’s as much of an aspiration as I’m willing to shoot for at the moment. :)
Anyway, that’s about it for now.

I love you all,
Jenna