Noodles.

Ah, President's Day. No school. Yessss.

Still, this means Jenna is stuck with her nose in a biology book. So many of my roommates have been gone. Ashley was in urgent care, Rochelle, as usual, was missing in action. Jackie was at a relative's house. Hillary and Rachel were here, but were busy entertaining their old high school friend, Latecia. So... I was practically alone in the apartment. I suppose I could have gone over to the guy's hall, but Ryan was at his grandparent's house, and Will is just plain depressing.

Ah, biology. How exquisitely exciting when you don't have a test the next day. Poring over the book... filling out charts...

KNOCK KNOCK.

What does Ryan want? Wait a minute. Ryan isn't in Provo... is he?

I answer the door.

Hm. Ryan's back. So much for studying biology. And... I realize that I'm hungry. Snack time.

Ryan invades my kitchen and begins telling me all about his crazy adventures with cardboard boxes over the weekend. I happily start munching (I forget what I was eating... but I think I made myself something tasty). And suddenly, Ryan perks up.

"Hey! Did I tell you I learned how to make noodles?"

I blink. I must have misheard. "You made noodles?"

"Yeah, I learned how to make them last week!"

Wait. Whoa, now. Learned how to make noodles last week? My brain nearly fell through to my stomach. "You... you didn't know how to make them before?"

"Well, no... except for the noodles in the Mac'n'Cheese boxes... but then they make just plain noodles! And sell them in plastic packages!"

"You've never made noodles before?!? NEVER?"

"No!"

There is a slight awkward pause.

"Oh, and I also found out that they make spaghetti sauce and sell it in jars!"

Holy macaroons. My goodness. What has this boy been eating his whole life? "Well, yes..."

"And... they also make it in cans, right?"

I nod slowly. "Yes... of course they do... but it tastes slightly of can, and that's why most people prefer the jarred sauce..." At this, he looked confused, and didn't say anything. "Well, it's cheaper in cans, and you can get rid of the tinny taste really easy... you just add a little bit of sugar to it, and it's all better." He just kind of looked around at everything and anything except for me... he was ashamed... or something. "But that doesn't really matter if you know how to make your own... it tastes better if you make your own sauce anyway... you know, your own meat, your own seasoning..."

I think at this point he was excited to hear something familiar. "Oh, that's what Dallin said!" Dallin, Ryan's roommate, is probably the most amazing cook I've ever met in my life. I mean, he could cook for a girl and then propose... and not get rejected because the food is so good.

"Good, good..."

At this point, Hillary, Rachel, and Latecia enter the kitchen and start fixing themselves dinner as well. Hillary starts making Brussels sprouts. Ryan watches curiously. Timidly, he asks, "How do you make those?"

Add water. Add butter. Add heat. Done.

"Oh. Can you do that with pretty much any vegetable you want to cook?"

"Yeah..." Hillary and Rachel start to watch him suspiciously, as if they thought he were teasing them. But then...

I blurt out, "He's never made noodles before until last week!" I was glad my roommates took this news in much the same way I did. Their heads swiveled to look at the oddity was the noodleless creature Ryan.

"N-n-n-never?"

"Well, no. Not 'till last week..."

Can you make this? No. How about this? No. This? What do you think? No.

I eye him suspiciously. "Ryan... is there anything you can cook?"

"Uhh... well, I made mashed potatoes... once..." And then, hopefully, "Do you guys know how to make mashed potatoes?" We all nod solemnly, at which point Ryan droops again in shame. Then, he perks up again. "Oh, but have you known how to make them for a long time?" We gently assure him that we've been making mashed potatoes for as long as we could remember. His head dropped sadly.

He left rather abruptly after that.

But then, about an hour later, I hear another knock. I answer the door again to find Ryan peering in from the other side, looking extremely excited. "Jenna! Guess what? I made noodles! Wanna see?"

"Oh, I'm proud of you--"

"Wanna see 'em?"

"Um, sure... where are they?"

Ryan had commandeering my neighbor's kitchen. I walk in to see a pan of boiling water with noodles inside. And Ryan was just glowing happily. He dipped his stirring spoon into the hot noodle-water mixture to pull out a few noodles... then he poked them gleefully. "Ooh! Look, Jenna, noodles!"

"Yeah... noodles..." I look down at the pot. The water looked like it was about to boil over the sides. "Uhh... I think you put too much water in..."

He blinked and dropped his happy little noodles into the pot again. "I did? Oh no, what do I do now?"

"Uhh... turn down the heat a little. A stir a bit more... It'll still boil, just not as high..." That fixed, Ryan went back to glowing happily. And then, he pointed out his sauce. Yes, it was the kind they sell in jars. And he was so proud of it. I tried hard not to laugh. I ended up just shaking my head and smiling, and then I looked up at him. "How long do you have before your mission?"

"My availability date is June 19th!"

"And... you can't cook? Ryan, you're going to starve. There probably isn't going to be an abundance of frozen pizzas and Spaghettio's... especially since you won't have much money! You're going to die!"

He ignored me.

"Ryan, I'm going to teach you how to cook. Forget the potato gun. Cooking. I would prefer it if you lived through your mission."

"Uhh... I can cook more than you think! I... I can make macaroni and cheese! And mashed potatoes! I learned about gravy this weekend! You can actually make it from meat drippings... or you can buy packets for it at the store!"

"Um. Yes, I know." I looked pointedly at him. "So what are you going to learn to make this week?"

"Uhhh... Um. I think I'll perfect my mashed potatoes."

"Okay. And gravy. You'll make gravy too."

"Uhh, okay..."

And with that I went home.

Summing Up the Last Few Weeks

Okay, so I've been ridiculously busy. I'm not sure how I got so busy, especially when I have a smaller workload that last semester. Whatever.

I've done way too much homework in the past month, gone on three dates (there will be another tomorrow), cleaned a lot, had some good meals, and ... that's pretty much it. Sad, isn't it?

It has become popular belief (among my roommates at least) that I am way too busy for my own good. And... they're probably right, but I didn't really think there was anything I could do about it. I just kept doing homework... and more homework... and more?

Last Saturday was especially ridiculous, and I suppose I'll tell you what I can remember about it, since it pretty much sums up my current life patterns.

It was bright and sunny when I woke up that morning. And so was I. And I don't know where Ashley was. But it seemed like the opportune moment to tidy up my room. And then, after I had done that, I realized that since it was eight on a Saturday morning, I probably had several hours in the apartment to myself while my other roommates slept. So... I went grocery shopping. I spent all but seventy cents on my meal plan. I proceeded to clean the kitchen.

And then, as I was putting the dishes from the dishwasher away... I realized just how ridiculously unorganized the cupboards were...

I'm not OCD, I promise. But occasionally, when I've had enough sleep and don't have anything particularly stressful occupying my attention, I have little bouts of obsession-compulsion... this was one of those times. Definitely.

Each cupboard I opened revealed a new scene of chaos... and each would summon a shiver down my spine and a twitch in my eye. With the realization the contents of our cupboards were often in plain sight since Jackie has an odd and nasty inability to close cupboard doors once she opens them, I set out to organize them. All of them.

I discovered lots of strange surprises. Dishes that hadn't at all come clean in the dishwasher, but had been put back in the cupboard anyway. Disgustedly, I pulled these out, opened the dishwasher, and put the guilty dishes inside after scrubbing the guck off of them. I left the dishwasher open, ready to receive more offending dishes... but I would later regret this.

I'm not observant enough to know which of my roommates are guilty of all of the offending things that I found in the cupboards... but all these things did was feed the flames of my temporary-OCD-ness. I finally got up to the top shelf of the cupboard above our sink. It held a jumbled mess of what I suspected to be Tupperware.

I pulled up a chair up next to the open dishwasher, right where I could work with whatever happened to be up there. Among the mess, I found tacky, empty plastic containers like you would usually buy at the grocery store, but containing a butter spread or something.

If we were poor and used Tupperware enough that the plastic containers we did own were insufficient for the demands of our apartment's normal usage patterns... I would understand why we would keep them. But honestly... I think we have way too much Tupperware as it is. All these flimsy plastic containers were doing were collecting dust and taking up space. Oh, and provoking a nasty twitch in my right eye.

I made an executive decision to throw them out. Which required getting down off the chair and placing the offenders in the trash can. My arms laden with junk, I successfully turned around while atop the chair. But I lost grip of one the plastic things in my hand... which flew to my left, above the dishwasher.

(The following happened all within two seconds.)

I wasn't thinking. My hand reached out to grab it, and as I caught it, I realized I had just compromised my balance on the chair. Badly. I came crashing down halfway into the dishwasher.

Yelping out in pain, I leapt back up onto the chair, but not at all very gracefully. Instead of resting on the chair as I had hoped to, I realized that I hadn't landed quite as I'd hoped to... and the chair and I fell... the other way.

Crash.

I lay sprawled on the tile, the tacky plastic things crushed and broken (I told you they weren't worth keeping...). The chair creaked angrily, threatening to come apart. I moaned. I swear I must have hit or smashed every square inch of my body.

I now had an instant headache. But strangely, this was the minorest of the many hurts I now noticed. I got up slowly... threw the evil plastic fragments in the trash... and limped to the hallway.

To my surprise, none of my sleeping roommates had woken from the horrid noises I had just made.

I limped to the couch. And collapsed.

Ow. OW. Owwwwwwwww. There wasn't any blood, just a strange stinging sensation all over. My left leg hurt in particular. I think that is what collided most violently with the chair. I lifted up my pant leg... to discover that it was already purpling with what had declared itself a nasty bruise. Ugh. My right knee hurt as well (this was what I think hit the dishwasher first), but it was just pink with irritation. My hands and arms stung with pain from flailing around and unsuccessfully trying to find a handhold. My head had hit something... I think the ground.

Whatever.

At least my apartment was clean.

I spent the next several hours doing homework... namely calculus. And... more calculus. My brain was working so slowly that I'm not sure how I was thinking at all. I trudged through my homework. Problem by problem... Ugh. I was starting to get sooo mad at this homework, because I wasn't getting the right answers immediately.

It soon happens that I am trying out my hand at primal scream therapy. "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR

RRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!" I yell angrily at my homework, dissatisfied enormously with it. My roommates peek in to see if I am all right. No. No. Jenna is not all right. Calculus is taking so much longer than it should. Like... I estimated it would take me two hours. I was going on six hours. I hope you understand my frustration. I was MAD at this homework for not cooperating with me. If I had looked in the mirror, I may have seen steam coming out of my ears.

Ding.

'Mid textbook-throw, I look around for the source of this mysterious sound.

Ding. Ding.

Oh! My instant messenger! Someone is talking to me! I consider whether or not to answer it. I was positively fuming and might not be the most pleasant being to talk to at the moment. And it was nine'o'clock at night. Well, I decided I would rather talk to a person than to my calculus homework... I might talk more civilly to someone with feelings.

I look over at my computer screen. Hm, it's Ryan. I determine that I am not going to look at my homework for at least another half-an-hour. I glare at it angrily and I talk to him... but alas! I suppose it is impossible for me to talk to someone without leaking out how I am feeling.

Ryan inquires what I've been doing all day... I reply, Homework. What kind? Calculus. Just calculus? Yes... all day... and I'm not done! And I have more! I've got physics and biology and health and dance and... All day? How long is all day? Six hours on calculus.

Hmm... usually when something takes me all day, it means I need a break, Ryan says.

I don't have time for a break! I'm never going to be done with all this homework! Never! Neeevvvveeerrr!

Ryan obviously disagreed. Wanna go an a walk?

A walk? Hm. Here is where that horrible moment where your brain splits into two distinct voices and they start arguing.

No. Don't do it. You have way too much to do. Way too much.

Aw, but I'm sick and tired of calculus. It isn't even interesting, or fun, or cute, or...

You'll never get done. If you go on a walk, you won't be able to do any more homework tonight, and you'll have to do it on Sunday!

Or... I could do it Monday morning. I can't go on walk then...

NO! You promised yourself you would finish all your homework BEFORE Monday. BEFORE! That means TONIGHT!

But I haven't been on a date with him for... two whole weeks?

YOU'RE TOO BUSY!!!

But I told him no to that date on Thursday and he was really sad...

You were too busy... and you're even busier now... you have two midterms next week.

It's nine, and I've been working allllll day!

At this point, one voice kicks the other's shin.

Shut up. I'm going.

So... I go out into the cold outside. So incredibly cold. It's like... twenty degrees... (warmer than last week, but still). But... I don't feel cold. I imagine if you could see stress, you'd see them radiating off of me like heat waves.

We start walking. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm fine, I just have (insert incredibly long list of things to do before Monday here)..." I think I was hyperventilating... or something.

He looked at me sideways-like. "Jenna. I am not a physics assignment."

Ahhh! Physics! Oh no. "Oh no no no no... I have a physics midterm this week. And a physics homework assignment. And a reading assignment..."

"Nope. There is only the sidewalk... and the snow... and you're on a date... and you don't have to worry about anything..."

With that, we started exploring campus. Last time we went on a walk we explored all over the north side of campus, and it had been considerably warmer. We did a lot of random things... crossed the bridge, wandered around the Wilk, found a wall map and made each other find the other's hometowns... rummaged through the recycling receptacles looking for today's comic pages in the newspaper... drew little cartoon men... realized we weren't sure if cotton candy was just sugar or if there were something else in it... invaded a computer lab to research about cotton candy (just sugar and food coloring, apparently... the trick is the machine)... found the barber shop... rode elevators... found the flower shop... and then it was eleven'o'clock. The campus buildings close down at eleven, so we went back outside.

Walking along the sidewalk to the intersection, somehow we got on the subject of jaywalking.

"I jaywalk all the time... but only at like... four in the morning when I'm walking to work, and not a single soul is awake. You know what's fun? Dancing on the Y in the intersection here..."

We had come to the intersection, in the middle of which was a large white painted Y.

"Have you done it before?" he asked.

"Yes." And the light turned green for us to cross.

I started to cross on the crosswalk... but Ryan dashed out to the center of the intersection and started to dance maniacally. There weren't any cars that had a green light... only cars with bewildered drivers stuck at the red light. I stayed on the crosswalk, the whole time laughing at him (I didn't know what else I was supposed to do!). He danced until the light turned yellow, at which point he dashed to the other side of the street, and swung around the light pole, me laughing the whole time.

We started to walk back to our apartments, but then we saw a large icicle. Ryan decided to try and get the icicle down. He jumped up and broke it off, but of course right below the icicle was a sheet of ice. Icicle in hand, his feet went all over the place... but he didn't fall or crack his head open. "Ah! I almost got myself killed!" Hm, that would make twice in one date, within five minutes.

I kept the icicle, and we kept walking. We got to my back door. And we both ignored it. Instead... I decided I wanted to know how deep the snow was. He tried to push me into it, but I ducked in time. However, I did drop the icicle. It didn't break, but he warned that if I did break it, it would hurt his feelings. We went around to the front of my hall, where there was a large patch of snow.

We left Ryan's phone number in big writing there so that when my hallmates came out they could see it. (Unfortunately for Ryan, the whole thing got annihilated by several inches of snow that came down that night.) I left my icicle next to it in the hopes that when the sun hit it, it would reflect the sunlight and attract people's attentions.

Then we went inside... and began looking at the wood grain on people's door. We found one door pattern that looked like the Salt Lake Temple. Then... there was this one door.

"It... looks like bacon."

"Bacon?"

"Yeah... there's the dark meat in the middle, and then the strips of fat on the side, and..."

He was right. That door looked like bacon. And, of course, we had to tell our friends that lived behind that door. We knocked. And, well, I guess since it was nearly midnight, no one inside had been expecting visitors. Patrice eventually opened the door, but we had to wait for awhile. She answered groggily (we feared she had been sleeping, but no... she had been doing homework) and looked at us with a bewildered expression as we blankly informed that her door looked like bacon. She looked quite confused when we bid her adieu.

Well, guys aren't allowed in the girl's hall after midnight on Saturday... and vice versa. So guys were clearing out of the place. We kept talking, and then it was a minute 'till midnight.

"Aren't you going to leave?"

"Nope. I have a whole minute left." And then he hugged me... and he kept checking his watch... and then he hopped outside exactly as the second hand reached midnight. And then I went home, where I barely escaped getting grounded by my roommates, who had been watching chick flicks in my absence.

So this week I've done a whole bunch of homework.

And I have a date tomorrow (with Ryan, yes...). So... good night all.

Oh, the Pudding.

Warning: This 'un is a tad bit long. (Understatement).

Oh, the Saturday.

I have locked myself in my room, so that I can do homework.

Of course, I have my Internet browser in Gmail, as always. I hover over my poor inbox like a vulture, hoping for an email from someone, anyone. I also have iTunes up, and I am listening to my usual batch of music.

I am busily working on calculus, and I am getting tired. Tired enough to fall asleep... I turn my music up louder and get back to working. Sluggishly.

Dink.

I open my eyes, and wipe the calculus off my face.

Dink.

What is going on?!?!

Oh. The Google chat. Ryan is talking to me.

We chat about random things for about fifteen minutes as I do calculus. The good thing is, I am now awake. This is why I keep my chat open when I'm working... harder to fall asleep that way.

Then, rather abruptly, he asks if I'd like to go on a walk.

I should have seen it coming, really. I mean, he was kind of asking about what I was doing... and how busy I was. And if I had devoted the entire night to goofing off just yet. So maybe the walk question wasn't as abrupt as I thought it was.

Immediately after asking if I'd like to go on a walk, he starts talking about random other things, like haircuts and such. I think he was half-hoping I hadn't noticed the line asking me to walk with him. The thing is, I told him I would walk with him. But he continued talking about haircuts for another few minutes until he finally noticed what I had said about the walk, at which point he says something like, "Wait... did you say you WERE up for a walk?"

Silly boy. We decide he'll meet me at the bottom of my back-door stairs, so I grab my keys and tell Jackie that I'm going.

Unfortunately, sly little Jackie asks exactly the wrong question. "A walk? With who?"

"Er... Ryan..."

Jackie pretty much explodes with energy. "A DATE! ANOTHER TALLY MARK!" See, we have a little white board in our kitchen where we keep track of how many dates we've been on. I had three tallies. Jackie prances over to said white board and happily puts a fourth tally mark by my name. I blink. I hadn't actually thought of it as a date.

So, stubbornly, I make my way to the board, and erase the tally mark. "Not a date."

"Well, did he ask you?"

"Yeah. Just now."

"It's a date!" She marks it up on the board again. I erase it again, and walk out the door,knowing full well that I'll have to erase it again when I got home... whenever that might be. I didn't see the sense in counting it as a date. I mean, it wouldn't have counted as a date if it had been Clifton, or Will, or any of my other guy friends. Silly Jackie.

Even with the Tally Mark War, I got outside first. When Ryan comes out of the neighboring hall and sees me already standing out there, he runs over.

Oh, the pudding (translation: oh, the adventure). Ryan decides to show me some fun stuff. We start by exploring Upper Heritage (we live in Lower Heritage). He seems to have a particular destination in mind at first. This destination ended up being Whitney Hall... which had a spectacular Peanuts mural in the window, the best by far depicting Lucy as BYU and Charlie Brown as Utah. Of course, Charlie Brown had tried to kick the football, and Lucy had stolen the football just as he was about the kick. It was amazing.

Then we explored on the inside. We discover that in addition to having four floors instead of three, Upper Heritage Halls also have more washers and dryers, a larger sundeck, and a nicer and bigger piano room. We sneak around stealthily and make our escape from the strange alien building from the basement door.

Now we make our way west, to the pretty little path alongside the stream near the bell tower. We stop at what Ryan says is "his bench." He tells stories about his EFY adventures and chasing ducks around. He even had a video of duck chasing on his phone that we watched. I think we both would have been up for some duck chasing had the ducks not moved to the other side of the stream (smart ducks).

Upon my comment, that I hadn't ever actually touched the bell tower, we climbed the stairs to it. We decided it would be fun to climb up it if we had been ninjas. However, since neither of us had enough ninja skill to climb up it, we moved on to the Bean Museum. We were going to go inside, but I figured out that it closed in ten minutes and that it wouldn't be very nice to scare the workers in there.

We moved on to a curb in between the ruins of Deseret Towers and the Museum. Apparently this curb also belongs to Ryan, again, because he spent time there when he came up for EFY.

Then... the deserted Deseret Towers. Ay, where there once stood U and V Hall, now stood two large piles of dirt. How sad. We wanted to explore that, but decided it probably wasn't safe and went around it to the Morris Center. It is surrounded by large piles of red leaves, obviously neglected by the landscaping crews. We peer in through the window. Weird. It's all... empty and spooky. We proceed over the remaining four towers, and look inside. Apparently, this is where Ryan lived when he came up for EFY and it was sad for him to see all the furniture thrown out the windows. There were large fences around the three northernmost towers, and we would have scaled it and explored in there had there not been a sign on the fence warning of a $300 fine.

Well, that's when we decided to move on. We passed the Morris Center again, and then walked past the Marriott Center to where Helaman Halls was. We didn't explore that, but instead saw the new Hinckley Center and decided to explore that. Unfortunately, that was closed (it WAS a Saturday). So...

That's when I decided to show Ryan around the JFSB. That's where I work every morning. He was thrilled about there being two computer labs in there that he didn't know about. I showed him a nice little study area with an expensive Persian rug. He wanted to go up the balcony on the top floor, but it was locked, sadly. Then... on the top floor, we saw that there were stairs still going up. Ooh! We stealthily climb up those and try the door at the top, but that is locked too. I'd imagine that actually led to the roof-roof. I'll never know I guess.

After that, we explored the library. Ryan knows a lot more about the library than I do... besides the SWKT, that's practically where he lives. We explored the moving bookshelves, and he showed me his favorite study spots. Then we found the little model of the entire BYU campus. It's amazing how detailed that thing is. Amazing.

We were about to ascend up the stairs again when we saw a humongous picture of BYU. Of course, we had to go back down and look for places we knew on it. We found the Creamery on Ninth... and thus we found our places near it. Ryan knew a whole lot about the Creamery... apparently it used to be called Carson's Market, and his dad used to work there. After that, we looked up and saw through the Atrium glass that it was dark outside.

We decided to go home. But then, as we passed the Wilk, Ryan decided he had to show me the Memorial Room too. We went in there, but we could see next door that something was happening. So we left. Then we walked home. Ryan gave me two hugs (the second was better than the first), and then I walked up the stairs and into my apartment. No one was home. At all. I shrugged, reduced my tally marks to three, looked at the clock and... Ahhhh! That walk was two and a half hours. Sick.

Not sure what to do now, I sat down at the piano and started playing. Someone knocked. I opened the door. It was a pair of Jackie's friends from Helaman Halls from her home ward. They came in. A few minutes later, Jackie came home.

Here comes the funny part (at least in my opinion).

And then, as I re-entered my room after a long break from calculus, Jackie tackled me. She grabbed me by both shoulders, and gave me this strange, intense look. "What. Happened."

I blinked. "Uhhh... we walked..."

"AND?"

I wondered what that was supposed to mean. I explained that "nothing" happened and I only got a hug, supposing she meant something along those lines.

She let me go, but she was still giving me those suspicious looks.

Well, I confronted her about it later. Here's the dealio according to Jackie. Her friends had been "spying" on Ryan and I and had told her a tall tale about how we were making out, as a practical joke on Jackie (she is very gullible sometimes). Silly people. My reaction to this little rumor was a mixture of shock and laughter, which eventually ended up on my face as a raised eyebrow. No wonder Jackie was so confused and freaked out. :)

But no, the apartment rumors didn't stop there. I don't know if any of you have ever lived in a building full of girls, but if you say something about a guy, it isn't long before the whole building knows about it and has made it gospel. So... guess who happened to be half-eavesdropping? Ashley.

In this case, half-eavesdropping is more deadly than full-eavesdropping. Because guess what key words she'd pick up if she wasn't listening all the way? "Jenna..." "Ryan..." "making out..." "walk..." "Nooooo!'

So Ashley perks up in her chair and exclaims with a gleeful look on her face, "What? Jenna and Ryan went on a make-out walk?!?!? Oooohhh...."

At this point, I have my face buried in my hands while simultaneously trying frantically to make it absolutely clear that nothing happened whatsoever.

So Ashley knows it isn't true. But... Ashley and Rochelle happen to be the kind of people who don't care if it's true or not. If they think something is funny, they'll spread word about it regardless of its verity.

By some miracle, the "make out walk" rumor disappears after that. Thank the heavens above. Until...

It's Sunday night after midnight, when Jackie gets home from a late night solo walk. She had been talking on the phone with a guy friend. But she was all alone. Immediately, Rochelle, Ashley, Christina, and I pounce on her. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! Walking alone talking on the phone to a guy...

The latter phrase evolved slowly from "walking alone on the phone with a guy" to "walking alone talking to a guy" to "walking alone with a guy." I am so upset with Jackie's lack of safety precautions that I haven't noticed this transformation of situations that we are denouncing...

All of a sudden, someone in the frenzy yells, "WELL THEN! If we going to punish anyone for walking alone with a guy, it should be Jenna! TWO AND A HALF HOURS WALKING ALONE WITH RYAN!"

All eyes are now on me, venomous, and yet gleeful at the same time. Ooh, not good. Ashley pipes up, "Oooh, and they were making out!" Ooh, definitely not good. Not good at all.

At this comment, the venom disappears and the glee of new-found gossip takes over, causing a large explosion of "WHAT?!?!"s and "REALLY?!?!"s. Jackie's sins are forgotten completely. Now mine are foremost in everyone's mind.

I vehemently deny that I made out with Ryan. Vehemently. And just when I thought I had convinced them, Christina butts in slyly. "Wait a minute. You keep saying 'I didn't make out with Ryan...' What about him? He made out with you, didn't he?"

At the uproar that follows this little snakebite, I flip into the hallway. Now pressed against the wall, I shake my head and mutter, "No, no no no no no no..." At this point, I decide most fully that I do not like girls' senses of humor. Especially when it comes to guys.

So now I wonder... was the pudding worth its price?

Oh dear.

I'm a busy girl.
Yesterday I took two midterms and did a lab... today... I took another midterm.

I also got my first paycheck yesterday! It was about two hundred dollars. I bought myself a BYU sweatshirt... because it's darn cold up here. Today it's raining. A lot.

Tonight I get to go to the General Relief Society thingy... Shweet.

Well, about last week.

Monday! Ahh!
So I went to work, then to all my classes, and then I came home and watched Oklahoma!... which I borrowed from Ryan. Then I set off to make cookies... Oh!
I'm pretty sure I haven't emailed off the witty cookie piece I wrote Monday night. I posted it on Facebook, but I don't think I emailed it off. So... here's that. Viva copy and paste!

----------------

Cookies: An Epic Tale
I Am NOT Having Eight Children: A Rant from Someone Who Likes Things Just So

Disclaimer: I am not incriminating anyone in my FHE group at all… in fact, I love them all bunches. I need to vent out my frustrations… which I like to do in comical prose. I may have exaggerated a few details as per artistic license.

Ok… so… we had our first family home evening group thingy where I, Momma Jenna, was in charge. Oy, that was a HASSLE. So, I figured I'd make cookies for random people in our ward, right? And then have a batch for us to eat? (That's what everyone wanted to do... but no one wanted to be in charge of it... go figure). Theoretically, that would have worked. Except I figured that everyone wouldn't be able to keep their paws off of my cookie dough. So I more than doubled the amount of cookies I'd make. In my head this made perfect sense and might even solve some problems.

I started making dough at three after watching Oklahoma!… and here's where the problem comes in. My roommates (especially Jackie) seem to have a sixth sense that knows when sweets are being made. They also all seem to be addicted to raw cookie dough. They were eating dough all the while I was attempting to mix a HUMONGOUS quadruple batch… And I am wondering if the cookie-ingredient proportions were at all what they should be, because as I mixed it together, it disappeared.

It was once perfect cookie dough.

So of course I made a humongous mess mixing together cookies in such titanic proportions. Thankfully Rachel did some dishes, but really I was left to scour the kitchen alone, all the while thinking, "Oh man… I have history reading I should be doing…"

Somehow our kitchen got clean. And then the boys came.

Hands immediately reach into the cookie dough I spent forever making… Oooh, I am sooo mad. I karate kick Clifton, my little brother, in the chest, but gently, and really only with my toe. He doesn't seem to get the message. He swipes some more later, and that is when I drag him outside and lock him out. Unfortunately, Rochelle and Ashley happen to feel merciful at the time, and let him back in almost immediately.

I don't know how many times I explained that the pre-made cookie dough (my sweat, blood, and tears!) was for people in our ward and was off-limits for eating. Alex and Jon were mostly the only ones actually mixing together our cookie dough (which I yelled many times was free-reign for eating... but no one seemed to comprehend that there was a batch of cookie dough I'd let them eat). I'm sorry to complain, but I confess I wasn't quite happy with the consistency of the batch the boys made and was glad that was the batch we were keeping and not giving away.

Oh, but what I really couldn't stand was all the bickering and roaring laughter (I don't mind laughter, it's when I can't hear my own thoughts that it becomes a problem) and mean jokes and funny snapshots… it would have been fun… IF I wasn't trying to make cookies at the time. See, cooking and baking is like... my zen-mode, second only to church... (How else do I get cooking inspiration???) Most of the time I am perfectly willing to step out and initiate silliness and chaos… but I need order. I know there are certain times where you sit down and have a serious (or more serious-than-usual, as is the case with me) face... which for me is in the kitchen.

We colored paper plates with random holiday greetings (and I mean REALLY random)… signed them, put a dozen cookies on each plate, and then went cookie caroling to random dorms in our ward (we tried to give half to people we knew and half we didn't).

In total we made enough dough to theoretically cork out twelve dozen cookies. (I made two thirds of it myself.) We only made five-dozen cookies. All the rest of the dough had already been eaten. So now… here I am, left with a derelict kitchen, up way past my bedtime, and a little too frustrated to sleep… although a thank you letter from Ryan did help (thanks by the way… I really appreciated that!).

If I go to bed now, I shall get five hours of sleep… Oh, the incredulities!!!

I think I am quite feeling back to my silly ol' self. Not that that helps any… it's hard to sleep when you feel like dancing.

♥Jenna

P.S. The JFSB is always neat and tidy. I think I can completely destress there tomorrow morning... neat... and tidy... while rockin' out to Batman of course!

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So... that was Monday. Tuesday was very full and no exactly exciting.

Wednesday and Thursday I went to tutor at a nearby elementary school. Me 'n' Elsa (the girl I tutor) are already friends. So... here is about when I dash off to a study group... Well, actually I have another Facebook entry on this experience... But... I think in order to keep this email within tolerable lengths, I shall summarize it.

I forgot about tutoring and completely scheduled something in that time slot... a study group with Ryan, Dallin, Will, Roy, Mindy, Liz, and Claire. I had everything planned... and was falling asleep happily on my bed, when...

BAM!!! My forehead hits the shelf above my bed as I jerk up and out of bed, horrified with the realization that I forgot about tutoring. I instantaneously go from very much relaxed and stress-free to skyscraper-like stress levels. I have a throbbing headache spreading from my aching forehead through to the rest of my skull, and I feel really bad about missing this study group thingy... so I miss it...

But then... there's Will... who happens to be a history genius similar to my friend Zack in Arizona. Who kind of timidly asks if I want to study with him later since I missed the study group. Of course I say OK, cuz... well, I have to admit I suck at history and he happens to be darned good at it.

Yesterday... OK, funny story. My roommate's car wouldn't start one day, and they are already late to a concert... and then they see two guys walking to their car... and "Hey!!! You guys! Can we have a ride?" The guys give them a ride. And then give my roommates their number so they can get a ride home.

However, my roommates walk home, and Jackie decides she's going to ask the guys over as a thank you and have them eat the apple rolls we made. Well, I reminded her that she wouldn't let me give Oklahoma back because she hadn't seen it... and so she stuck it in.

Alas, the two boys come over and scarf the apple rolls, and then sit down and... don't leave. They are watching Oklahoma with us. And that's a darn long movie. And... well, there's a whole lotta stuff about marriage and kissing in that movie. Perfect set up for Jackie to feel awkward.

I was going to go to bed, but poor Jackie would feel so weird watching that by herself with two guys. So... I stay and watch it again. And I make funny comments at the awkward parts to make Jackie feel better. They finally leave at 11:30... and poor Jackie looks exhausted. Haha.

Well, I don't have anything else to say. Buh bye now!