Why didn't anyone tell me?!?

I am so grateful I'm in the musicals genre film class. If you know me, you know I love musicals. However, my personal education in this genre was lacking in two areas--Elvis Presley and Bollywood. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THEY WERE AMAZING?!?

We'll start with Elvis. In class we watched Change of Habit with Elvis and Mary Tyler Moore. It is an AWFUL movie. The acting (with the exception of Mary, who is always charming) is terrible. Elvis is so bad, and yet....I find myself loving him. Maybe it's because he's so attractive. I had never thought so before, but seeing a movie with him finally made me believe it. Attractive he is. I don't know what it is about him--maybe his complete lack of acting skills made him endearing in some way. There's a charm about him, something that I can't quite place. But he just makes me want to watch more of him. And, admittedly love him while I laugh at him. The end of the movie was just terrible. No resolution. At all. Disappointing. And, by the way, it's NOT a musical. Yes, Elvis sings in it, but it's not a musical.

Next, we have Bollywood. Holy cow, I found a new passion! I can't get enough!!! We watched Om Shanti Om in class tonight and let me tell you, I could not stop smiling during and after the movie. The filmmakers are completely aware of what they are doing, and they make the most of it. I want to live in India now. Add this movie to my top 20 all-time favorite movies list--no joke. They just do whatever they want, and they do it marvelously and beautifully. What a fun style! And I may just have a celebrity crush on hero Shahrukh Khan now. I think it's his hair. And his dancing. And his goonish charm. Why didn't anyone sit me down and make me watch these movies before?! Life will never be the same.

Graduation Announcement

Here is my homemade graduation announcement!

My dad took the picture with my Nikon d7000. I photoshopped the image and created the announcement. It was actually really fun and fulfilling to be a graphic designer for a bit :)

Summer Plans

I applied for a job as an instructor at a youth technology camp called iD tech camps. It looked like an awesome organization with goals and attitudes I believe in. I put on my application that I was willing to travel anywhere. A friendly woman called me from back east and interviewed me for a position as a digital video/digital photography instructor at a camp in Poughkeepsie at Vassar College. I wasn't sure I wanted the job--it would be far away in a new place where I don't know anyone, plus stressful and time consuming. But I want to eventually be a teacher, possibly at a high school, so this looked like a great opportunity. I found out my brother Mike, sister in-law Lex, nephew Ryder, and their new baby would be in New York too. I would love to hang out in NYC with my big bro. I looked up pictures of Poughkeepsie online and began developing kind of a romance towards it. I started falling in love with the idea of it and the idea that I could work on my photography and play with kids all summer.

Well, I found out on Tuesday that I got the job. I was thrilled, but really nervous at the same time. I still wasn't sure if I was going to go, so I did what any self-respecting slightly obsessive compulsive would do and made a pros and cons list. Honestly, the pros far outweighed the cons. It seemed like the perfect answer to everything I would like to accomplish this summer: great experience, outside of Utah, good pay, and fun. I studied it out, and I decided to do it, but not before I prayed about it.

Now, I've always believed in personal revelation. As a Mormon, I believe that God does speak to individuals through the Holy Ghost. I've prayed about other things in my life--what college I should go to, applying to the film major at BYU, applying to London study abroad, etc. I generally pray about everything, and I feel really good about the decisions I have made up to this point. Everything in my life has worked out splendidly. But as I prayed about this tech camp job, I received a distinct impression that I should not accept the job. I have never had the "no" from the Spirit before, at least not in something like this. I was confused. I had finally convinced myself to go and to be excited about it--I really wanted this job! I tried to rationalize the feeling away, thinking it was just nerves. But I could not get the "don't go" out of my head.

I don't know why this happened. I don't know why as soon as I decide that it is the right thing to do this summer the Lord tells me it's wrong. I don't know why it's wrong, and initially that really bothered me. I am a rational person. I enjoy facts and answers and reasons. There have always been some things that I can't explain that I have taken on faith, like how the Atonement actually works and where dinosaurs fit into everything. But never anything this immediately personal. The only thing I know is that I don't want to risk ignoring the Spirit and regretting it. It's worth losing the experience of living in New York, no matter how badly I want it. There is some reason why I am not supposed to go, some other grand adventure I am supposed to pursue. I don't know what it is, but the Lord does. And if there's one thing I've learned this year, it's to trust the Lord.

J-HARD dates!

So, last semester was a bit of a dry spell dating wise...but this semester has been full of dating! I'm a dating machine! Okay, compared to some people I am not a dating machine. But compared to the Jenny of last semester? Definitely. I think I've been on some sort of a date almost every week! Record breaking. Take this moment to do a victory dance to a Lady Gaga song.................................................Oh yeah, baby! Anyway, dating is fun. Most of the time. I went on a rather interesting date last week that I'm just itching to write about.

I met the guy speed dating. I didn't even want to go speed dating in the first place, but my roommate Katelyn insisted we be brave and, as the great goddess Nike would say, just do it. So we did it. We wrote our names and phone numbers on a big poster in the corner of the room, with our corresponding name tag numbers and sat down. And it was super fun! I mean, I can hardly remember most of the guys I talked to...there was definitely a really attractive boy from London...but it was an experience worth having. Towards the end of the speed dating I met this guy that I thought was rather attractive, friendly, and from Holladay-- right by where I grew up! The people running the event had given us a little sheet with ice breaker questions on it. One of them was, of course, will you marry me? Well this particular guy asked me that question. With a smirk of course--he wasn't one of those weirdies who was serious about marrying someone after 1.5 minutes with the girl. So I played along. "Sure! I've always been partial to the Salt Lake Temple. You?" He laughed and we joked. And we flirted. I'm not a particularly skilled flirter but I felt pretty outgoing at that moment and laid it on as thick as I could. He was cute, so why not? He asked for my number, and there you have it. I was thrilled. I got his phone number off of the sign-up posters and that was that. The wait began.

I had determined to wait a week to see if he called or texted, but then he was at this missionary fireside I went to. I hung around after and tried to catch his eye, see if he remembered me, perhaps even talk to him. He was there with a girl and was talking to a bunch of other people, so I never got the chance. I scolded myself for the next couple of hours. Then the thought entered my mind--what if I texted him? Just a simple, harmless little text. Katelyn encouraged me, and feeling really brave in a unimportant sort of way I texted him! It might sound stupid, but I literally felt so outgoing and brave. This was not typical Jenny behavior. He texted back, we had a bit of a conversation, and then he asked me if I wanted to do something next week. Inside I was screaming YES! but my text read, "Sure, sounds like fun." Casual as can be. I was thrilled though. And, low and behold, the following week he texted me and asked me on a date.

We arranged to meet a 9:00PM after my musicals class. I left class all nervous and scared, my one jolt of courage coming from the fact that my hair looked AWESOME. I waited for a little while, but then I saw him approaching. He got closer, and he was glancing around--he didn't remember me! Oh well, I didn't really blame him. We had only talked for two minutes a week and a half ago. But I smiled at him and he figured out it was me. We went downstairs in the Wilk to go bowling, but it was bowling team night so we played pool instead. Now, the date started off normally. How was your day? What are you studying? What do you like to do? etc. Typical questions for a first, practically blind, date. But then he started flirting with me. Really flirting. He would put his hands on my waist and make comments about how "distracting" I was to his pool game.

I'll be honest and say that, at the time, I was super flattered. No boy has ever been that forward with me, especially on a first date. But then it started to become a bit much. He pulled the "lean around the girl to get the shot" trick, basically wrapping his arms around me. He upped his number of compliments to my beauty. He told me that if he ever made me feel uncomfortable I could tell him or elbow him or something. Right. But the topper of the evening was the make-out joke. "I've never made out on a pool table, you know. And there's a first time for everything," said with a half-serious look in his eye. Really? I mean, really? He made this comment not once, but TWICE. Okay, I know that I'm a cute little Mormon girl with a rather naive view of dating and flirting. I know that. But still, on a first date, does anyone pull those moves on someone they barely know? Not unless they're looking for some action--some make-out-on-the-pool-table action would seem to be his specific preference. He was mostly kidding, I know. But still, that little hint of "actually I wouldn't mind if we did make out on the pool table" weirded me out just a little bit.

Besides the octopus hands and the make-out comments he was a complete gentleman the entire night. He offered to carry my backpack as he walked me home. He walked on the side of the street closest to the cars (a gesture, I must admit, that has never made complete sense to me--if a car spins out of control towards us, him being nearest to the road won't matter. We'll both die. Nice gesture though, I guess). He was perfectly considerate and kind. But for some reason I don't think he'll be calling me again. He probably thought I just wanted to hook up and make out or something and wasn't bargaining on the fact that I don't do that or that I was actually legitimately interested in getting to know him. Or maybe he's just not interested. No biggie. I've kinda lost a bit of my interest too. That's what an octopus will do to ya.

Yes...I just did that...

I feel pretty confident about my cooking abilities. Impossible recipe, you say? I can muscle it into place. And yet, sometimes my brain falls out of my skull and I do something really incredibly stupid. Like today, for instance:

I decided to make my yummy healthy chili. Everything started off well - the ingredients all got into the pot with relatively little mess. I didn't have any onions (miracle ingredient in every recipe, by the way), so I added some other spices for additional flavor. I was experimental and added cinnamon. I set the timer on my phone and left to do some reading in my room while the chili simmered. About 20 minutes later I was super hungry, so I decided to take my chili off the stove early and eat it as it was. It was a good thing I did too. I came into the kitchen to find a smoking vat and a sufficiently burnt smell. My roommate Stephanie was so engrossed in whatever she was doing that she didn't even notice the smell or the clouds of grey billowing through the room. I hurried and removed the pot from the stove, but it was still smoking profusely. I didn't want to set off the smoke alarm or leave that lovely burnt smell wafting through our apartment, so I ran the pot outside to cool off. I wanted to stir it and try to get some of the burnt chili off the bottom of the pot, so I set the pot down on the ground. I laughed to myself, imagining what I must look like squatting in the hallway of our apartment complex, stirring a smoking brew. The smoke began to clear, so I grabbed the pot to take it back inside. It wouldn't budge. That's when i remembered the ground was carpeted ground. Idiot. I yanked the pot and up came a layer of carpet, leaving a circular burn mark just outside our apartment door. Good thing I have a sense of humor - I started laughing out loud as I walked back into my apartment. Silly Jenny.

The chili tasted alright, but it turns out it really does need onions. Burnt chili, burnt carpet, burnt chef's ego - awesome moment in college life.