Welcome to my College Life!

My first week of "Freshman" School has flown by! It's been so exciting!!! I attended a class all last week called Connections. You have a teacher and a class, but you attend workshops, do activities, and wander campus all day. I met some super wonderful girls who also happen to be in my ward too - I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Me, Amy, and Regi

Then after each day of class, they had some sort of activity for the freshmen to attend. There was a dance (which I could care less for), a comedic magician (who put me into a fit of hysterics) and the awesome "Taste of Logan" experience where you walked down Main Street and sampled tons of food and got free stuff. A poor college student thrives off free food and free stuff. It's everywhere!!! Me, Michelle, Shanna, and Spenser had a great time wandering through the crowds of freshmen decked out in our Aggie Blue shirts. We also wandered Macy's that night. It was wonderful.

Michelle, Shanna, and Spenser

And because Connections was technically a class that we earn credit for, we had to read a book entitled, "Barefoot Heart - Stories of a Migrant Child" by Elva Trevino Hart. It was actually really good. And as a bonus, on the night of the "Taste of Logan," Elva was out in front of the court house signing books! So me and Shanna brought our books to be signed and got a picture with her. It was rad.

Me, Elva Trevino Hart (yeah, she's pretty much famous), and Shanna

Saturday morning all the Connection students attended a seminar where we listened to Elva give a speech and have a question/answer session. It was really neat to hear everything straight from her lips - rather than the voice I had imagined in my head.

Then the institute had an opening social on Saturday night which involved free pizza and free ice-skating! It was so much fun!

Kaitlin and my roommate Mallory

My other two roommates, Rachel and Taylor, moved in on that day and so now we were all together! Happy days
!
My first official week of college has now begun and I'm loving it! I thought it would be far more intimidating than it is. I don't know if that's because of the classes that I'm taking, or because of Connections, or because I just over-thought the whole idea...any way, it's remarkable! My classes are everywhere and at random and slightly inconvenient times of the day, but I really don't mind. Every day is an adventure!

I attempted to donate blood yesterday for the USU vs. U of U "Blood Battle," but my iron levels were too low! I had a 12.4 and you need a 12.5 to donate. So they gave me a list of food that I should eat. No wonder! Poor College Student! I've been living off free samples and easy food - sandwiches, rice, cereal...I need some protein and veggies! I've adjusted my diet accordingly and I will attempt to donate tomorrow! :)

My institute class is interesting - it consists of 10 people...maybe less. But the teacher is wonderful and the people seem nice. We're studying the Pearl of Great Price - Bro. Woolstenhulme has got me pumped! He's already struck me as a very knowledgable person.

Interrupting Thought: The boys next door just stopped by. They had a ton of boxes that they wanted to punk somebody with...and Taylor and Kelsie currently happen to be out of the house...those two are good sports. So Rachel and Mallory let the the boys bring all the boxes into Taylor and Kelsie's room when the boys agreed to come pick them all up once they get home. Haha...oh boy...bored college students...

Anywho...

Besides the fact that it requires me to climb 88 steps to get to my Math class in the Geology building (I will have awesome thighs at the end of this semester), life is good. :) I love college life - and even more so now that I've figured out the Aggie Shuttle system!

My Home Sweet Home Away from Home

So it's official. I'm an Aggie!

I moved up on Saturday and have had the time of my life ever since. It's wonderful - as I was telling my aunt Alicia in an e-mail, there is an energy up here that I haven't quite felt anywhere else. Everyone is so nice and anxious to meet new people and are so involved with everything. There has been activity after activity that brings me to meet someone new everyday. I love the people that live in Rich Hall with me. I haven't met them all, but they have all been crazy amazing people. My roommates are sweet and I don't think there will be too many problems, but of course, not everyone has moved in quite yet. :)

I would now like to present you with a photographic tour of my "home." It's old...really old...and a lot of things are falling apart. In fact, this summer it was supposed to get renovated. All the other buildings around us did, except that ours was occupied all summer by guys...so no renovation for us. When I moved in on Saturday, I was kind of scared - I won't lie to you. My roommate Kelsie was the first one up here and she said that when she was rearranging the furniture, she found a box a ritz crackers and a gatorade bottle under the couch. :) But once I got all my stuff put away, and scrubbed down my walls and headboard and bathtub, it's grown on me. I love it. It's still considered "on campus," but it takes a good 10-15 minutes to actually get to where any of the classes are held. So it's slightly inconvenient, but I don't really mind. I'll use the free bus system when it gets cold. For now, it makes for good socializing time.

My room before (it was even worse before - it took me 3 days to unpack)

My room after

More of my room

Our living room

The economy size toilet

The kitchen

A note Val and Marie left on the white board after they helped me move in

Fire Hazard (the only plug in my room is near the ceiling)

Well, I must be off to a "comedic magician" for the evening. I will post more updates in a bit. I love you all!

Ship Shape for College

Oh my! I've been wanting to blog so badly for the last two weeks, but I have been so busy preparing for my "extended get away vacation" to Logan. But now it looks as if I'm ship shape for college.

It all began with my warts being removed. It was painful...and oh so disgusting. I will show you!

What a wretched place to have a wart...It's practically healed now!

The next day I went to the eye doctor to get a new perscription for my glasses...I walked away with contacts instead. The switch from glasses to contacts was interesting for me. I've had glasses since I was 8 - I felt so naked and insecure without them! I occasionally still reach up to push my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. I suppose old habits never die. :) But for once in my life I can now wear sunglasses. It's so wonderful!

Then I went to the oral surgeon to have a consultation for my wisdom teeth. I would be getting my lovely teeth extracted on July 23. That was the following week! The anesthetics put me in a complete state of delusion on the day of surgery. I hate that feeling of sleepwalking and not being able to remember a thing; this was fifty times worse. I was put out and woke up 45 minutes later with a wad of gauze packed into my mouth and a few select "items" missing. My family has a few good stories for you. :) We decided that if I were ever to take up drinking, I would be a "dark drunk." I get mean. But the whole procedure went well! I experienced very little pain and didn't hardly swell. In fact, I went to the Pioneer day parade and Jeremiah's the next day! My friends brought me ice cream by the buckets, and I got to lay around for 2 days watching musicals. I was in heaven!

My chin was numb. Right before this picture was taken,
my mom brought me down a glass of water. I missed my mouth.

I had my blood pressure taken four times that week. My wart, my eye exam, my wisdom teeth consultation, and my random drug test. Oh yes. I, Jessica, the part time employee at Redd Roofing, was oh-so-fortunate to be selected as one of the participants in the quarterly random drug test. I'm there one day a week! The receptionist, who has been there for a few years now has yet to be selected. So I got to drive down to IHC Workmed and pee in a cup. It sucked. Don't worry - the results came back negative. No need to rise to alarm.

I began my weeding job sometime amongst all these happenings. I get paid nicely to weed my uncle's 97 year old grandma's yard in Brigham City. She's a wonderfully healthy woman and incredibly nice. Heck, she still drives her car! I will be able to keep this job while I'm in school because it's just over the mountain, so I'm quite pleased with this arrangement. But I will still need to find another job up in college-town Logan. Wish me luck!

The receptionist at work went on vacation to Hawaii for 10 days. (Lucky!) So I was privileged to be able to fill her position while she was away. I was really nervous, but I was able to start figuring things out and got A LOT of help from Becky, the wonderful office manager. Everyone in the office was extremely patient with me. I thank them whole heartedly. I typed letters, filed, got the mail, ran to the bank, answered the phone, etc. Last week I had a hard time remembering how to answer a phone at home. Every time I answered the phone I always began to say, "Redd Roofing Company. This is Jessica." I had the hardest time remembering the simplest of words: "Hello?" I also loved the days I got to run to the bank because of Cameron the bank teller. He was very handsome and charming. Too bad I never had the opportunity to tell him good-bye. *Good-bye!* So I was able to make quite a few extra dollars before heading off to school this week and gain a lot of experience and a new kind of confidence. This opportunity helped me to realize a lot about myself.

I have dubbed this week "college prep week." I finished my book that I had to read and I called all the people that I needed to. I had a few problems finding where my scholarships were floating around, but I got a hold of them just in the knick of time! One of the people I needed to talk to ended up moving to Texas - so that was a joy ride. I went supply shopping for everything yesterday and spent all my gift cards and a lot of money besides that. Living is expensive! I will be leading a poverty stricken life for the next few years of my life, but I am content. I've always known it would be that way. :) But money is oh-so stressful...

I move up this Saturday - August 15. Tomorrow is my packing day. I don't know exactly what to pack, but I'll be ready. I'm really excited! I'm a little nervous, but more excited than anything. I hope to make fast friends and meet up with all of my roommates as they move in throughout the week.

Utah State! Here I come! *Go Aggies!*

We Love Potter!

I will willingly admit that I am a Potter fan. Thus, going to the midnight showing and getting back at 3:00 AM is totally worth it!

Janessa, "Jeanetta," Simon, and I

I went to pick up Shanna at 10:00 PM, but was surprised to find "Jeanetta" flying out the front door instead. ;) She bounced into my car and proceeded to tell me of her adventures and preferences of the British life and how excited she was to see the Harry Potter movie here in America. She was so glad to be an "exchange student" here at this time - it was a bit of home. :)

We pulled into the theater parking lot and put on our magical Potter capes. Jeanetta even brought a wand...it's remarkable - the resemblance between her and Harry! We found some friends to join in line and I introduced them to "Jeanetta." We laughed and had a good time talking and watching the best pieces of "My Fair Lady" on Jeanetta's ipod. Luckily, it was a warm night - so waiting outside was quite an enjoyable experience.

Finally the moment arrived and the theater doors flew open! Jeanetta and I rushed inside to snag great seats. There were some fabulous people sitting behind us who were Harry Potter finatics more so than we were. They gave the movie an extra hilarious twist with each witty whispered remark - Jeanetta and I were dying!

With a flick of her wand, Jeanetta changed her hair color.
It's frightening how much she looks like Shanna when she does that! ;)

We loved "The Half Blood Prince," and declared it our favorite Potter film yet!

Bear Lake Sistas

I'm back!

Thank heavens for friends like Angie Barlow who are go-getters and organizers! Our "momma" Angie arranged for us to stay in a condo and go boating at Bear Lake for the past weekend. It was such a blast!

After work on Friday, me, Angie, Brynne Ludlow, Katie Forsberg, and Janessa Richardson all piled into Angie's Chevy Lumina and made our way up to Garden City. We found out where our comfy condo was located and made our way to eat some food - because quite frankly, that's what we teenagers like to do! We ate at a pizza joint that is the home of the "Old Ephraim" Pizza. It's a 28" Pizza!!! The Papa size that we ordered looked miniscule in comparison, when in fact we had a hard time finishing that between five girls. :) It was so funny to see the faces of customers when their "Old Ephraim" Pizza came out - I wish them luck.

After dinner we made a late evening stop at the lake itself. We played in the water (Brynne played in the mud) and swam from buoy to buoy until it was too cold to go on. We went back to the condo and realized that one of the bathrooms had a jetted tub. So we cranked on the hot water, flipped on the jets, and all crunched into the tub in hopes of feeling our toes once again. It was so funny...and very uncomfortable, but warm - that's all we were truly asking for.

Brynne trying to warm up in the mud

Angie, Janessa, Brynne, Katie, Moi

I learned to water ski!!!! It was so much fun! I was able to pop up on my second try and was so proud of myself - considering my lack of talent in such sportsy events. I was able to stay up for quite a while, but I didn't know how to steer and ended up hitting the wake, which caught me off guard and sent me hurling forward, ripping me out from my skis. But as much as I thought it would hurt, it wasn't so bad - the worst part was the water unexpectedly shooting up my nose.

Angie's dad rescued a boat of people stranded in the water. We had to tow them back to shore, but you can really only go so fast when hauling another boat. The shore didn't appear that far away, but what looked 5 minutes away, took an hour...we caught up on our sleep and enjoyed the sunshine.

Katie's feet

We performed insanely good-looking make overs on one another and laughed at how ridiculous we looked. And we ate trail mix in front of the fire all night.

Angie, Me, and Janessa

My friend Angie announced to us that she was investigating the church! We were so happy and I was especially excited for her. We all had scripture study together at 1:00 AM and said a group prayer at the end - which provided the perfect end to an eventful day.

The next morning, "momma" Angie and her assistant Brynne were up and making us ham and eggs, and getting everything ready for our boating excursion for the day. Angie's dad arrived at 8:00 AM. Angie was scared out of her mind because it was up to her to launch the boat while her dad drove the trailer to the marina. She had never done it before, but she was mostly successful in her endeavor. :) It was up to me to drive the rest of the girls to the beach where Brynne, Angie and her Dad would pick us up in the boat.

Katie and Janessa on the boat

We also went tubing on Big Mable, which is this giant red two-man tube that the Barlow's own. It makes me laugh so hard to listen to Angie and her dad talk about Mable becuase they refer to it as another member of the family. "Hurry Ang, tie Mable up!"; "Hey dad, will you help me get her down?"; "Are we going to lose her back there?"; "Do you have a hold of her Ang? Help the girls get on to her!" :) It made me laugh inside. Janessa and Katie weren't too big on attempting water skiing that day, but Big Mable was alright...except that we discovered that Janessa has an irrational fear of water - her face was always so classic when she rode Mable.

At some point of the day, we got our thrill-seeker attitudes together and attempted piling three of us onto Big Mable. It was sick! We three girls hanging on for dear life and Angie's dad whipping us every which way trying to make us bail. My forearms ached in ways unimagineable. :) There were points in time that the only thing keeping me or Brynne on the raft was when our legs were tangled together, and as soon as one of us flipped off, the other was doomed. Angie got to the point where she was dragging in the water, but didn't have the strength to pull herself back up. The last time I did it, my arms were jell-o. I willingly bailed after flopping around like a beached whale. I hardly had the strength to pull myself back into the boat! We all have very intense bruises that we are all so proud to claim as our own.

Brynne, Me, and Angie on Big Mable

It was such a fun day! On our way out, we picked up some raspberry shakes at Le Beau's and listened to Bon Jovi the whole ride home. We were so tired and sore, but we all managed to survive without too major of sunburns or life threatening casualites - which I suppose is the most important thing. :)

Now I want a boat.