Bridesmaid

JennaCan... be the perfect bridesmaid.

There are several important things to remember about being a good bridesmaid. Number one! The bride is always right. Number two! Nobody cares if you hate strapless dresses, you're wearing it anyway. Number three! If you think you may be right, refer to rule number one.

I'm about to go meet the lovely bridesmaids and the lovely bride-to-be Ms. Jaimmah Blairre Flores for a little outing to get the perfect shoes. Blairre and I are both Scorpios, so we're used to being in complete control and a few months ago when Blairre asked me to be in her wedding, she seemed pretty... laid back. Surprisingly so for a Scorpio.
"Whatever shoes you want," she said with a shrug.
And now, a little over a month and a half to the wedding, we're piling into a carpool and driving an hour away to get the bronzy-strappy shoes she pictured in her "dream wedding".

But, because I love her, I'll willingly sacrifice my Saturday to spend it cooing over the shoes or the flowers that she picked. Also, because Blairre has excellent taste, I'm not all that worried about it. And she's pretty enough to let us be pretty in her wedding... unlike a lot of other brides that want the bridesmaids in neon green puff sleeves to look better in comparison.

Blairre and I have been friends since high school, 4 years ago. She was the type that would make it unbelievably easy to be comfortable around. We spent days and days at Starbucks, talking about boys and dreams and life. And she's always been a romantic and wanted to get married young but hey, I thought we had years and years.

Now she's getting married, to this great guy named John Melvin.
So regardless of the shoes, the hairstyles, the 4 (yep) parties thrown before the actual day, all of which I am expected to show up with a perky-bridesmaidy smile and carry finger foods, I'll be there.
But if she changes the dress to neon green, I'm gone.

Believe You Me

So if you've been reading, you know that one of my goals is to go on to graduate school to find some kind of secondary degree that would validate my on-the-way degree... meaning, if you throw a Doctor in front of my name, would I get more respect?
Eh. To be seen.
But more importantly, I think it's time to pull up some roots. I'm looking heavily at Mizzou and UNT for further education in journalism and mass communications. Should I pick up my life and make the drive in my cute white Scion to Texas or Missouri, leaving all of my friends and family behind? Or should I accept that going there would be jumping to a different tree, a lower branch, and at the end of the day if all I'm looking for is being able to write, would trying to make it big make me a sell-out?
Which has opened a whole world of questions up to me, mostly asked late at night when just the light of my glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling are judging me. What do I want in Washington DC or New York? Are those just symbolism for "making it"? Would moving there help me become a big author? Of course not. But maybe the opportunities might.
I've been lucky with a great family and fantastic friends and a wonderful hometown. Am I leaving because I think I can find better, even though I know I can't?
Or am I planning on leaving to see what I'm made of without the fall-back of my safety nets behind me?
Stay tuned.

Fast to Slow

Summer is quite possibly the best thing that happened to college students since the invention of facebook creeper feeds or ramen noodles. Maybe even black coffee or Captain Morgan. But I digress.
I've spent my summer so far just... working. But apparently I'm also moving into this incredible deal of an apartment and helping my bff mikey move to Los Lunas to visit his parents. Which kind of blows, because he's my best friend after all and I'll definitely miss him. And I'll definitely miss my current roommate Tony who was seriously fantastic as a roomie, but this new deal is amazing.
In other news, I've left my bed for a grand total of 4 minutes today and it is now 5:00. I've been up since 10:30. It's okay to be impressed, I kind of am as well.
I have done nothing for my summer goals yet. But it's still early, just barely May. I have faith.
Time for a nap to replenish my energy for movie night!

Summer Goals

JennaCan... have a productive summer

So I've made the executive decision to be productive this summer. My first goal was to get an internship (check), where I write technical things for 36 hours a week on base at White Sands Missile Range for the nicest people EVER.
But I figure that there are hundreds of other things I could be doing to better myself. So here's a quick list of some things I'm considering...
Yoga-lates (yoga and pilates together! hooray!)
a roadtrip
see every big summer blockbuster that comes NEAR las cruces
learning to cook
make it through a Blink-182 concert (my best friend mikey's favorite band... and apparently they're back together, so here we go)
Grow (and keep alive) a spider plant.

Stay tuned.

Jenna Can...

I've been called by a lot of different things in my 21 years.
My mom and dad named me Jenna, allegedly because my mom "liked the name!" but the truth came out years later (a Dallas star? Really, mom?). But I never really liked the name Jenna growing up.
There seemed to be only one given nickname. Jen (shudder). Which didn't do much for my individuality when there were (count 'em) three Jens in my fourth grade class.
I digress.
Then there are the questions. "What's your name?" Jenna. "No, your real name". Still Jenna. "Like, your full name?" Jenna.
But then I went to high school where, almost overnight, the nickname Jenna-Belle took off for some unknown reason, quickly followed by Jenna-Love, Jenna-Bear and, Blairre's favorite, Jenna-Face.
Then I went to college, where my first official act was choosing an NMSU email address. Candelaria was too long. Jenna was already taken. All that the email would let me fit was Jennacan. Thus, my new nickname was born.
Who even thought it would be a nickname? I sure didn't. My sorority sisters were the first to pick up on it. In front of my girls at a meeting, I was giving instructions on my email when everyone burst out laughing. "JennaCAN!" or, sometimes when I'm late for a party or can't go to the bar because of homework, I'm briefly labeled JennaCANNOT. I try to avoid that one.
What started as a simple email has now become part of my identity, a testimony to my abilities and a constant reminder to stay positive.
And so I begin this blog, where I hope to navigate through my senior year of college, reminiscing and trying new things. I'll find out if JennaCan... ace the GRE, be the perfect bridesmaid, survive one last sorority recruitment, fall in love and land a graduate assistantship for further education.
Lord help me.