Where it all began (For me, that is: Aaron)

When Jennifer and I met I was a leader in the internship. My first memory of seeing her was the orientation that she mentioned. I was sitting in the back of the room with Josh Hawkins when, as she mentioned, she and Brianna walked in. Leaned over to Josh and asked if he knew who they were. He said that he had picked them up at the airport and that one was Jennifer and the other Brianna but he couldn’t remember which was which. I remember admiring that they both had very short hair.

I don’t remember much of Jennifer’s introduction but I do remember being impressed with the way she spoke and handled a crowd. It wasn’t until later that I found out that she had been big into theater.

Before going any farther I think I should mention that there was so much that happened in such a short amount of time that timing of many of the events that led to where we are now are kind of mixed up in my memory so I/we might get a few things out of order. If you spot a non-sequitor just go with it.

Anyway, one of the next events I remember is when I walked into the cafeteria one day about two weeks later to fing Jennifer and Bob Powers chatting. I walk up and am met with a rather ferocious “How old are you?!?” accompanied with an irritated stare and protruding pointer. In my confusion I manage to stammer out that I was nearly 21. “Good!” came the forceful reply. She then proceeded, in one of the best rants I had seen to-date, explain how some of the 18 year-old boys would only talk to the blond 18 year-old girls and vice versa and how she, and others, had been rudely ignored simply because they were not 18 and blond, etc, etc, etc. This rant lasted for about five minutes. All the while I just stared and tried not to grin.

Finally, as she finished up, I said “Wow, that was the best rant I’ve ever heard. Well, it’s official, I’m in love.” I was mostly joking but I’m pretty sure that my crush on Jennifer began at that moment. I fought it off, of course, but I think that the seed was planted there and then.

There were a few other significant things that happened between us that took place before we admitted that we had a crush on one another. There was the time that we went to the plaza with a whole bunch of people and were just a few steps ahead of everyone else and for what ever reason that attracted a lot of attention and we had to endure a few mild accusations. On the drive back I remarked on how the area around the Plaza quickly becomes dilapidated as you drive out. Jennifer’s response was “Nice word!” and we gave high fives over whichever poor intern had the misfortune of sitting between us in the back seat. (P.s. a good vocabulary is the way to go when trying to impress an English major)

Another pre-crush moment for me was the time that we rode in the same car to Chipotle where we were meeting the rest of the internship for dinner. When we arrived Jennifer went in to use the bathroom and I looked around to find someone I wanted to talk to. I scanned the entire internship and came to the realization that there wasn’t a single other person I wanted to talk to.

The last Pre-crush moment I can remember off the top of my head (I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two) was the time that a bunch of us were hanging out in the rain. We were all laying on the concrete and chattin. Since I didn’t have any thing to use as a pillow Jennifer shared her backpack with me. We sat there and talked bout everything. We talked about where we came from where we were going in life and we even talked about how many children we would like to have (remember this was totally innocent at the time, neither of us were thing about having these children with the other person). Someone snapped a picture of that evening. I’ll see if I can scan it and post it.

More to come. . .