I had a hard time keeping emotions held back with regards to this performance...

I've been doing a pretty good job at not letting this excavation into my past upset me or make me cry but sometimes my efforts to hold my guards up fail. After reading letter after letter that I would write to my dad after he was gone I'm left just so... sad. And obviously I cannot share this sadness with anyone but a) it makes people feel weird and b) they probably, no offense to anyone, wouldn't say anything helpful. Therefore I'm going to express it in here where people don't have to react or if they do they don't have to share that reaction with me. It's just hard when I'm having to recreate the way I felt at that time and I was so hurt. I was torn apart. And for me to be able to take the audience on my personal journey through surviving his death that means I have to get back into the vibe of that time in my life but anyway... My sob story of the hour is over. Let's talk some about Thanksgiving break and the fun things I've been doing and will be doing this week.

So over break I got to see so many friends and it was so great. I got to catch up with all of them and hear what is going on in their lives. It's so cool that even though we've all gone in different directions we can still gather together and share our stories. It was also a great week spent with family. Even though we bicker, they are my rock and the people I can always trust no matter what.

Last night was super fun. Mopeds, music sharing, talking about life, IHOP, and lack of sleep with my good friend Evan. Hi Evan! I'm giving you your shout out haha :) Let's see what do I have to look forward to this week... Beta and His Holiday party Weds maybe, Sig Ep formal on Thursday, possible appearance at Skiesta? Probably not. Symphony Friday. Then Celebration of Lights on Sunday!! :D I think I might plan a sisterhood event for afterwards, an Alpha Chi Holiday party. That would be amazing :) I gotta get on that! In fact... I have a lot of things that I must focus on right now so I better stop blogging <3 Bye kids

I realized how low my self-esteem has gotten....

I was talking with my mom tonight about the perfect men that I know that are completely out of my league. She said to me... "where did this low self-esteem come from?" and it really made me start to think. I mean I know that I have always suffered from it but ever since I've been at SMU it's grown exponentially, especially this year. Every single day all I can do is look around and think how I am not pretty enough, fashionable enough, trendy enough, sociable enough, skinny enough, or anything. I think about how my sorority is not even close to "top tier" and how I work my ass off trying to convince other people including freshmen girls and fraternity boys that Alpha Chi is cool and worthy of their time. It drives me crazy. I'm so tired of having to prove myself all the time. I'm sick of boys not giving me the time of day just because of some dumb organization that I'm a part of. This school has convinced me that I'm a piece of dirt and I'm so done with it.

I was living the dream in LA basking in the perfect 74º weather....

I can barely keep my eyes open right now. I don't know why I've been so tired lately but my first night back home, Friday night, I went to bed at 10:45 and woke up at 10. Yet that wasn't enough because then yesterday I ended up taking a nap on the couch at Aly's grandma's house. I did stay out a little late last night though. It was sooo much fun though. Aly and I went to Luke's house for Frosty's birthday party and I got to see a ton of my friends all at once. It was so great; the perfect way to kick off a week back at home sweet home. I wish that I could just kick back and be lazy for a week, but of course I have projects and my performance to work on. But right now, I'm going to nap. Lids heavy. Falling. Falling. Falling. Shut......

I finally felt a moment of relief and relaxation....

Today I had a meeting with my Solo Performance professor because after a week of writer's block and my sheer inability to concentrate and focus on one task for more than 5 minutes at a time, I was feeling extremely discouraged and worried. This feeling was even more amplified after I watched five of my friends do their performance previews today, all of which said were still in a "rough" stage. HOWEVER, contrary to their claims, each of their performances were so great. Sheer terror. I have nothing solid!! I only have ideas and thoughts and pieces and clips but nothing that anyone could ever call a performance piece. What I have now lacks eloquence of wording, clear comic relief or an accurate depiction of the stories that I want to tell. There is so much work that needs to be done. But after class I met with Rhonda and she helped sweep away some of my intense worries. She reassured me that it was alright to not have everything together and that I could just perform a few key scenes at preview and bring along whatever photos/video I can get, and read a few of the posts that I wrote in my livejournal after it happened, etc. So basically, it doesn't have to be really put together. I can just explain where I'm going with the piece. A huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders. Now I'm going to go on and live out the rest of this day with peace in my mind and confidence in my ability to get this done, and everything in general that I need to get done. With God on my side who can stand against me?

someone enouraged me to start up my blog again for real...

Alright so a new friend of mine motivated me to blow the dust off this blog and start fresh again. This doesn't necessarily have to be solely about pleasing the reader. It can just be for me. A place where I can open up and be honest with myself. So honestly... I need to spill what has been on my mind lately. I'm at a point in my life where I am finally taking a step back and observing where I'm at in all aspects of my life. By doing this, a sort of foggy layer has been lifted and I am able to see how far off the path I have wandered. If the person I was two years ago was looking at me as I am now, I'm sure the present-me would be utterly unrecognizable. How is it that I have so completely lost myself? I feel like I have literally uprooted myself and then proceeded to toss myself into the wind to let the world and those around me whisk me in any direction that they want. I'm trying to figure out how to start putting the pieces back together because I can't go on living this way. Another thing that has been weighing heavily on my mind lately is grades. I don't know what to do about them right now but they are the worst that they have ever been. I don't know how I let that happen but I currently have an estimate of two C+'s. I'm so disappointed in myself because I know I'm smart enough to get all A's but instead of reading before class, paying attention and taking good notes I decide to be lazy, go to class but do other work or go on facebook and have very incomplete notes. I just don't understand why I am so lazy all the time. It takes such minor tweaks to my study habits for some drastically improved results. JUST DO IT Michelle. There is so much to talk about... Let's just pick out the important things. This afternoon and evening I spent a good amount of time thinking and brainstorming ideas for my solo performance that is quickly becoming a huge priority and something that I can no longer keep putting off. I have to perform a rough version of it next Thursday! This is completely terrifying to me. As of now I only have a rough structure of how I want the flow of the piece to be set up and a few scattered ideas, but nothing even close to a script. I spent a lot of hours tonight reading through my old xanga and livejournal posts and found some great material that I think I can use to reference how I was feeling right after my father passed away. These past couple of days and this next week are going to be hard for me. I call it excavating the past because it really is digging up memories, both happy and sad, and reconstructing them. Those thoughts and moments that have been comfortably living in the way back of my psyche are being brought forward to the front of the line and it's tough at times to have them sit there. This is stuff that doesn't go through my mind often. These are wounds that are mostly healed that scars that I'm now having to pick at. This has to be done though. I hope it turns out the way I plan it to. Well that's all for tonights ramblings. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

I continued to have a really hard time getting something down on paper for my performance...

Ok so I think I want to start the performance with a couple childhood stories that involve my father. I want to be able to build that trust, that comfort, that security that I felt in the arms of my daddy. I was on the phone with my mom and she said "You were a daddy's girl" and that there was no doubt about it.

I think that it is too difficult for me to just sit here and write because I want to re-enact these stories. Not just tell them in story form. Actually... I think I want to mix in both story telling and story re-enacting.

Ugh these past 3 post have been pointless. I have gotten nothing out of them that I want. I wish I had all my materials with me: photos, video, notes, audio. It would great... but I don't.

Alright I have to go do Program Council stuff and then go to class. I'll try and write later.

I didn't know what to say for my solo performance....

Alright so I've been putting this off for a while. But I don't know why because it only requires me to sit down and write about my topic. Just write and not censor myself. What is so hard about that? It shouldn't be frightening to spill these thoughts out into a text box. I just can't believe that I have to perform this in front of the class in 9 days. That is completely and utterly terrifying. I have nothing solid at the moment. Alright so basically this post is going to start out really rough. Let's start by stating what I'm going to be talking about. Here it goes. I want to shape my performance around my father and his suicide and how it affected me. I want to share about my fondest childhood memories with him and my darkest times. It's an experience that I think really defined me. It caused me to grow up really fast and realize what is important in life. Alright I gotta do this later...