So I really should be sleeping, because it's 3AM and I have class in five hours, but I had some thoughts that I just wanted to put down on some figurative paper.

Today was Communion for the spring pledge class. I didn't enjoy my Communion all that much, mostly because of the attitudes of my fellow pledges and the terrible weather. Still, for some reason, I wanted to be a part of theirs. Maybe I just wanted to have the opportunity to experience it in a different way, one that might be more positive.
I wasn't disappointed. I'm a sucker for pageantry and tradition, so while the "run-around-campus-doing-stupid-things" part was pretty whatever, lying on the floor of the Schwab balcony "om-ing" and whispering people's names was so much more fun that I ever thought that could be. Even if I did fall asleep. I lay there, shivering on the floor, wondering how many people had been there before me, and felt a profound connection with the past, the way I do when I look at our family tree or read my great-grandmother's journal.
When it was over, the personal stuff began, and a few people shed tears over their love for Thespians. I scoffed at them a little at first; I've been feeling a little disenchanted lately with the organization as a whole, but as I looked around the room, it occurred to me that nobody in that room is a bad person, and there is probably no one in that club who wouldn't be there if I needed let them. I've really lost sight of that in the past few months, and that's kind of sad. There may be drama, and some of them may be annoying as all get-out, but they're the friends I have, and they're pretty damn decent ones at that. There are few things over which I'd rather deprive myself of sleep.

It's one of those nights when I'm feeling sick to my stomach over how much of a slacker I've been this semester. Prepping myself for terrible grades.
fuckfuckfuckfuck

BEDA: Day LOL

In true form, I have thus far truly failed at this. My self-betterment projects never work out for me. I did, however, post a new video today.

BEDA: Day Three

Today my French teacher pulled me aside to ask me what was going on.
"What?" I asked, bewildered.
"You acted very disturbed in class today."
I was surprised by this, because I didn't think I acted any differently in class today than I usually do. Maybe I was a little quieter, but my friend who sits behind me wasn't there. The weird thing is that I wasn't even in poor spirits this morning. I sputtered something about being stressed and went on my way. But for some reason this little incident really upset me. I mean, there have been days when I've spent that class literally fighting back tears. But today of all days, I looked upset enough for her to show concern? Did I look disturbed?
The thing about this professor is that she loves to call me out about being shy. "Tu es trop timide," she loves to say, with a little giggle to ease the tension, to which I respond with an equally disingenuous titter. I don't speak in class often, this is true. I don't speak often in any class, and I don't think I'm the quietest person among that particular group of people.
I don't really know where I'm going with this, I'm just kind of ranting.
I don't really know where I'm going with anything.

Today's beauty: I watched three episodes of Veronica Mars.
Books read this year: 5
Currently reading: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson (Yes, I started a second book. What of it?)

BEDA: Day Two

Today contained an awful lot of feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt for one that started off so nicely. I woke up excited at the prospect of a free meal with a lovely person. Then, from around 2PM forward, I spent quite a large percentage of the time holding back tears. Just one of those days.

Anyway, I'm starting that thing bloggers do where they have a little thing on the bottom offering sort of glimpses into their lives. "Chipotle burritos eaten this year," "current nail polish color," you know the like. I see them as kind of metaphorical mile-markers of life. I don't know if these are the ones I will stick with, but here goes:

Today's beauty: I didn't have to go to Mass rehearsal.
Books read this year: 5
Currently reading: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (I started this in July, but I am actually going to finish it this time!)

BEDA Day One

This week is hell week for the School of Music's production of Bernstein's Mass, which I am in. Clearly. Why else would I be talking about it? Anyway, I call it hell week but as hell weeks go, it's relatively light: three and a half hour rehearsals each night are small potatoes when compared to the 7PM - 1AM runs we have during show weeks for NRT. I guess the difference here is that I did not volunteer for this, and if it did not exist, I'd be headed to Florida at the end of the week. Oh well.

Today's rehearsal was actually pretty cool. It was the first time I'd heard the whole thing and seen the movement and set and lighting design, etc. I loved seeing how something that has seemed so abstract to me for so long actually has a shape, one that I might hazard to say is pretty beautiful. Since I sit onstage the whole time (onstage being a loose interpretation of the word; I'm mostly behind a curtain), I had a lot of time today to think about the meaning of the production. It's not really a musical, and little, if anything, is actually spelled out for you. Sitting there, counting the measures until my next bout of singing, I was analyzing the symbolism within the piece, and for the first time ever, I started to feel like a future English teacher. Maybe I should take this as a sign that I really am on the right path.

I've had these moments of so-called clarity before, though and they always collapse back into uncertainty and doubt. Never once in my life have I felt "called" to be a teacher, yet that is what I am studying, paying thousands of dollars, to become. Honestly, I would love nothing more than for the writing thing to work out. That is what I want to do more than anything else.
Whew.
It has been a long time since I actually admitted that to anybody. What is it about this society that has made me afraid not only to go after my dreams, but to merely acknowledge their existence? So many of my friends are going for their dreams, even when many of them are close to impossible. How are they brave enough? Or maybe the better question to ask would be: why am I not brave enough? I would consider myself a fairly strong person. At least, stronger than many people my age I know. So why is this one thing so hard for me? Why am I so scared?