Tonight's Entertainment.

So here is my reflection on a phenomenon that I think occurs in part due to an awful High School experience, really low self esteem, and an early departure into the real world.

In a class of 30 eighteen year olds, I shiver and stutter through a 4 minute presentation on campus safety. Delivery is great, visual aid is killer, I know the topic upside down, and I'm feelin' good. So why is there a jawbreaker in my throat? That's 8am...

By 11am I'm at work. In a conference room with 10 forty year old millionares who are successful in what they do, really important, and could potentially make me a lot of money. I then proceed to pitch a project that could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I haven't even had my morning tea.

So I realize that TRUE: I have spent more time with 40 year old business men in my life than I have with peers, and TRUE: I am passionate about what I do and therefore more comfortable with speaking on it, and TRUE: teenagers tormented me all throughout high school, but...this is just a little too extreme to be called normal.

The room full of my peers (the eighteen year olds) are all there to learn and grow together. But for some reason, all I see and feel are 36 pairs of critical and analytical eyes, 18 brains picking apart every word I say, every hair on my head, every blemish on my skin and ever rag on my body, and one massive threat to my mental homeostasis.

Perhaps its the lack of expectancy that I feel in the room with the 40 year olds that serves to be more of a comfort. Perhaps it's that I know that they know what I'm capable of. Perhaps I'll never really put my finger on it. But what I have learned is this:

Behind each one of those faces, whether an eighteen year old face or a forty year old face, is a mind not belonging to you. They don't know your troubles, your insights, your experiences. A person is a person, and as long as you know yourself well enough to know where you stand, you won't think the person laughing is always laughing at you.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent". Eleanor Roosevelt.

Holler

http://vimeo.com/23285699

Thorough

By the time i was 6 1/2, I had mastered the fake smile. I knew how to kindly and respectfully answer any question asked of me, and I knew to always shake a hand firmly.

I've been such a little actress that i don't know what my real smile looks like; I don't know how to portray what I really feel like. I can take on any persona that I'd like, and mood or edge that I'd like. I don't know how to be natural, and honestly I'm afraid to know at all.

Socrates' whole philsophy that one must "know thyself". This means not only having the ability to stand firm in your values and priorities, but to know your strengths and weaknesses of character, and thus be able to act on them (or not).

What if we don't know what our real weaknesses are? Or our real strengths? What if we've been convincing others of something so long that we've convinced ourselves, but it's not actually the truth?

Heart

I'm getting some testing of my heart done.

Can't help but think the irony is terribly amusing, as serious as this situation is.

I've always said I'm heartbroken. And I've always said that the mind is capable of convincing the body of certain things. I never thought my mind would take it quite this far.

Shoes

I guess I'm feeling a little bit older.
I guess I'm feeling a little more at home.
I guess I'm finally settling, coming to terms with who I am and where I am.
Unpacked my shoes today, I've been living here three months.
I cried when I came across my unused, cold dance shoes.
They don't belong on the rack with all the others.
I was one space short, don't have a spot for my gillies.

It's cause they don't belong on the shelf.

Funny

Currently blowing my mind, is how quickly we let things escape us.

Really it's about how quickly we let things step out of our minds, even just briefly. The concept really just took a step to the left, and is still standing right next to you, you just can't see it. It's growing and festering and infected, and it's only when it bubbles over and leaks back into your space that you remember it's existence.

They're right next to you, because you won't let them get any farther. Subconsciously you're holding on with all your might, not wanting to cope or deal with the small cut, until it's infection forces you to bandage it, medicate, and make it heal.

Right now, I'm meeting these concepts. These festering issues standing all around me. I hate them, but I love them, which is why I never let them really leave. They're such a part of me, but they're so broken.

The more attention I'm paying to these concepts, the more they're stepping back into my own existence, and eating me alive.

My God Life Just Fascinates Me

good god...life just fascinates me.

Wanna know what I love? I love seeing veins emerge on the surface of skin. Faces, forearms...do you realize what that means?

Particularly interesting is when there's very little physicality involved, when those veins bare their fangs, it means that blood is boiling. It means that the juice flowing within you has come alive...playing off the triggers going off in your head.

For me, my dance lived in my veins. My heart beat with the pulse of the music....such passion I'll probably never know again. Thinking that even for a few minutes, someone else might be quite passionate enough about something...their heart pumps just so...that their blood begins to race, excited with intention and purpose...

Excited with intention and purpose..