Monday, July 16, 2018

Monday, April 9, 2018

good afternoon Blogger

 

https://goo.gl/4s97qH

 

 

 

Megan Lavin

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

And at once I knew I was not magnificent.

Wrote an email to someone; these were the contents of that email.

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Summer has been...interesting, to say the least.

The performing arts trip to Scotland and Ireland was amazing; I got to spend a week abroad with my peers and teachers doing what I love to do: singing. I made new friends, but unfortunately they are going off to college in a few weeks and I won't see them as often as I would during the school year. I brought home some souvenirs and over 1,000 pictures to commemorate my journey. I was told by many on the trip that I should sell some of the photos that I took, either online or to a greeting card company, because I had many great shots. I guess you could say that I got to do two things on the trip that I love: singing and taking photos.

Other than that, I have had a lot of downtime. I was a volunteer camp counselor for a week at a service project camp at my church for middle school kids. I was only able to go to three out of the five total days of the camp, though. One day I just didn't make it because my mom and I were fighting that morning and I missed the bus to the service project site, and the other day I was out taking my road test for my license. Overall, the camp was fun and I enjoyed my time there. My "boss" for the week gave me a copy of the new Bon Iver CD one day after I told him that I recognized a Bon Iver song he was playing over the speakers during an activity. Bon Iver makes some of the most amazing music I have ever heard. I have the CD on repeat in my mom's car.

Speaking of my Mom's car, driving is great. My mom has sent me off on errands to various grocery stores, and I often find myself driving to friends' houses or to my psychologist's office. It's so wonderful to just be able to drive around with the windows down in the late afternoon and the music turned up. Not having my parents in the car makes me feel like nothing can hurt me; not in the physical sense, but rather the mental sense. No one can be yelling at me or telling me what to do or making me think things that aren't true or any of that. When I drive somewhere, I feel a sense of relief for the first time in a long while; unfortunately it is ephemeral, because I have to return home at some point.

I was working on my senior page a few nights ago and realized just how surreal this all is. I am going to be a senior in about a month. I will finally have my chance to dress up in every article of red clothing that exists in my house and run screaming into the gym. I am going to be finishing up the last nine month term of my seven total years at RP. This time next year I will be packing up my things and getting ready to go to college. I am quickly realizing that I love RP. I have built this wall of safety for myself, and inside that wall is RP. Over the next nine months, I somehow have to push school outside of those walls as I come to terms with the fact that this chapter of my life is rapidly ceasing day by day. I don't want to admit this, but somehow I have to in order to make moving on less painful. I am realizing which friends will keep in touch with me during college and which will be "too busy" to reply to emails or texts that I send. I guess it is a good thing that I am realizing these things now; that way I won't be so surprised later on when these predictions become reality. However, I am not exactly the type of person that finds it easy to forget about the past and move on with life.

Things at home really haven't changed. There is a little less tension in the house, but I have a feeling it is only because I don't have the pressures of homework and grades. Besides, the stress of homework and grades is only being replaced with the stress of college applications. I have already made a lot of progress on CommonApp, which is good. Other than that, I guess you could say I am hanging in there. I won't lie to you; it's been a really hard summer for me. For now, I guess I am stuck with sitting around the house for a couple of weeks. Things start to get a little more fast-paced in mid-August; from then until the time school starts I am busy with an out-of-town wedding, field hockey camp, field hockey practices, and my A Capella group rehearsals. I do have a few days of down time in between some of these, but I am somewhat thankful that I will have things to do during the last month of my summer.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Life always knows the right moments to show you what you needed.

Day Two – Something you would like to say to an old friend.

Hey D, old friend, chickadee, I miss you. Remember how we used to hang out every single day after school during our freshman year? And we would talk on weekends and nights during the week? We would sit next to each other during history class all the time, and at lunch we had MCR parties. I miss that, all of that. I miss talking to you, hanging out with you, listening to music with you. You were one of my best friends—you took the time to know me, you understood me, you were a part of me. You felt my pain, I felt your pain. You felt my joy, I felt your joy. You helped me get through so much and made me into the person I was during our sophomore year. You introduced me to one of the best bands of all time, and in turn their music helped me through the roughest point in my life (…so far). Now, we barely talk, and if we do, it’s when we’re in the junior lounge together with only one or two other people. Our conversations are only there to prevent awkward silences. Sometimes, it might even include a little bit of gossip. The things we talk about now aren’t meaningful like they used to be; instead, they’re just things that come naturally to us girls (gossip, boyfriends, classmates, etc.). We aren’t in any of the same classes and we don’ sit at the same lunch table. Although we were never close friends before our freshman year, I had always thought that we would stay friends throughout high school. Unfortunately, I guess I was wrong. I really wish we had stayed close friends. You were someone I could trust and confide in all the time. I miss having someone I was so close to. It’s not even like we had a blowout fight and never recovered from it or anything. We just stopped talking so much and slowly drifted apart. It saddens me that this is the reason for the loss of our friendship. At the same time though, I am happy that we have another year and a half together, and I hope that perhaps we will grow close again during this time. If not, that is okay too. If I could say one last thing to you, it would be this: thank you for being a part of my life. You are such a beautiful person and I am honored that I had the chance to get to know you as well as I did. I wish you the best of luck and happiness throughout your journey of life, and I hope our paths will cross again someday. xoxo.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Assure me it's ok to use my heart and not my eyes.

Day One – Something you like about yourself.

Honestly, there aren’t many things that I like about myself. I actually hate myself for the most part. I have absolutely no self-confidence, I don’t think I’m very attractive, I pretty much think of myself as a loser because I have a very small group of friends, etc. If I had to pick one thing I like about myself, though, it would probably be how I try to answer questions about myself as sincerely as I can. If someone asks me a question that involves personal reflection, I try to answer it as best as I can. I want my answer to mean something. I don’t just want it to be another one of those “I don’t feel like doing this so I’m going to bullshit the entire thing” situations. Even if I would rather be somewhere else at that moment, I try to answer the question. Not just for the person who asked it, but for myself as well. Here is an example of a question/response exercise we did in my English class while studying The Great Gatsby a couple of months ago. The response only had to be about 6-8 sentences. I clearly wrote more than that. I replaced the name of my school with the words “my school,” just so you all know.

Part One. In the opening of The Great Gatsby, Nick reflects on advice from his father, who tells him, “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone…just remember that all of the people in this world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.” Reflect on something or someone in your life that has been an advantage or a support in an important way, and describe how this helped you to become who are today. Then, consider some aspect of yourself that you imagine you could “give back” to someone else, to give them a support or an advantage in life. What about you would you like to give to others, and how might you give it?

Personally, I have a strong support system for many reasons. This support system is made up of adults whom I can trust and go to at absolutely any time if I have a problem. Though my support system is only made up of four adults (teachers at my school and counselors), it is four more adults than some people in the world have today. I have a lot of issues and things going on at home and these people help me get through those things so that I can reach my full potential, especially in school. This has been such an advantage for me because if I did not have the money to go to my school or to pay to see a counselor, I would probably be in a much worse state than I am right now. These people have helped me get through so much and I don’t know what I would have done without them.

I feel that this journaling exercise is perfect for me, because I have been thinking about this topic for a couple of years now. I have thought about it long and hard, and I think that I just want to be a teacher when I get older. To be perfectly honest, the teachers from my school that have helped me so much have given me more chances and opportunities to reach my full potential than many other teachers would have the patience for. These teachers want me to do well, and they have showed me that they care about me and how well I do in their classes. At my old elementary school, I never had teachers like this. The teachers did not care about their students and they even made fun of them at times. When I came to my school, I saw a huge difference. I want to be a teacher because I want to help students the way that teachers at my school have helped me. I want to pay it forward and help other students succeed. Sometimes people assume that because I go to a private school, I can’t possibly have any problems or be struggling with anything. I want to show students that it is okay to be struggling, and there is always someone who will be there for them when they want or need help.

Just Say It.

I have been really bad with blogging lately, considering my last blog was posted in December. To fix this, I want to do a challenge to make sure I post something every day. Thing is, I’m really bad with long-term things and I have spring break in March so a 30 day challenge probably isn’t the best idea right now. Maybe in April I will do a 30 day. Early in June I want to start a 365 so that I can record each and every day of my senior year, with the last day being the day I graduate high school. Anyhow, here is my seven day challenge for this week. (:

One Week Challenge – Just Say It.

Day One – Say something you like about yourself.

Day Two – Something you would like to say to an old friend.

Day Three – Something you would like to say to the person that has hurt you the most.

Day Four – Say how you feel right now and why you feel that way.

Day Five – Something you would like to say to one of your ex’s.

Day Six – Something you would like to say about the thing you can’t live without.

Day Seven – Something you would like to say to the person who has gotten you through the most.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

I could stand here for hours just to ask God the question "Is everyone here make-believe?"

I am sitting here drowning in self-pity because all my friends are away or busy and I have no plans. I've got the same Mayday Parade song on repeat and it's an absolutely beautiful song with beautiful lyrics, but it's just making me feel worse about everything because of the way I've been lately.

Sometimes I have all these emotions built up inside of me for no apparent reason and they’re indescribable. I don’t even know what emotions they are. I just feel this way that I can’t describe and it makes me want to cry. I’m not even sure what it is, it’s just this feeling in my gut. I wish I knew what it is that makes me feel this way. You could say I'm in a state of alexithymia, except this is short-term. I hate feeling like this on top of having my mother yell at me along with K telling me how one of her friends is perfect for her except for the height difference. I just want a boyfriend or something because I'm jealous of all of my friends that have someone to love, but that doesn't have anything to do with this. And I want my mom to stop nagging me about finding a prom date when prom is four or five months away, but that has nothing to do with this either.

I just want to be happy but apparently that’s too much to ask.


And I'll be here by the ocean
Just waiting for proof that there's sunsets and silhouette dreams
All my sand castles fall like the ashes of cigarettes
And every wave drags me to sea
I could stand here for hours
Just to ask God the question, "Is everyone here make-believe?"
With a tear in His voice, He said, "Son, that's the question.
Does this deafening silence mean nothing to no one but me?"

Saturday, December 18, 2010

We've been living life inside a bubble.

It's been so long since I last wrote a blog. This has been such a busy month with homework and gigs for my A Capella group and the Christmas Concert and a bunch of other stuff. I haven't had much extra time to do stuff and yeah. The gigs have been taking up my weekends since the beginning of December and my school's traditional Christmas Concert was on Thursday so we had a bunch of rehearsals for that outside of school and homework was being packed on with no mercy.

I've been late to school every day for the past two weeks because I wasn't getting enough sleep so I couldn't get up in the mornings and it's really stressful. On Thursday when I walked into the office to sign in late, the school counselor was there talking to the receptionist and she started talking to me while the receptionist was getting something for her. She asked me if I had a rough morning and I said yes, and she asked me if my mom brought me and I said no (because my dad brought me). The receptionist listened to this conversation and ended up giving me an excused absence which I thought was really nice. I went to go see the the school counselor again later in the day and told her that I haven't been getting more than five hours of sleep a night for the past few weeks and she let me take a nap in her office. I was only supposed to take a 20 minute power nap but I ended up sleeping for an hour and a half because she hates waking people up. I got to miss half of Chemistry class for taking a nap though. It was seriously the best thing ever. She's an amazing person and she helps me soooo much and she's so unbelievably nice. I don't know where I would be if Ms. N hadn't suggested that I go talk to her that one time last year. Seriously though.

Tonight I went on a holiday tour of the White House with my school's Gay-Straight Alliance. We waited in line for over an hour and we were only inside for 20-30 minutes, which was kind of disappointing. The teachers that chaperoned were awesome and really laid back which made the trip that much more fun. We had a total of less than ten people so it was pretty easy to have fun together. It was so much fun, and I'm glad I went.

I'm thinking about college right now and which ones I want to go visit. I only know of two so far and I have to have a solid list ready in two months so that my dad can plan college visits over spring break. asdfgjkl I don't want to think about college yet. I love my high school but I also can't wait to get out of the house. I'm having fun with the people I'm around but I also don't want to have to come home every day. I feel like I'm living this split life where I love it here but also hate it here as well. It's true though--I love it here. I love everything about it; I love the people and the places and the familiarity of it all. I love being able to walk to the drugstore down the street and get milkshakes with J on hot summer days, and when they're closed, walk two miles to the Rita's across town and not have to worry about anything. What I hate is coming home to my house. I can't wait to go to college for that reason and that reason alone. A lot of my teachers tell me that I will absolutely love college, and I believe them 100%. I'm just so worried about picking the right one for me. I'm scared that I'll miss it here so much. I've never gotten homesick--ever. I don't think I will get homesick when I go off to college. I think I'm more afraid of getting hometown sick. I will definitely miss this place.

I hate feeling like this.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

I can tell just what you want, you don't want to be alone.

This is a blog that I wrote yesterday (11-28-2010) but never got a chance to publish. It’s short.

I finished watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie called “November Christmas” not long ago. It was a super cute yet sad movie. It ended happily but I still cried like a baby all throughout it. I love movies like that though. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (and as cliché as that sounds, it true).

Tonight I saw K one last time before she went back to college and gave her massive bear hugs. I haven’t hugged anyone in a long time so it felt really nice to just hug someone so tightly and have them hug back even tighter.

I found a song called “What You Know” by Two Door Cinema Club. It’s a cute song and I looooove it and I think that anyone who is reading this should listen to it. (: