always end up shortstacked in middle of tournament

hey all,
I been playing some Stars micro buy-in tourneys recently. Starting off, I usually get my chipstack up to ~1900 from 1500, and then the cards run dry and/or I get too conservative. as the tourney goes on, i end up shortstacked with around 1200 chips(failed raises with the AQ i waited 4 orbits, flop: K97), and end up having to make a drastic move. I push stuff like 98s(two hopefully live cards) with about 8 or so BB+SB left, get called by A8, and lose. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] This place has always been helpful for me, so any ideas/comments? anything im doing wrong etc?
I have read HOH1, and TOP.