I have a sadface today.

I've been thinking a lot about my hand these past couple of weeks, and how much it has stopped me from achieving things in life. It's made me stay on the sidelines instead of leading the pack. It has made me afraid of being who I am pretty sure I could be.

Though I am often held back by it, I think it has made me more of a fighter. I've had to struggle for things in life. For the small things. And the big things.

When I was a kid the playgrounds were all about the big scary climbing wall. You've all seen it. When we look at it now, we laugh and wonder why we ever thought it was so important to reach the top. But it was something we had to fight for. Some of us never got past the first step. Some of us got caught in the middle and some of us reached the top.

Mom used to say that it didn't matter if I reached the top. And to her it didn't. She still loved me. But I think I had to prove to myself, and everybody else, that I could. I could climb that wall, hand or no hand.

And I did. I climbed. And I won.

It was a great accomplishment for me. These days things are harder.

I've always been taught by my parents never to be ashamed of my dysmelia, and that I don't need to hide it. I haven't, but it's still always on my mind and subconsciously, it scares me. I am afraid.

I admit it. Because of this, I have given up things in life. I've been hiding. I've stepped off the ledge when all I should have done was to jump out and hope that my wings will carry me. But I haven't. Maybe I will soon. I've already started to trust and believe in myself more this last couple of years.

But I am only jumping a few feet. Nothing more.

I know my handicap is very simple, and I am lucky. I've got my wrist left, something I have had so much use of. I don't feel lucky most of the time though. I feel angry and sad. This isn't easy, and no one really deserves this.

This is such a depressing post, but I just need to get it out every other month or so. Usually I keep it all inside, until I burst out into a fit of tears.

I guess I just hate it sometimes. I hate it so much

2010, or as I like to call it, 7625.

To be honest, dear readers, I really don't know why there is such a big excitement about the new year. We're just celebrating a random amount of years.

If you're Christian and think that I am just a big bowl of evil at the moment, even you have to agree with that Jesus was not born 2010 years ago. The count started a long time after he died. So why is this number so great?

What is so special about 2010? It's not as if we celebrate the birth of earth. That happened many, many billions years ago. We're not celebrating the birth if home sapiens.

We are celebrating a random year. If you want to start your own, this might as well be year 52. Or 5691. It's up to you.

What many also fail to remember is that this new year isn't for all. The Chinese for example, their new year starts in february.

So, I have no point with this post. I just don't understand it.

Sarah,

Christmas and #p4a

To begin with, dear reader, Project for Awesome, was as the name hints, completely and utterly awesome. I didn't sleep more than six hours during those three days but it was worth it, oh so worth it. We managed to get to number one on the trending topics with out lovely hash-tag #p4a and though my internet stopped me from watching, I hear the livestream show was amazing.

Also, for those of you who celebrate it, you might have noticed that Christmas is nearing. As a matter of fact, it's in two days.

Here in Sweden we have the ridiculous tradition to celebrate Christmas on the 24th. I do not know why, for it makes no sense. But I find it tiring to complain about things I will obviously not be able to change, so I do not care.

Actually, I find our traditions here quite nice.

We have our stockings that we keep close by. As a kid I always hung it right beside my bed so I didn't have to leave my bed in order to open it.

Yes. I was a lazy back then.

If you're a kid you spend the morning complaining about how long they have to wait before opening the rest of their presents. If you're an adult, you either cook or you run around trying to keep check of those kids who often OD on candy.

Honestly, the second job is hard.

Then, after finding our family and praying that the night will go past without any mishaps, we all gather around the TV at three o'clock, young and old, to watch Donald Duck. I don't know why we still call it Donald duck when now adays there are many different movies, and not all are connected to Donald.

It's actually the Cricket from Pinocchio who leads the show.

I know this sounds completely crazy, but it's been a tradition for many many years, and we simply must follow it. We can't NOT watch Donald on Christmas.

As a matter of fact, one Christmas the power went off because of a storm, and came back about five minutes after Donald ended. We were all devastated.

We then eat for hours and complain about not opening our presents, and then, finally, some poor soul dressed as Santa comes in and hands out a few presents.

When I was five or six, I found a Santa suit underneath my parents' bed. I was destroyed.

He then leaves, and everybody starts ripping up their presents like crazy, and before you know it, the time has passed. The room is now covered in paper and strings. The dogs love it.

This is when the parents begin to drink some more, and where the children run around playing with their brand new toys. I often find myself in the corner with a book and a glass of champagne, though I am not really allowed to.

It's lovely.

And this is a very boring post, but I have been a rather boring person lately, so there you go.

Have a Merry Christmas, and a happy new year.

(Are you guys as excited for the Doctor Who finale as I am?)

Snow

Dear readers, Sweden now has snow.

It probably won't last long, and as far as I know, being as sick as I have been the last week, it's no snow-ball snow. And we all know that it isn't real snow unless you can make a good snowball. But this snow means that at least the global warming isn't as bad as we thought.

Just kidding. It's really bad.

But at least it means that Sweden might have a white Christmas again! This hasn't really happened in a few years. I remember one year when it rained all Christmas and we even had to cancel Santa because taking one step outside of the house meant looking like a whale. Yes.

I was a bit put off when Nevada, the desert, had snow and we up here, basically on the freaking polar circle, didn't even have a single snow-flake. If my face spoke in chat-speak, it would have yelled WTF. But thankfully it doesn't.

So snow. Yay.

I am currently reading The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, and I cannot believe I have not done so before. This is seriously, one of the best books I have read and I am close to declaring Douglas Adams as a genius.

Now I am off to bed, dear readers. Or, well, I al already in bed, but I am to lie down some MORE and read my book. So technically I am simply exchanging the computer for a book and not really moving towards sleep.

Okay, dear readers, I am now going to read a book and..not sleep. Yes. That sounds good. Bye.

Sarah

My life on the internet

Hello again dear readers, if there are any.

I have been asking all my friends online today for their addresses so I can send them christmas-cards. Now, this would be a whole lot cheaper and easier if I send them 'e-cards' or just pictures in general. But that's so easy, and it's basically what we do already. What I want to do, is to send them actual physical evidence of my existence.

Or something like that.

To be honest, I have only met - what could be it? - four people I have gotten to know through the internet, and one of them was not connected to the Nerdfighter community. Normally I would be the one who says, "No! Don't go and meet that strange person you have met on the internet!"

Which is what sane people might scream at the top of their lungs I suppose. But when it comes to my Nerdfighter friends, my Harry Potter friends and all those other people I don't think of them as creepy perverts. I have never given some thought of that they might be. To a great extent this is because I know them through pictures and videos, so it's easier to believe them.

But, when it comes down to it, all these social networks we have today, we really need to beware. With that said, I am going to point out how awesome they are. Just because you can do that when writing a blog-post.

My life on the internet began on Meg Cabot Message Boards. There I found the vlogbrothers and youtube.

Before that, Youtube had been a place where I could watch cute cats or people falling from silly things like a rolling trash-can. It was a place for music videos and movie-scenes. Never, in my whole life, had I thought I would find a community like the one there is.

Now, I live with it. I make videos at least once a week, and I watch all too many

After youtube it was twitter. Twitter lead me to Dailybooth and now, after two years, I found formspring.

It's amazing how much facts about my life you can find if you just look for it. If I ever were to become famous, I'd never have to write a "In the life of.." You'd have it all here!

You could argue that I have too much information out in cyberspace, but I truly don't care. It's nothing that can come back and haunt me or hurt people, so I must be satisfied.

I don't really know where I am heading with this post. I suppose I wanted to give my appreciation to the internet. The shameless linking a few lines up was all for your benefit.

Now... I am going to continue coughing even though it's 1.30 AM. I've been sick for a week, and the tough cold is refusing to give in.

Also, like I mentioned, I have been writing christmas cards all day, and if you want one (you do) send me your address in a mail, or on Dailybooth or where ever you would like to send it from/to.

I better be off now. cough cough.

sarah.saville - at - ybc-nacka.se

TV-shows

Paradise Hotel must be the worst idea for a TV program in the history of TV. This beats every stupid program in the history of the world.

What's it about? you may ask. Please ask. If you know it might mean that you watch it and I don't know if I can let you read my blog anymore.

For those, sane people out there, Paradise Hotel is a program where you send a bunch of horny people to an island with cameras on it. There, they are encouraged to make couples, have sex and create as much drama as possible.

Lovely.

Who thinks this is good TV? I mean, if you want porn I bet you there are movies that are better than this show. If you want drama, I would even let you watch Gossip Girl. Because, honestly, this is stupid.

Stupid. There is no other word for it.

And what is up with reviving all these old TV shows? They have had their glory days, how about you put down the remote and go outside. I am sure you won't miss a thing.

That 'V' came back I can understand, and look forward too. I mean, Aliens that look like lizards in hot human bodies. On top of all that, they are wearing very tight suits.

Totally awesome.

But Beverly hills? Come on! It worked back in the nineties with THAT cast. 100 year old Luke Perry and a very angry actor called Shannon Doherty. But it stopped for a reason. Now, you bringing it back?

By now we have enough shows with rich teenage kids who sleep around. We have bloody reality shows that are about that topic.

And Melrose Place? Honestly? REALLY? Who came up with that idea, and WHY, oh why, didn't you fire him? We had Melrose place. We had it for a really, really, really long time. We don't need it anymore. Those who do can just buy the DVD's.

NO MORE.

Sarah

NaNoWriMo

Hello there, dear readers.

As I am sitting here with the Wicked soundtrack blasting in my oversized head-phones, I started thinking about NaNoWriMo again. It might have been because I just watched Hayley's video about it, but it might also be because I have already opened a Scrivener project and I keep staring at the icon in the dock.

Terror.

Even though I am looking forward to this with my heart (corny, yes) I am also terrified. I know I need to focus a lot of school, and how am I to do that while also writing a novel? My friend is saying that she will write mostly on the weekends but I don't know how I could be able to write around.. what? 11.600 words every weekend? THAT, I cannot do.

I'm pretty sure this girl can, though. She was the only one who actually got anywhere last year. My novel didn't even leave chapter one.

In Kristina's NaNo post, she said that the year she was most pleased with her story, she didn't plan anything in beforehand. Since I have gotten NOWHERE when I didn't plan I still can't phantom how she did this. When writing short-stories I don't need planning, I just tap away on the keyboard, but whenever I try to achieve something bigger than just two pages or so, I fall flat without a goal.

That is why I think I will succeed this year. I have a goal, I have a general direction that I am heading for, even though I don't know how to get there. And isn't that the exciting part? Not knowing how you get there? Not knowing how to travel.

Now I am going to dive into my notebook and plan away! To make my notebook a bit more inviting I design something of a cover. I hope to be able to print it when school starts again, on November 2nd

.

Have a nice weekend!

Sarah

Also, I believe Sara has begun to read my blog so... Hi, Sara. I hope Germany treated you well!