Remember Remember, the Joys of November

Excuse the sneaky little V for Vendetta reference there, it just had to happen ok? Well today is December 3rd and it's time for me to look back on my favourite month. This hasn't always been this way, I still remember 2010, which was horrible. Ever since then though, every November is just predestined to be awesome

The first thing shouldn't be a novelty on this side. Since 2011, November is my favourite month cause of NaNoWriMo. Yes, December is cool cause of Christmas, and in March is my birthday, but the month long joy/stress/awesomeness of writing a novel isn't to be topped by anything else, sorry. This year was stressful in many ways. I wasn't sure about participating due to an absolute lack of plot. At the start of October I didn't feel like I was prepared at all. Then the month went on and still, absolute blankness in my head. A couple of days before NaNo started I went back to the forums, just to be sucked into the crazy once more. It's hard to quit when you see others getting prepared. On the 31th October I had this rough idea of a girl on a zeppelin, on the way to the colonies. Kind of steam-punk, also maybe including the early history of New Orleans and the Casquette-Girls. Instead of plotting more, I drew the characters, so when the hour struck, I was absolutely helpless, but still ready to fight.

I might not be very good at drawing, but I enjoyed this for sure

I set myself many different goals through the month. One was as always to win by the 15th, so I could do Uni stuff that I was required to do during the second half. As most of my plans, that didn't work out. It wasn't helpful that I do have a demanding social live, a conference at my church on the second weekend, a weekend-long trip to Germany during the third  and work and a housewarming party on the fourth, plus two papers due on the fifth. Throughout the week I had to go to classes obviously, also we had this project going on at work that had to be done by the and of November. No writing time there either. Oh, and may I add the time spend with friends chilling and the birthday surprise party we threw for the flatmate? The more I think of it the more astonished I get on how on earth I even considered winning it.

In addition to that, as ever year we had chat-rooms. Like last year my time was spend in two of them for the most. The swissnanos and the Burmingham-Westmidlands, as we made friends there last year. The good thing were the people who are all completely utterly bonkers.

The bad thing was, how to focus when there is so much funny things going on there too?In addition to a life at uni and a life at home, I also had to deal with an online life. That is lovely on the one hand side, but it is not helpful when trying to squeze words out of your brain. Though I have to add that I would've never made it to the finish-line without these nutters supporting me and cheering for me to keep going.

Jup you read it right. I did not make it by the 15th, but by 11 o'clock on the 30th November, I hit 50'000 words. The last weekend was the worst. I still was around 15 k away and I had two papers to hand in. That meant having to pull through two all-nighters, one keeping me up till 4 am, the other till 5 am. I can't speak for the quality of my papers, but they were handed in in time, which was all that mattered to me then. On Sunday, I broke my highest amount of words in a day, which now is 8,9 k. My computer crashed which almost lead to me losing more than 5k words (I was able to fix it and only lose 700, but those 5 mins where terrifying). Special thanks to two insomniacs at this point, it was an honour having you with me during those nights.


This year was my hardest battle for winning NaNo so far. I present to you the stats of someone, who really overestimated them self, but fought till the end. I might also add, that this is only the second year for me to win with working on one story only. One is allowed to work on multiple projects and add the words, but that is considered rebelling. So instead of winning on the 15th, I won without rebelling this year, which makes me proud too. My story is a mess and I'm not even anywhere near a good point to finish, but NaNo this year was a true blast. Thanks to the #swissingham people, you are crazy in the best ways. Thanks to the purple elephants, thanks to the Brummies and the Swissnanos.

Oh, and sorry for all the people that were cut short this month, or for everyone that had to work with me. It was not easy, I try to focus on real live this month though (and all the tests, yay) .

Once again, NaNoWriMo for me means being crazy. I have a lot of madness inside of me and I try to push it down for 335 day of the year, 30 days of just forgetting about that makes me feel the happiest I can be. Having a story that came in your mind last minute? No problem. A new character you never planned? Sure. Bloody vampires out of nowhere? What has to happen happens. Of course in that process I get sad and confused and frustrated, but once again, all I can say is that I love love love it and if you ask me, I would do it again in no time, cause it is simply worth it to me.

Well that was my November experience, stressful but worth it. Sometimes it is just really nice to have something you can always look forward to. Is there there something like that for you too?

Cheerio.

defining your own freedom

 Next week I'm turning twenty years old. For some reason that sounds even scarier than turning eighteen was. I mean of course that's the age when you become an adult, you get to vote, you pay taxes and whatnot but in the end most of us were still very much kids when we got there and it was ok that way. Maybe you were about to graduate high school, you might've made plans to travel a bit, or your job training was about to be completed. Whatever it was, your life still had this unimaginable amount of possibilities open for you.

 There is something about being a teenager that means freedom. Maybe it's the lack of better knowledge or the fact that those hormonal beasts just can't be controlled anyway, but there are many roads open. You're free to choose what you want to study; you can never ever travel as easy as you can do now, the world lies beneath your feet. Yes you can still do lots of things in your twenties, especially when there is no hurry to have kids, but you have to be the right person for it. A traveller is easy going, adventurous. I have heard enough stories of friends who went to Australia during their gap year, whilst I sat on my couch in front of a laptop watching YouTube videos.

 Now I feel like the responsible side of my brain has taken over. I work, I go to Uni, I study, I go to church and youth group. It's somewhat monotone. The problem is I just recently discovered how much I adore not being tied to a normal life, how much I actually crave for freedom and the feeling of no strings attached. I thought that having found my place was what I needed. Having roots is a good thing and essential, but living in a golden cage would be torture to me as I seem to be having a rather free spirit.

 So much has had me thinking recently. Once again I look at my life and even though I'm not doing as poorly as I did a year ago, there is definitely more that I still want to do, so much things left to learn. I have a list of places that I want to see, some are not even that far away, but I just don't take the money and time and to actually move my lazy bum there. I'm also evaluating my own short- and long-term goals. There is a lot of faith in me that there is a plan for my life, maybe not for every little instant but for the bigger things. Am I right now doing whatever I can to get there, to achieve those goals? Am I wasting my time when I'm supposed to be doing something entirely different? It's quite hard to distinguish what I should do when. When is a time for quitting, when to endure? I have not a single clue; all I can is to try to make the best of it.

 So far I have not been such a person who wanted to escape normality by whatever cost it may take, but slowly I begin to realise how much the thought of that monotony appals me. How to evade it whilst still being a working part of society? I'm not one to drop out just like that, nor am I one to be pioneering and to make revolutions. I can't just quit my job because first of all it's a good one and I've had it worse. I kind of don't want to quit youth group because it's something that is dear to me, even when it's not always easy. I can't quit church because it's also a place where I experience some of the freedom I look for, though it's also the place that makes me feel restricted so much. Finally I can't quit Uni because even though for a short time that would make me very happy, it's not a good long-time decision. Maybe someday this stupid piece of paper that is a degree will be of a use. I even considered stopping to write this blog because I have not been happy with my online content recently. What am I even talking about? I just know that there is no quitting here, I just need to keep going. Sometimes feelings are tricky, mine usually leave the consequences to a future self instead of considering them in the first place, so I need to find a way to trick them.

 Yes, I realize where my main troubles lie, but as I said, knowing what to do next in life is quite a challenge. Where do I have to make cuts in order to refind happiness and to feel a little more liberated than I am right now? Is freedom something that is on my agenda right now?

 I don't know, that's just what went round and round in my head the past month. In the end I'm sure of two things: That once I'm at the finish line of my life I will look back and see how everything turned out just right. This means that in this very instant, I’m doing just fine even though I might struggle with it. The other thing is that finding out what that means exactly is the work and the adventure of a lifetime. No one is ever ahead of their life, everybody is in constant evaluation and recreation, you find your very on path and that's what life is about.

Cheerio.

Be the change you want to see in the world

So I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not the most energetic person and most of the time I am pretty lazy. Still there are some things that I'm very passionate about and for them I don't care how much work I have to do. One I have already presented you quite some time, its writing. To be published in some way is one of the main goals of my life, but there is also another one and this will be our topic today.

I told you I was making a video and as a matter of fact I managed to do so last weekend. I haven't worked on one in more than half a year, and even though I kind of missed it in general, this video had a purpose and there is a reason why I made it now and not a week later. 

Last year when I was still barely new to the whole YouTube world I read some tweets about a project called P4A, which stands for project for awesome. As a curious person with way too much time on my hand I clicked on one of the links that lead me to a live stream of this project. Basically we are talking of a YouTube based charity were every person that submits a video about their favourite charity has the chance of getting it streamed worldwide to all the people watching and thus promote the organisation they have picked.

I genuinely enjoyed myself last year while watching it and I made the decision then and there that next year I would participate with my favourite charity. So December came and I realized that it I was supposed to be revising and studying then, not making a video. I still secretly played with the idea and when I couldn't sleep last week I decided to just start writing what I wanted to say. After all I take pride in at least doing what I promised myself. I knew that it wasn't going to be hilarious or well scripted or anything, but as much as would've loved to make it brilliant, I couldn't do it in the time given. Also in my opinion it's great if someone has the talent to be witty just like that, but in this situation cause over creativity I'd say.

But what did I talk about? I choose the one charity that every person that knows me a little better has already heard of, because I love talking about it. It's the A21 campaign. Their goal is it to abolish modern day slavery and end human trafficking. Since I was fourteen or fifteen I had this idea in my head that I wanted to help females who became prostitutes if they wanted to get out of the business, no matter why it happened or where they are from. It was something that I carried along with me for some years and when I heard of this campaign my heart started beating very heavy in my chest. That was the summer a year ago. Ever since I've been trying my best to talk about it, and just spread the awareness. One day I will achieve my goal to work either with them or with a similar organisation, I will do my best for it.

If you are interested in the video, it is on the end of the post. I really need a microphone though because filming with my laptop on my legs that records every movement of my feet is not helping the quality at all. 
So now you know what I've been up to. Let me tell you, even though it was stressful once again I just love being active on the internet, writing posts, tweeting, facebook stalking, and making videos. 

Oh and if I'm not able to write again before Christmas: Merry Christmas and thanks a lot for reading my blog, I appreciate it a lot :D

Cheerio.

PS: I might just make my P4A video in October next year, just so it doesn't stand in the way of NaNo and my exams...

PPS:  The webside of the P4A for more information: http://www.projectforawesome.com/
The webside of the A21 campaign: http://www.thea21campaign.org/