2016

Hello, humans.

So, 2016 is coming to an end and we're all hoping that its ill luck won't follow us to 2017. It was a crap year for the world in general: a narcissistic businessman with no political experience whatsoever was elected president of one of the most powerful countries in the world, there were various devastating tragedies (the crisis in Aleppo, the Otto Hurricane, and other terrorist attacks and natural disasters), Brexit happened, and we lost many popular celebrities. However, there were also good things (honestly, I had to look them up): the war in Colombia ends with a Peace Treaty, America (the continent) is declared measles-free, Fidel Castro died, gravitational waves were detected, and the Giant Panda is no longer endangered.

Personally, it was a good year for me. Things finally started to get better after four years of hell. I started going to a new school and it was a wonderful change. I met amazing people and learned interesting things. I also won two national gold math medals this year, which is a great triumph for me because I love math. I ALSO SAW COLDPLAY LIVE, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? IT WAS SO UNREAL. 

This year showed me that there's hope and that feeling better is possible. Of course, I'm not completely well yet because I developed my issues over many years, so they can't all go away in just a year. I'm slowly but surely getting better. 

In the past years, I've dreaded New Year's Eve, and this year is no exception. I'm not gonna lie, my anxiety is killing me as I type. I'm trying to stay calm. Why do I get so anxious at the end of the year? Probably because it is a reminder that time is melting away and that the past if gone forever. I really miss the past because I feel like it was better, and I'm terrified of the future. What if I go back to feeling like crap? What if I've actually never left and better is just an illusion? What if next time is worse? When will I crack? I have loads of horrible doubts and if I keep thinking about them I'm going to pass out. However, I need to remember that they're just worries and that nothing is certain. Why does the future have to be bad? I don't know what's in store for me; it might be good. There's no need to be afraid. 

Next year, I'm going to start the IB Program. That is scary as heck, but it's also exciting. I'll hopefully develop useful skills and learn new things, if what the IB people say is true. I'll also have many opportunities to travel abroad because of math. Some cool stuff will happen, probably.

I'm grateful for everything that happened to me this year, even the bad things. I have no idea what's coming, but I know I'll be fine. I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this, but 2017, come at me, bro.

I wish you all a wonderful 2017.

Love, 

Nan.

Here are some pictures of my best memories of 2016.

This awesome new gang, and many more people (I love you all). 

Chicago.

This museum <3.

The day I died, went to Heaven, and unfortunately came back.

Accurate description of how I felt during the concert.

The best state amirite. 

Guns & Roses (SLASH).

The final was very fun. 

Yeah, this happened :)

Sarah's Surprise

Hey, humans. Today I have a short story for you. I hope you like it!

*****

I rushed out of the kitchen after my mom.

"Mom, you can't do this to me!"

"We're not gonna talk about this anymore."

"But I need that hoodie, mom. You don't understand."

"You should've saved up, then, instead of spending all your money on the same kind of clothes!"

"I need to keep my aesthetic alive! And it wasn't just clothes, I bought other things too. Anyway, that's beside the point. I'm suffering a great injustice at the moment!"

"Ha! A great injustice! You wouldn't be worrying about a stupid hoodie if you were going through something truly hard."

"But mom-"

"No. Enough."

My mom left the room and I collapsed on the couch with a grunt. My nails dug into the skin of my crossed arms as I sighed and pondered on this unfair situation. I had dreamt of that black hoodie since it came out a few weeks ago and my mom couldn't even begin to comprehend how crucial having it was for my life. I imagined myself walking into school with that hoodie, all heads turned to the Queen of Darkness (as a nice girl had nicknamed me on Twitter), full of black glory. That thought eased my mind for a moment, but all the wrath came back when I remembered what my mother had done. 

Albus, my dog, ran past me with something in his mouth. 

"Hey, Albus, what you got there?"

Albus pretended not to here and scratched my mom's bedroom door. 

"Come here," I called him. 

Albus came reluctantly and stopped a few steps away from me.

"Come closer."

He took a step forward.

"Albus."

He came closer and sat down in front of me.

"Drop that."

Albus lowered his head.

"Drop it."

Albus opened his mouth and a small pixie doll fell to the carpet. I picked it up. How weird. It was not rigid enough to be a doll. They really make toys very realistic nowadays. 

"Albus, don't go around stealing Josh's toys. Bad dog."

I stood up and went to Josh's room. He stopped playing with his toy cars and looked up to me.

"Josh, is this yours?"

"No way! That's for girls!"

"Oh my God, Josh, anyone can play with dolls."

As soon as I stepped into my room, the doll moved in my hand.

I let out a little scream and dropped it to the floor. When he hit the ground he made a small sound and rubbed the back of his head. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, you scared me," I apologized.

I kneeled down to pick it up and quickly looked for a place to put him. One of my old doll beds was lying upside down inside my closet, so I picked it up and put the confused pixie there. He laid his head down on the little pillow and closed his eyes.

"Um, you shouldn't fall asleep after you've hit your head that hard. Sorry."

The pixie opened his eyes and glanced at me, annoyed. 

"What happened to you?"

The pixie sat up and pointed at the bed, complaining. 

"Hey, I know it's pink, but at least it's a bed. All of you boys have a problem with 'girly' stuff, huh?"

Suddenly, the door was flung open and my mom stormed in with Albus behind her. With wide eyes, she looked at the pixie and then at me. 

"You are in big trouble," she said, shaking her head. 

I opened my mouth to protest when the words were stolen from my mouth. 

"It wasn't my fault, Carmela! She told me to drop the pixie and I had to. It would have blown my cover!" the Maltese spoke.

"Oh, and giving her a living pixie and then walking into her room speaking is perfectly normal, isn't it!"

"Wow, wow, hey. What's going on here?" I asked.

"Your mother Carmela is the Guardian of Magic but she hasn't told you because she's afraid of magic even though she knows it's completely harmless and you won't-"

"Shut up, Albus!" yelled my mother.

"Wait, what?"

My mom walked forward and sat on the floor next to me.

"Listen, Sarah, there's some things I haven't told you."

"Oh, I see."

"It's not easy to tell. Okay, first of all, magic is real. Not in this world, though. There's kind of a gate between the 'magical world' and the 'normal world.' I'm in charge of that gate. I'm the Guardian of Magic. This ancient title is passed down from mother to daughter."

"Okay, but why can Albus talk?"

"He comes from the 'magical world' and he has lived a long, long time. He was my mother's, my grandmother's, my great-grandmother's, and so on."

"Why?"

"Because I was in charge of them, and now I'm in charge of your mother," Albus answered.

I looked back at my mom.

"His job is to make sure that I'm doing my job correctly."

"Okay, so you're telling me that you control the entrance Fairy Land or whatever and a talking dog is your boss?"

"It's not that simple. I regulate the traffic between worlds and fix any anomalies so that neither world is ever disturbed. A Supervisor that looks over my work and assists me in my duties was assigned to me by the Magical Council."

"It's just what you said but in a more fancy way," said Albus.

"But wait. You said that it was passed down from mother to daughter," I questioned.

"Yes, but you were only supposed to know until your seventeenth birthday," my mom replied.

"So there's a magical world and you've never told me?" I stood up and put my hands on my hips.

"You weren't ready yet," my mom said, standing up.

"I don't care if I'm not ready. If there's magic you should have told me, because that's pretty cool."

"As the Guardian of Magic I have many responsibilities, and one of them is keeping magic a secret."

"But I would know when I turned seventeen anyway, so why keep it from me?"

"It's the rules, honey."

There was a brief silence, broken by Albus.

"Now that you know, you must begin your training."

Mom looked at Albus, her jaw dropped. I looked at him and then at her in the same fashion.

"No! I don't want to!" I protested.

"Too bad," replied Albus.

"Mom!"

"He's right, Sarah."

"But I don't want to be Magical Doorkeeper or whatever nonsense yet!"

"That's the way it is, sweetheart. We need to follow the rules."

"I can't do it mom; I'll screw up!"

Mom walked towards me and put her hands on my shoulder. "You won't screw up, Sarah, I promise. The women of our family have been doing this for centuries. They haven't failed, not even once, in the whole of history, and you're no exception." 

She hugged me for a while and then kissed the crown of my head. "You'll be fine, don't worry."

Mom picked up the bed with the pixie on it and walked to the door. "Let's go, Albus. And Sarah, please go to bed now. Your training will begin tomorrow."

She left, closing the door after her, and I stared at it. What in the world was I going to do now?

*****

I really hope that you liked this story. I know it wasn't that good, as I wrote it in a rush to have something before the end of the day. Fortunately, I barely made it. Tell me what you think in the comments!

Love,

Nan.

Update: shoot a lot of people read this story and it's really bad omg I'm ashamed sorry.

I Am A Bad Leo

I disagree with the position of the stars when I was born. 

My Sun sign is Leo, and I'm nothing like a Leo. Let me break it down for y'all. I've gathered some Leo characteristics from various 'reliable' sources on the Internet (not Wikipedia, ha! Such scientificism) and I'll go through them saying why I'm not like that.

• Leo is full of energy and vigor. Come on, if I could stay in bed all day I gladly would. 
• Leo's 'planet' is the Sun. I hope the Sun explodes and kills us all (I hate it). It is so bright and hot, and because I'm as pale as a corpse I turn into a fried shrimp every time one of its glorious rays caresses my face. It's painful and annoying. 
• Leo's day is Sunday. Sunday is literally the worst day of the week because I basically spend all of my Sundays looking at time slip through my fingers like powdered sugar until Monday inevitably returns.
• Leo's color is yellow. Bright yellow makes me feel nauseous. The end.
• Leo is warm. Oh, you're showing affection to me? Oh no. No, don't hug me. I don't want any of your 'feelings' *runs away and hides behind the tombstone of a meme. Last seen on Facebook, it says*
• Leo is self-confident and attractive. Self-confidence? Is that a new normie trend ew. Attractive? Well, in kindergarden a boy said he liked me and then swapped me for another girl. Tragic.
• Leo is positive and charismatic. Three words: excessive catastrophic thinking. I also completely lack charisma, but that doesn't matter because at the end we're all going to be food for earthworms.
• Leo is cheerful and sunny. 'We're all going to be food for earthworms.' 
• Leo loves attention. Excuse me while I puke because two people read my entry and one commented.
• Leo is a natural-born leader. Group projects are hell.
• Leo is outgoing. Dude, my head hurts after every. single. social situation.

Of course there are other characteristics I do think I have, but people purposely make zodiac sign characteristics broad so that everyone can relate to them. They say things like you have great passion for what you love doing. Who doesn't love what they love doing?! Astrology is fun, but I don't think it should be taken seriously. If you do believe in it, it's totally cool though.

Love, 

Nan.

Sources I consulted for this post: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Hello

Hello, I'm Nan, and this will be my blog.

Ever since I was a little kid, I enjoyed writing. I've been writing since I didn't even know how to write. I used to make up stories, draw them, and then ask my parents to write what was happening as I dictated. The first story I remember 'writing' was one for my cousin when I was about three or four years old and she was coming to visit us from Spain. I don't remember what happened exactly, but it had something to do with us playing and spending a good time together with a mystery talking puppet once she arrived. After that, I continued 'writing' small stories like that one until I was taught how to write. 

Throughout my childhood, I wrote (and read) a lot. My stories were rubbish. However, no one told me that (fortunately) because I shared them with like two other humans (duh). Sadly, the habit died, suffocated by the growing mountain of responsibilities that one acquires as one grows up. 

I began writing less and less, and soon I was only feeding my creative monster with works written by other people. I'm not saying that reading isn't great, on the contrary, I need books to live. They're just not enough. I need to purge my creative urges in paper, or in a blog. Plus, I've received some good feedback from people in real life and online, so why not give it a try?

The problem is that I'm lazy. And I'm terrified of people reading what I write.

I don't have enough discipline to sit down and write on my own. I need to have a motivation or I won't do it. Having a blog will be like signing a pledge to write frequently. Doing this will also boost my confidence, I hope. Those are the reasons why I decided to start a daily blog. 

I'm going to try to write daily entries, but keep in mind that I might slip because this is just a creative hobby, not something that adds more stress to my life. They might be about my day, my thoughts, a story I make up, etc. There might be some entries in Spanish here and there also, as that's my first language.

However, there's a few things I'd like you to keep in mind. I will make mistakes because English is not my first language and I would really appreciate it if you corrected me (preferably in a nice way, but if you're here to be mean I don't care because you're just a bitter, miserable stranger hiding behind a screen xo). My opinions might change because I'm still growing and I don't have everything figured out yet. I'll try my best to listen and if my opinion changes because of your arguments, I'll admit it. If a decade from now you're going to be an ** and bring up something that I believed now, that's your problem, boo. 

I'll do my best and I hope you like my writing. 

Love,

Nan.