As Kendall mentioned in his post this week, I am officially an adult now! (Haha, Kendall's still a minor!)
A warm thank you to everyone who made me feel so special, even unconsciously and/or in the teensiest bit (Man on the Bus Who Smiled At Me Today, that includes you, too!), but most especially to the ones who put so much thought and effort into doing so: Mom and Dad, Shayne and Josh, everyone in the Canada and the Philippines (Facebook and unlimited country-to-country phone calls really do make the world a lot smaller), my titos and titas here on the islands, Kerms, Jaime, Rebecca, Gavin (my birthday twin), Poppet (you made me cry, love), Mr. U, Kirsten (you could have shown up empty-handed and I would have continued to love you just as well), Aid (and Mama Lee, too!), Win (<3), students in the leadership class (way to TCB, guys!), Rennel (I am confident that you'll always remember my birthday for as long as I live, man...thank you for that "Good Birthday Morning" text!), Mr. Kashi, Ate Bao, those who greeted me around school and on Facebook and on the card that Jaime had. (I hope I didn't miss any of you!) I have so much love for all of you and the rest of the world and I'm literally (literally...oh, misuses of "literality!"), to quote Mr. Waters, on a "roller coaster that only goes up," my friends. Up and up and up it goes!
Today was a really good day: I ate wonderful dim sum (so much dim sum...Kendall ate, virtually, nothing...) with wonderful people and then just walked around in Chinatown. At one point in there, I prayed to and burned incense for some sort of Buddhist goddess of mercy....I think. Very cool.
So now that I'm 18, I can now vote (I've been registered since, like, the 2nd quarter!), be tried as an adult in court (yikes), go clubbing (yeah right), sign my own documents (wow), and so much more. But at the same time, it's weird because I have never felt so young and childish and invincible as I did this past week.
Most adults say that teenagers are foolish for thinking that they (the teenagers) are invincible. To this, I have always said, as Alaska Young and Miles Halter have inspired me to believe, "WE TEENAGERS BELIEVE WE'RE INVINCIBLE BECAUSE WE ARE. We are all greater than the sum of all of our parts." Adults forget this as they grow older and their minds fill with trivial adult-life matters and numbers. They forget that man is capable of so much more than what meets the eye and begin to value people based on their practical abilities and skills, not based on what they believe, what they stand for, what they are passionate about, what they leave in this world. Though I'm now 18, an adult, I pledge and promise to never forget that I am and forever will be as INVINCIBLE as I believe I have always been.
Finally, some updates, reminders, and announcements:
-Starting on February 1, we're doing BEDiF to chronicle our 29 Gifts Adventures.
-I'm working on Kendall's 13 Little Blue Envelopes-themed scavenger hunt. Hopefully, I can complete the first task this week!
-I've been very good at writing in my The 18th Year journal every night--no matter what! Jen's proud of herself.
-Our lessthanthree stories are due by midnight tomorrow! Yikes! Gotta go work on finishing that. (These are the stories that we're going to submit to Kristina Horners and Hayley G Hoover's new project: writing and publishing a book of short stories about how we can form meaningful relationships (both friendship and love) through the Internet.)
And that's it for now--see you all later this week!
Risks taken: 12 (I'm getting complacent about this and it definitely shows in my risk-taking speech performances...NEED TO TAKE A HUGE RISK BY THIS SATURDAY (day of the tournament!)!
Hugs: 8
Current food cravings/obsessions: I am so full from all that awesome dim sum....
Playlist(s) of the Week: "Add 30 Years and Some Free JD's Ice Cream"
0 comments!:
Post a Comment