Greetings fellow readers,
Since there has been a very large gap since my last personal blog post, I thought I would spend the early crack of dawn (in UK time) updating you on where I am right now in my life.
For all of my dear friends and family that read this blog, they will hopefully know that I am 18. That's right, I'm at university studying law, I can now drink alcohol legally, I can drive and I can basically control what I do with my life. With my birthday just around the corner, I had a very deep moment of thought. Perhaps it's because 'nothing good happens after 2 o'clock' but I asked myself - what am I? An adult, a teenager, a child stuck in an ageing man's body?I look back at my 'youth' years and begin to simply think where the time has gone. It all started through looking at my itunes music. I think it's fair to say the whole world knows of my religious nature towards Madonna's music and any 18 year old can say remember the good old days when 4 minutes was released and how it was their jam of 2008. That, ladies and gentleman of my generation, was 8 frickin' years ago!
It has been 8 years since we were in primary school, playing with our cool Nintendo DS's and Wii. Not to mention, who remembers the massive responsibility of Tamagotchis, playing on Minecraft, spending hours on end on the Sims 2?
That was when teachers would ask us where we would see ourselves in 10 years time. Its funny to say that I seemed more certain of my future back then than I do now. FYI, I wanted to be a rich celebrity! But for people that really know me, I can barely sing and when I dance I look like a puppet on strings.
I have now hit the phase where my curious teen nature has fizzled out, in relation to drugs, alcohol, sex, hormones, the arguments with parents. I feel like I ticked off my list or that my 'wild' phase has gone. Personally, I believe drugs are a gateway to absolute suicide and whilst curiosity is natural amongst teenagers, it is not something that should be taken into the extreme. I have seen people deteriorate over such things and by the time you reach my age, you begin to see that its simply not cool anymore.
The good news is, acne has begun to die down off my face. The tip is, always wash your face! With regards to hormones, I've had less rollercoaster phases and have definitely been able to control my emotions a lot better. Don't worry kids, it gets better, people bully less, people try to avoid arguments (remember - your life isn't a soap drama or Mean Girls) and in this day and age we welcome people of all kinds with open arms!
With regards to alcohol, it feels so crazy to think I tried my first ever drink at the age of 16: it was so hardcore - it was a shandy! I know, I am proper hardcore when it comes to my drinks. One drunk story I would care to share would be that I threw myself in a sandpit and pretended I was a swimming teacher. That same night, I had a group meeting with some fellow drunk friends and we all started crying about our problems. Student life, eh?
Its so crazy to think that my generation was the youngest and probably the primary generation that got into social media. Boy, was I cool when I started putting all kinds of crazy filters on my photos for instagram? To me, the Nashville effect was all the craze.
In terms of Facebook, I remember not being allowed to have it but my friend made it for me secretly and I began to think that me having it was probably the most rebellious thing I did at the time.
As you can tell, even as a child my rebellious nature was out of control, I should have been put into a military academy or something to put me on the straight and narrow path! For all my friends who have me on Skype, I used to be a massive fan of the webcam and to me, taking pixelated pictures of me looking deep in thought or with animated seaweed and bubbles surrounding me was cool. Nowadays, I just stick to selfies or me with toursit landmarks.
Has anyone nowadays even heard of BBM or MSN? People nowadays use a lot of Snapchat, Vine and Twitter! Believe me guys, that trend started long ago. Not many people play Angry Birds or Temple Run anymore do they?
Nowadays, people find it hilarious that Adele used a flip phone in her music video for Hello. Let me get this point ironed out, when I was 12, I had a flip phone and I genuinely thought it was revolutionary, it puts into perspective how much technology has changed nowadays. For every profile picture I had, I pretty sure I used a very #whiteboy quote or a lyric from a rapper to seem 'edgy'. Nowadays, if I scroll through my photos I'd literally smack my hand on my forehead and ask myself - was I possessed or something?
The common Facebook statuses - 'i am bored, message me' or 'like and I'll say something I like about you' are equally cringeworthy to see these days. Note to self, if you have to resort to asking people to talk to you, then you really should question if you have a social life!Music used to be a lot better too. I remember listening to LMFAO or Taylor Swift and thinking I was so cool. It once again turned out that my attempts were futile! But not too worry, the weirdness lives on! Now it's all about EDM and listening to 'indie' stuff to seem like you are part of the group.
The world has changed so much and I look at the next generation's teens and begin to nod my head like an old man in a 'tut-tut' manner. Language is evolving, slang, abbreviations. They probably have never heard of the expression 'swag' before or the overuse of 'YOLO.'
One of the weirdest things I see is that kids have hoverboards and roll around on the street like a bunch of aliens with their 'squad.' I was the kid that liked to ride a bike or use my super speedy scooter with one foot. I'm clearly not as down with the kids or hip as some might think I am. Girls nowadays focus more on their eyebrows and squatting game and feeding their egos through likes. One thing I'm really glad to see is that guys have finally stopped being absolute gangsters and wearing their trousers so low as to expose their underwear. Seriously, what were people thinking?So, as my birthday approaches and I get to celebrate one more year of living as a teenager, I can't help but feel like Rachel from friends on her 30th birthday. The future seems scary as workload increases, independence grows and the idea that I have to maintain myself. It's crazy to think how over the course of 18 years, so many things have changed. It's quite scary to think most of the stuff I did or had are now considered vintage. But, in a way its interesting to think about the future as well and what it has to offer.
Where do I see myself in 10 years, probably in a job and thinking about having kids or hopefully in a relationship. I know, proper simple things in life. One of my main ambitions is to travel and do once in a lifetime opportunities before it is too late with my friends or by myself. Its weird how I turned from a baby faced child to a baby trapped in a man's body. I wonder if I will still be a party animal like I am nowadays. Will my body still be able to cope? Who knows what new and marvellous trends or creations are waiting to be discovered? What's next...? Only time will tell....
