Last Year of Being 'Teen'

I'm 19 now.

[pause for the clapping]

Thank you, thank you.

It's my last chance of being a 'teenager'. Why the quotation mark, you might ask. It's simply because my concept of teenager is something about being thirteen to seventeen. It's something like a next phase after being kid. But speaking technically, a nineteen is still a teen (nine'teen', see?). Hence, the title of this post.

Anyway, aside of being the technical last year of teen, I think 19 also has a important meaning in terms of age. I read that some consider 18 as being an adult, some says 19 and others say 21. I believe all of them is right in one sense or another, but anyway, 19 is one of the milestone of being adult, although I don't feel like being matured at all.

Again, technical way of determining phase of life based on age aside; for me, 19 has a special personal meaning. It's the first time in my life that I pass my birthday away from my biological family. I'm not really sad about it, but still, for this is a first time experience, it should mean something.

As this is some kind of birthday post, I guess there is a need of evaluation. Nineteen years is a long time for me, it's my whole life afterall. I've learnt so many lessons through the fun ways and hard ways. It's impossible to spell out the name of the people that influenced and shaped me to be as I am now.  Not that I even remember most of them, I have bad memory of recording the past, or simply I learnt bit a bit (hmm, like computer terms, bit and byte. Ooops, sorry, sidetracked) by so many different people that I couldn't remember them all. I never met most of those people face to face and never hold any conversation with them whatsoever. Heck, many of them not even in this world anymore. I learnt through their work of art, which is their beautiful and meaningful writing, or at least the meaningful words that was recorded on their name. Of course, internet aside, I also learnt from people of real life (if not, I'll be those creepy outcast, anti-social, narrow-minded, geeky and nerdy dudes, you know, like those in dramas and movies, and sadly, there are many people like that in real life). My early way of thinking is shaped by my parents. Somewhere in the line of growing up to teenager, I'm influenced by my close friends and real life idols. And then, in the phase of older teenager, I've learnt many things from my sister (as annoying and nagging as she is sometimes. Sorry, sis! :P), my church leaders and of course, friends. I could go on about random things and not so important things, but for the sake of your sanity, I refrain.

Yup, it's a long post but I really enjoy writing it and quite content about how it turns out. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have fun writing it!