Posts Tagged ‘high school’

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When Did We Get So Old?

June 12th, 2011 by Manda | 5 Comments | Filed in Friends, Life

I’ve been on Facebook a lot since being in Hong Kong, seeing as access to the website isn’t blocked in HK. One thing I’ve noticed while surfing Facebook is that amongst my high school acquaintances from my class in Australia there is an alarmingly, and increasingly, large amount of us have been/are getting married and/or babied.

For example, off the top of my head:

  • One girl with a 4-year-old son
  • Three girls with two children under the age of 4
  • One boy with a one-year-old son
  • Two girls that are married

I’m the same age as my friends that are married or with children, and I can’t even begin to fathom marriage or parenthood. I still remember the good ol’ days in high school where my friends and I would gossip about so-and-so and the biggest thing we had to worry about is whether or not we failed the math test or if we would get a date to the next school dance. To think that now some of us have much bigger things to worry about makes me feel so old!

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Friendship

June 4th, 2010 by Manda | 3 Comments | Filed in Friends

Yesterday I had a small blast from the past in the form of hearing several stories about a boy I used to be really good friends with. It’s a consequence of being back in the place you graduated from high school in; you hear these kinds of stories whether you like it or not. It’s especially common when your high school is as small as mine and everyone knows everything about everyone. Anyway, news about him got me thinking about all the good days back when we were good friends, even best friends, and what things were like before life got in the way and we just naturally grew apart.

As I was lying in bed last night, thinking about all of this, I started reminiscing about all the friends I’ve gained and lost over the years, those that I’ve gotten closer to and those that I’ve drifted apart from. The friends who I know I couldn’t live without; the friends who I no longer see but will never forget; the “friends” who I question why they got the title of “friend” in the first place. The friendships that were damaged, battered and ended because of a boy; the sexual tensions between myself and various guy friends; the friendships that never took off because there was too much romantic history to be able to put it all in the past and move forward.

Friendship is a funny thing. It has a fluctuation/turnover/retention rate like nothing else in life. And while there are many days where my friends drive me up the wall, I know I could never live without them. I also know that it’s my friendships with the people in my life, both past and present, that shape who I am today. So, while it was sad to hear about the news in my high school friend’s life from someone other than him, it was good to hear that he is doing well all the same.

(Then I began to wonder if people felt the same way about me as a friend and if those I’ve fallen out of touch with remember me. Thankfully, I fell asleep before I got too insecure/neurotic/paranoid about any of this. That’s a danger of thinking about all of this late at night on your own when you’re walking the line between staying awake and falling asleep!)

In other, far less philosophical news: many thanks to Aleida, Karin, Melody and Tess for awarding me with the Sunshine Award; I wrote a guest entry on Krissy’s blog about the wonder and beauty of Kurt Halsey’s artwork; an article about my scholarship win is on the front page of my university’s website; I have made absolutely no progress on building my professional digital identity; and I am breathless with anticipation for tonight’s Hawks vs Flyers hockey game (Game 4 in the series, 2-1 Hawks).

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Rites of Passage

October 23rd, 2009 by Manda | 7 Comments | Filed in Life

I never really experienced rites of passage that people typically do throughout childhood and adolescence. I had an unusual upbringing in the sense that I was consistently uprooted due to a number of overseas moves, which led to my general lack of knowledge/interest about these “traditional” rites of passage.

Here are a handful high school rites of passages I never experienced:

  • Graduating from primary/middle school in order to enter high school
    I left my first middle school in the US at the end of sixth grade, which meant I missed out on the eighth grade graduation. At my new school in Australia, students graduated from primary school in year six and not year seven. I transferred to my Australian school at the beginning of year seven, so I had just missed out on graduation. The first time I ever graduated from anything was when I completed high school!
  • Sweet sixteen birthday party
    My sixteenth birthday was a quiet and lonely affair. I had just moved to Chicago from Australia, and I didn’t know anyone in Chicago besides my immediate family. My sixteenth birthday “party” was comprised of myself, my mother, my brother, and a chocolate cake. It was nice, but definitely not the sweet sixteen bash many kids expect on their sixteenth birthdays.
  • Driver’s license at sixteen
    I didn’t get my driver’s license at sixteen. Honestly, I was never bothered by this, I managed just fine without one. Besides, I think sixteen is too young to drive; the thought of the sixteen year olds I know on the roads scares me.
  • Getting my first car
    This ties in with the whole driver’s license thing, for obvious reasons. However, I also have zero interest in getting a car of my own. The area I live in has good public transportation, and where I go to for college has excellent public transport. Ideally I’d like to live in a city like London, Paris, or Hong Kong after I graduate from college, all of which have phenomenal public transport and there is no need for a car. I don’t want to deal with car payments, insurance, maintenance, gas… it’s all money I’d rather not spend on something I don’t see as needing.
  • Getting my first job
    Unlike most teenagers, I didn’t get my first job in high school. I was on a student visa in Australia so I legally was not allowed to work, and then my final two years of high school took so much time and energy out of me that I didn’t even want to think about a job. (I don’t count babysitting gigs as an “official” job.) I did get a job at college though, it just took me a little longer than most of my classmates to get the ball rolling on the job front.

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