I’m turning 18 tomorrow and I feel like time has flown by so fast. My parents are throwing me a huge party, my dad’s idea, of course, and it’s nonnegotiable because he wants his business partners and rich friends to show up with gifts. If you’ve seen my previous posts, you already know my dad has a bit of a greedy streak, lol.
Ah, I will turn 18 soon too :^). My parents prolly aint throw a huge or expensive party for me. Just go 2 a relative w/ big house and call a few friends after school maybe. I want a blue BFDI (Battle For Dream Island - a cartoon on web which Im grown up w/) cake with some stuff like maybe getting some useful things 4 my pet rock (yes I have a huge “breed” pet rock) and get myself a bike I wanted for years or an ugly sweater, BFDI Woody (the char from same cartoon) plush maybe. I want that plush since it is out and loving the character since late 2010’s.
Anyways, I dont think much stuff will be changed really. Prolly will have a legal right to drink, have a job, drive or smth. And methinks I cant neither afford any one or my mentally ill ass prolly will commit some crimes or go die while being drunk so Id rather to not drink. And the best thing after 18s prolly getting into a some meh kind of an university.
Not a party, but my parents took me around to meet and dine with a few of their friends (mostly somewhat accomplished folks) as a farewell of sorts. I got sent to the US for college 2 months later and basically never had a chance to go back home in 10 years so
I scheduled vaccine appointments with my Dr. My parents were anti-vax and once I was old enough I went and did it myself.
Why is 18 still a thing? You can’t even buy cigarettes at 18 today.
It’s the last thing they can force you to do (but playing along can have benefits).
I think I got drunk on Greek Row
I got the ability to unground myself after being denied any of my interests and social connections for a year because I didn’t load the dishwasher fast enough.
I just… did my own thing, by myself. Had my own car, a tank of gas, and some cash in my wallet. No concrete plans when I woke up that morning.
I ended up spending most of my 18th birthday at the zoo, just wandering around at my own pace. Whenever my folks would take me before that point, we’d always end up trying to speedrun the whole place, spending no more than a minute at each exhibit, if we’d stop at all. And without spending a single cent on anything other than admission.
I spent two hours just hanging out in the zoo’s walk-in aviary, feeding seed sticks and nectar cups to parrots. Best birthday ever.
I had a small party with family and friends then started moving out.
I had my parents out of the house for the weekend and throw a party with all my friends. We drank and smoked weed and I throw up before midnight from my bedroom’s window. This didn’t stop me from continuing the party that night. It was fun. Now days I get 48 hours of hangover if I drink 2 beers in 1 night, so my liver is fucked I guess. I regret nothing !
You do you.
Life isn’t a dress rehearsal and you don’t get extra points for suffering.
Show up at the party and have the best time you can. See which rich guy gives you the silliest advice, or see how much cake you can eat, or Find someone else who doesn’t want to be there and do something to make them happy.
nothing happened, like always, it was gradual, friends moving away, you finding new interests, finding new friends, slowly realising your shortcomings and working to over come them. 18 felt like nothing, but the years after felt like growing up
Every birthday I ask for pizza. It was largely the same.
In HK, being 18 almost always means you are studying for HKDSE, basically the biggest and most important exam of a Hongkonger’s life. I got a few blessings from my family lol.
Is HK test the same as GaoKao?
Lol funny that I didn’t even have to take the SAT/ACT (US Standarized Tests) to get accepted to a state college because of COVID changed the requirements.
But then I have depression and had to withdraw 🙃
Now I have self esteen issues.
If I was still in mainland, I would’ve felt even worse because you know how much education is valued. The competition is so much worse, labor protection is horrible. 1.4 billion people, ugh cant even breathe in that air (literally and figuratively).
I feel like the US is more like relaxed when it comes to stuff like college, I think I can re-enroll later once I get my depression fixed. I think in China, they just don’t ever let you do college again once you’re past the normal age for college. Also mental health is sooo stigmitized…
Anyways, the pizza thing… is that like very special?
Cuz from my perspective, that’s just an average dinner here in the US lolol.
I mean I guess if things are uncommon, it becomes special.
I have faint memories of being in McDonalds in Guangzhou… I think those always felt special… I mean I guess its cuz its foreign and its full of 味精… felt like a past life ngl, was so long ago.
When I first arrive in the US, I went to McDonalds a lot, its like a treat basically, now those stuff taste so bad (inflation maybe? lower quality stuff?), I just go to Chinese restaurant sometimes instead lol
Every time I see your comment, I just wonder like “what would my life have been life if I never emigrated” like the “alternate timeline” type of thing… yea I overthinkg life too much sometimes.
You know, I never technically even graduated highschool, I had fight school where a 鬼佬 kid instigated a fight and I got in trouble when I was 17, so I ended up hating school. So in the US, there are theses things called the “GED” where like you can just take these tests in Math Reading Writing Science and get school done with. My GED test scores are better then my GPA in school (Grade Point Average)
School in Philly suck so much… so much 種族歧視.
My mom had to move us away from NYC. NYC was so memorable. Literally like 1/4 to 1/2 of the class is Asian, a lot of Cantonese speakers, a few occasional Mandarin speakers too, so I felt more comfortable there… I mean bullying still exists, but at least I never was in a situation where I felt like was the only Asian kid in the room.
I was in first year of college, but my birthday falls during winter break. So instead of being able to celebrate with all my awesome new college friends, I was stuck with like one good high school friend, two barely-friends (one was an ex, and their parents were friends with mine), and my gf.
It was… ok. Pretty underwhelming. Pizza and cake, got to watch a movie I had been interested in, and played some multiplayer game.
For some reason my gf decided she needed to hang all over me. Think she was trying to make the ex jealous, which is hilarious because there had been zero chemistry with the ex, I think we kissed once maybe. It did make the ex jealous, and my high school friend got to enjoy more attention from her than I ever got. Cuddling, holding hands, hugs, nothing further than that but it really highlights how little had been there with me and the ex. Still makes me laugh thinking about it.
I remember a bunch of private jokes before and after between me and my gf about me finally being legal, because we’d been fucking like the horny teenagers we were for around a year and a half.
Overall, not anywhere close to the big deal people tend to make it. I honestly didn’t remember any details until I sat and thought about it, and my memory was somewhat stirred by interacting with that high school friend again through work yesterday (ended up working for different sub-companies of the same org, doing similar work).
Plenty of more memorable times in my life. Only one birthday is particularly memorable now in my mid 30s. My 21st is memorable less for the birthday itself and more for everything around it, but the birthday is still memorable.
21st birthday
Around 4 months before I turned 21, in the middle of burning out/dropping out from university and a deep depression, I moved 8 hours away from my parents to live with some friends of my gf near her (same gf from my 18th birthday).
During that time I learned a hell of a lot about myself, and that my gf was stealing from everyone she called a friend. Shit hit the fan, a police investigation was opened that went nowhere, and I realized that she had been lying to me for the entire 5 years I had known her.
My world and plans for the future came crashing down and I moved back in with my parents, right before my 21st birthday. I had planned on going no contact with them.
Didn’t think I could trust my own judgement due to how much obvious shit I missed.
My college friends pulled through amazingly. My best friend had an apartment on campus and hosted the party, and most of my friends brought friends of their own that I knew decently. Pretty much everyone that I had happy memories with from my time in university was there.
Party with board and video games Friday afternoon into night, ending with our traditional “movie night” of two movies (at least one weird or awful) and a lot of drinking. Saturday morning just me and my best friend, still partially drunk bike ride into town for more booze. Day drinking, videogames, and binging our way through Red vs Blue. Sunday morning he tosses some cash at me and sends me off to the book store to get breakfast and a book he was raving about. Also to get me out of the apartment so he could have some time with his gf.
It was the first book of Dresden Files, which is a favorite book series of mine to this day.
The only thing that to me meaningfully changed: I could legally drive on the road alone (before I had my license but was only permitted to drive under supervision).
Besides that: The number of years I lived has increased by +1 :p
