musings of mine

March 2006 

My thirteenth birthday dawned, bright and early, and I woke up thinking ‘Yes, today I’m a teenager! I will be posh, slim, svelte, beautiful and intelligent. And when I’m 19, I’ll look back on six wonderful and incredibly happening years of my life’.

Now I’m 19, still slightly overweight, myopic, hoping I haven’t failed my mocks and under house arrest. So much for my ‘happening-ness’.

At 13 I always thought older girls were beautiful and smart and had everything they ever wanted. Now, quite rudely, those rose tinted glasses have been ripped from my eyes and I’m not staring at beautiful and smart older girls. They’re quite different actually. I look at myself and at the people I know and ask, ‘oh dear, what’s happened?’

I hear stories of my uncles and aunts talking of the days when they were 18 and 19 and went out, got drunk, came home and were yelled at. They’ve turned out fine, they even have kids. My mum talks of the days of the mini skirt, the bell bottom and kitty heels…now she wears saree to work. My mum had also been pretty naughty in school too…the nuns hadn’t given her that much trouble…’she’ll grow out of it’ they’d said. And well, now she’s a model of decorum.

My generation and I, we do the same things. So I don’t see what’s wrong with why most if not all the teenagers I meet are more concerned with where they’re going on Friday night, their Gucci bag, new ipod, classmate’s cheating boyfriend and where the weed’s coming from. Then why does Society say that the Youth are going bad? Poor things, they must be wearing those rose tinted glasses I discarded earlier.

Then again we can’t always point fingers, we’re nice children. Plus, we’ll turn out just like those narrow minded old people…I mean Society. Hmmm…we can be a bit selfish sometimes. (By ‘we’ I mean the people my age) We don’t really care about another person’s feelings…why bother? We don’t know what’s happening in Iraq or Darfur…we’re not going there. We sometimes have no propriety. We label what’s godey and what isn’t. We judge people. We gossip. Some of us don’t know the value of the English language. We don’t know what’s happening in the North (of our country). We don’t know how much our parents love us. (They say our education and maintenance is expensive…well manicures don’t come cheap). Oh dear, I think my generation and I, we don’t know much.

Why do you think this is? Did we do something wrong? Shall we blame it on the parents? But that’s not right is it?! I mean they did give birth to us and even if we don’t talk to them that much sometimes, we always get what we want…well most of us living in Colombo do anyway. So is the problem within us you think? Did we subconsciously absorb it from around us? It can’t be only our fault. We’re just teens!

In the past the world saw the Age of the Dinosaur, the Stone Age and then there were the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age etc etc. The Teen Age is much different. In the sixties the teenagers listened to the Beatles and Bob Dylan, fought for the whales, Peace, and to save the rainforests. That was NOT the Teen Age. This is. There’s a huge difference. See, sometimes we’re a bit sadistic, not selfless. (And even though the hippy/gypsy style is in, long hair is NOT for guys!) We like backstabbing. Gossiping is high on the list of ‘must do things to waste my time’. And don’t tell anyone, but I know lots of boys who like to torture lizards…and I read somewhere that that’s not a good sign.

So welcome to The Teen Age. I foresee a world where illegitimate babies, AIDS and Ecstasy will be as common as the common cold and Panadol. Morals and Values will be done away with. Clothes will be brought to a minimum; just cover the bare necessities…we’ll imagine the rest. World wars will be on an all round high, though none of us will know much about it; Ignorance is bliss after all. No one will nag and scream. Laundry will be piled up everywhere, it gives a pleasant odor. And when the world comes to an end, well…we’ll just look up from our Notebooks and PDA’s and shrug. Let life take its course. Chill.

I’m still 19. Myopic and slightly overweight. Its midnight and I have to study. (A/L’s you know) But you know what? I don’t think I want to wake up tomorrow…looks like its not going to be very sunny…but bleak…who do I call? The Weather Department?

Honestly I’ve tried blogging before…Unfortunately what happens to me is that I eventually get caught up in the rest of my life and lose interest…i won’t guarantee in a regular post because i’m not sure whether i will or won’t.. (did i spell ‘whether’ correctly?)

I’ve always been obsessed with my spellings. Ever since a fat teacher in Year 3 told me that for a Burgher girl my spellings were pretty awful! At that time i had weird pronunciation as well…i became conscious of that when i said the name ‘Julian’ in Famous Five out loud, the way i said it in my head. Turned out that wasn’t how it was supposed to sound. (Don’t ask me how i pronounced ‘Julian’ differently..i cannot remember!) And then at the tender age of 10 the same Burgher girl found out she could spell ‘Dictionary’ at the Primary Spelling Bee but somehow couldn’t fathom how on earth ‘Sportsmeet’ was spelt!!

 As time went by i did learn to spell…properly! Even my whacked up pronunciation definitely took a turn for the better…though to this day i do tend to mispronounce a few words here and there..if you hear me arguing that ‘it’s a proper noun it can be pronounced anyway!’ then you KNOW i’m not sure of my pronunciation!

 Now that i’ve finally left school i feel as if there’s this empty void. I must admit though, i never did have my required 80% attendence for my A/L’s. Somehow that never became an issue with most teachers. I always thought that i’d be the happiest convent girl to break free from the constantly praying clutches of ‘those nuns’..but now i miss it. I miss those dark corridors, those stairs (which i climbed with many a complaint), and most of all i miss the sheer predictabilty of life. The fact that i knew when the Interval was going to be, (though i ate during class) when i was going to have to come up with an excuse for not being in class during last week’s English Lit. lesson, being told constantly that i was going to fail my A Levels unless i got my act together and stopped doing everything else but my studies…

 Yes, i miss school. I miss the buildings, the people, and yes i even miss the politics and that’s saying something!!!

Now i work, and it’s not that i don’t enjoy it..i do! It’s just that now i’m home at 7.30 or 8 and not at 3..cos that was the time i got home after school. That’s my biggest problem! Looking on the bright side, Ammie doesn’t complain when i come home at 4am anymore…i got a tatoo, and i make quite a decent amount working which means monthly shopping expeditions i’ going to Uni soon and..i think i’m growing up..hmmm…im not sure whether that’s good or bad… (are you sure ‘whether’ is spelt like that?!!)