Alright, in a more serious tone, I am going to pen some experience in
reference to my own teenage years, which is safely stored in my long term
memory. Drawing a thread of memory with a phoenix-tailed wand, I cast a spell
that extracts the memory as a teenager from my brain into a Pensieve which was
once belonged to Professor Albus Dumbledore, who was by far, the best
headmaster Hogwarts has ever had.
As far as I could remember, as a teenager, I spent my time reading and
living in another world created by J.K. Rowling. All of the books were read
with great attention and speed, all of the chapters were memorized by heart,
and all of the spells were chanted to operate my daily lives-Alohomora to unlock doors, Avada Kedavra to kill the annoying cockroach
that was crawling on the wall and Lumos to
light up the dark.
Not only had the world of Harry Potter stolen my teenage life,
national examinations had done the same too. PMR and SPM are very important in
a student’s life, with the condition that Malaysia is the context. They were important
to me too. As a teenager, being all young and naïve, who would have thought
that happiness isn’t necessarily defined by grades. I revised the required
subjects over and over again, Additional Mathematics and Physics in particular
for SPM, because I feared failure. Alhamdulillah, I did not fail the critical subjects. My free time was
always filled with doing self-revision and attending tuition classes.
Because I had big examinations that could determine my future path and
had chosen to live in the ‘magical’ realm for escapism, I was far behind in the
‘real’ social world. Teenage issues such as gossiping about other students in
the school were definitely not of interest. I used to ask myself “Why would I
wanna care about them? They are not important in my life.” I was ashamed of
that very criterion of mine. Yes, sometimes, I still feel like this destructive
habit has infested deep under my skin which makes it more difficult to be rid
of. However, as a 24-year old lady, I am now, more matured and am able to view
life in a better perspective. I’m sure
that it may sound all negative to you when I write my experience in this
manner, but hey, I have never regretted any of them.
In relation to today’s topic, I remember learning Erik Erikson’s
stages of development in one of the educational courses that I took a few years
ago. I thought “Oh, he cannot be correct all the time. Perhaps his theory might
have exemptions for special cases, and that my case might be one of the few
which got to be treated as a special case.” But just yesterday, I begin to see
this in a different light for I was out with two groups of friends; the former
group consisted of my university mates (a.k.a the other two authors of this
blog) while the latter consisted of my school mate. We kept our time yesterday occupied
with everyone’s updating their current happenings in life. Some of my peers are
working, some are married and some are planning to, some are even mothers and
fathers while I, I am still a teenager, compensating the skipped phase of
development-the lost teenage years. I hang out, learn piano, re-watch Gilmore
Girls, blog, read books-nothing that screams MATURITY and ADULTHOOD.
But please please please, bear in mind that my experience may not be
the same as yours. Nevertheless, if you do sense that my experience resembles yours;
our blog welcomes you to share with us and other readers by sending us a
paragraph or two, to our email.
"... while I, I am still a teenager, compensating the skipped phase of development-the lost teenage years. I hang out, learn piano, re-watch Gilmore Girls, blog, read books-nothing that screams MATURITY and ADULTHOOD."
ReplyDeleteon the same boat with ya! academic books took my whole teenage life. and guess what, nadia, I'm currently reading "Life's strategies for TEENS"!
yay!! Go Go Teenagers! ;)
ReplyDelete