Well, here it is. It's that day again. It's my
Birthday, I'm 19. Wow. After thinking about all the new things this will bring... I realize that nothing new comes with the responsibilities of being 19. At 16, you can
drive. When you're 17 you can consent to
sex and sign
legal documents. At 18, all sorts of nifty stuff happens: You get to
vote,
smoke,
gamble,
enlist, get drafted... and you usually transition from
High School to
College or work during this time period. Those years are fairly exciting. When you turn 19, unless you live in
Canada, nothing new happens. So while I'm happy it's my birthday, I'm mildly happy. It's not like when you're a kid, and you have a big party, and there's friends and cake and tons of colorfully-wrapped presents, and picture-taking
and all that jazz. Being a teenager, birthdays can tend to just be a rather solemn occasion. You get the "Oh... Happy Birthday" when you tell your friends what day it is, and you get a nice meal and some cake with your family.
Of course, it's also fitting that my birthday falls on
April Fool's Day. All throughout
Elementary school I can recall jokes like "Haha! You were born on April Fool's Day. You're a fool! Haha!" Not that it internally scarred me, but when your birthday falls on a holiday based on playing pranks and making jokes, it's not always something to look forward to. It's also rather convenient that I tend to be a humorous guy, I joke a lot and have an odd sense of
sarcasm -- so I've been told my birthday is rather fitting. I guess, sure.
Okay. I don't have any
siblings, so at least that relieves me of any
pranks,
beatings, or other kind gifts I might receive on my yearly holiday.
Looking back at the jokes my
family has tried to pass off to me is interesting. Trick candles will always be memorable. Those are the
candles you just can't blow out - They just keep burning. Well, my family tried this at my birthday dinner one year, at the
Red Lobster (a seafood restaurant). We nearly burned down the place. Nobody could put the candles out and they had burned down so far and were sparking, making it rather impossible to remove them from the cake. Luckily a
waitress extinguished them with some water before we incinerated anything. I guess it was funny in
retrospect.
Tomorrow, classes begin again for me. So I'm spending most of my "special day" moving from home (for Spring Break) back to
college. The
commute is roughly 2 hours, maybe a smidgen more. I'm not looking forward to going to classes with a gleeful anticipation, but life goes on.
I suppose the highlight of my birthday this year is the new
iMac I've been gifted with. It's one of those new
G4 iMac's with the small, round base and the swivel,
flat-screen monitor. Very cool indeed, and quite powerful as well. At least it will be attractive sitting on my dorm room desk. My
roommate thinks it's the hottest thing, and so does my
ex-girlfriend - so at least that's three of us who can sit around and admire it.
So Happy April Fool's Day to you all. Happy Easter season, too. Cheers
...