Feb 11 2007 - the big one nine

It doesn't have quite the same ring to it as something like the big 4 0.

A large part of this blog will hopefully see me mature and grow into something worth being. So it is somehow fitting that this post should be fairly clearly the least mature one of them all. Birthdays are strange for they are supposed to be the one day you know that things will be good. Yet, for whatever reason they are never the best day of the year or anything, that tends to be a lot more unexpected.

Today was surreal in many ways. It was my first birthday away from home. This was made easier to deal with by the fact I've spent very few with my dad so it was a bit more gradual than just suddenly not seeing family on my birthday, but still strange. It was also the first birthday where I didn't get a single present, although I did save a (non-birthday) present from Adam to open on my birthday, but technically I received nothing. Now opening presents has lost its appeal really, you outgrown that at about 16, but still, its the knowing that they are there, which still retains some excitement, so having nothing was just odd.

And for the childish bit. People remembering my birthday. I never celebrated birthdays because all my friends forgot. But now facebook exists and I'm at university, and everybody here did remember. However, only one person from home remembered, and that was only because I told them a couple of days ago. This will be the year that I leave Colchester behind, there is not really anything left for me there anymore, although I will still live with my parents in holiday times the emotional attachment is gone. It is sort of difficult to do, I lived there for 15 years, many of those years were rough but I have some good memories and I achieved a lot there. However between Bristol and London I seem to have a lot more going for me, however difficult I have found it socialising and networking in Bristol.

With no presents I had to celebrate my birthday some way. Funnily enough I only know one way to do it, and for me it isn't a party as such. Last year I went to see Coheed and Cambria for my birthday and this year it was the Bouncing Souls. They were quite amazing in fairness to them, the stage invasion was awesome fun. The Draft, who supported, were very good as well, yet another Welsh rock band, obviously something in the water in those Valleys.

We did have a gathering of friends where I was treated to a rendition of happy birthday both in person and over the phone, impressive in many respects, one had to enjoy it. My room is now full of balloons, of varying colours, shapes and sizes.

However, today was not entirely dominated by birthday proceedings. We also began the search for a house, already proving slightly fruitless and depressing. We enquired about viewing a property that sounded quite nice, but alas a group of girls had already put an interest in for it so that is not looking too hopeful, there will be more to come though and we will end up living somewhere!

No matter how much I try to deny it I do now consider myself an adult, which brings strange things with it, including, apparently, disdain for a large proportion of my friends. Many of my friends have always been younger than me, before this was not a problem, especially as I lose most of my confidence with a girl if I feel they're older than me. But now I feel very different and the way they are growing up is at the opposite end of the spectrum from how I did. A friend gleefully told me yesterday that they had stolen a pair of shoes from a bowling alley, which appalled me on a lot of levels. Firstly, you don't even come close to having a need for bowling shoes, so really you're just doing it for fun. A second level is that it is considered so cool by these people to boast about stealing, which I find quite horrendous. Then the best line 'in the grand scheme of things, its only a pair of shoes'. World, I urge you all to have this philosophy, and I welcome you to anarchy. Everything starts small, somehow it never seems to finish that way. The person told me not to go 'all moral' on her, I wonder when being moral became so 'uncool'.

And there end the first entry. The aim of this will be to have something serious to say, but the first entry will always be the strangest. I could try and introduce things, or I could dive right into what I'm aiming for, but really I knew when I was going to start it and did not have a specific event in the world in mind. The point actually is to see that whilst I've always considered myself more mature than many of my age group, somehow I still don't feel ready to be an adult, and yet I'm feeling my way into it very quickly, probably more quickly than I truly need to. Yet, this isn't just about my life, its the principle that my opinion on anything has just as much worth as anybody else that can post on the internet, so I feel I should make the most of my opportunity to voice that opinion, it may not change the world, or anybody's life, but I feel I'm doing something, and that has a lot of value to me.