This month marks the two-year anniversary of my
“teen perspective”
This month marks the two-year anniversary of my “teen perspective” column in the Morgan Hill Times. My first article was published on July 13, 2001, and outlined how I write and what I plan on sharing with my readers in my weekly column.
Since then, the topics of my column have grown, and ever since I moved from home to experience life on the East Coast, I’ve begun to realize the real point of my column. It isn’t to just share my experiences with my readers, or to vent problems or issues. It is to put a teenager’s life in perspective and share that with my readers.
By reading what I am both feeling and going through, my readers can have a better understanding of all young people my age. What I am going through isn’t far from what other people in the 17-19 age bracket are experiencing.
The summer after your first year away from college is a difficult one. The movie American Pie 2 depicts it perfectly: a group of friends come back to their small town after a year away at different colleges. The movie is about how these friends try to make the best out of their summer home, and how moving to different cities can change a person.
I am well aware that moving to Boston has changed me. It has changed the way I see people and how I live my life. By living in the big city, I have learned to become a stronger, more independent person. I don’t depend on people like I used to, and for lack of a better word, I am no longer naïve, I don’t let people take advantage of me. It has changed my friends as well.
I came back home in the second week of June. I spent my first few days “sulking” around the house, trying to figure out how to make the summer go by quicker. All I could think of was getting back to my home in Boston. I realized I wasn’t alone. My friends both here and on the East Coast felt the same as me. They were happy to be with their family again, but they had fallen in love with their new lives and didn’t want to give it up.
It is now the first week in July and my perspective about being home has changed slightly. I am trying my best to be social while working full-time for my parents’ aerial photography business and part-time for the Bath and Body Works in town. Being the planner that I am, I am attempting to save enough money for the bills I’m going to encounter next fall in my new apartment.
My first year away from home made me realize how easy it is to spend money (for example, I spent over $1200 in three months), and how important it is to conserve it. But having said that, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a quick vacation fix with my East Coast friends. I spent last weekend just laughing and enjoying the company of the people that have become my best friends at college.
For the remainder of the summer, I have two more trips planned for the East Coast, in July and August and a trip to Puerto Rico in August with the family. Other than the family vacation and my mini-vacations, I hope to continue to work full time and spend time with as many people as possible.
I’m realizing that this is the last summer vacation I will ever have, and the people I graduated high school with are all out making lives of their own, just like me. My six-month internship that starts next January goes until July, and I start six months of classes as soon as the internship is over. I will be alternating this schedule of internships and classes till I graduate. If I do my internship in Boston as planned, I’ll only be home for visits when I can get the time off work. Other people I’ve spoken to, plan on making this their last summer home as well. They hope to find a place near their campus and continue their college life out there.
I concluded that after your first year in college, you are pushed into “adult mode.” Playtime is over, and you have to start thinking about your life. Freshman year in college is a basic “free-for-all.” You’re learning how to make it on your own, while still being supported by your parents. Living in the dorms allows for an easy transition from home to being on your own.
Now it’s my second year in college, I’m out of the dorms and into an apartment. I’m going to have real responsibilities. You begin to realize that what you thought was crucial before, such as: “Did-I-forget-to-put-up-an-away-message-on-AOL-Instant- Messenger-before-I-left-the-room?” will turn into, “Did I pay the electricity bill on time?”
My two girlfriends and I are going to have groceries and meals to cook, bills to pay and basic living necessities to buy. We won’t have the cafeteria and the dorm cleaning ladies to depend on anymore. I thought that graduating high school and starting a new year at Northeastern University was the start to a new chapter in my life. I now know, that that was just a transitional period. The real chapter begins in the second year, where real life begins.
Lacey Green is a sophomore at Northeastern University in Boston. Readers may contact her at La********@ao*.com
