Challenge 1: Experiences as a teenager

43. Explain how your experiences as a teenager significantly differ from those of your friends. Include comparisons. (University of Puget Sound)

At the age of twelve, I was admitted to Woodstock School. I had never been in a boarding school before, and the years ahead of me felt like giant boulders I had to overcome. However, as I started adjusting to the sea of foreign faces, I made friends. They were everything I had at school because home was far away and I only got to see my family during the holidays. I shared everything with my friends and wanted to keep them as close to me as possible. However, I soon discovered that our choices were not always similar. Many of the things they prioritized did not mean anything to me. In grade seven, one of my closet friends got a boyfriend, and well, things started to change. Instead of the late nights we spent talking about just anything, she was busy on the phone with her boyfriend, giggling away. I did not understand why it was so important to have a love relationship with a boy when we were so young! Then came high school, which is still another roller coaster. My friends started doing things that I had always opposed, like smoking cigarettes and drinking. When I discussed the severity of their actions with my closer friends, even they shrugged, placed a hand on my shoulder, and told me that now there was nothing wrong with doing these things. Now I understand that these are choices I have to make, keeping in mind the future that lies ahead of me like a blank, white page, ready to be written on. Seventy years from now, I do not want to be the granny who tells her grandchildren about the time she got drunk in a bar, vomited out the window, and woke up in an abandoned trash can. However, I do want to be the granny who teaches her grandchildren to live life in a way that they will not regret.