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One of the strange things that's happened because of my taking up LJ around the same time I graduated from college is that I feel so inexperienced now. When I was a kid, or in high school, or in college, I always had this view of myself as being very mature, as though I understood the world. I felt wise and knowledgeable. And while I felt like I would be learning things about life all the time, my own self impression was that of age.
Now it's completely different, probably because of the change of environment. It sort of started with LJ and getting to know people of different generations as friends, not as "friends of my mom" or some such thing. I think in school it's so easy to exaggerate that one year difference between juniors and seniors, or the three year difference between freshmen and seniors. It feels like an unbreachable gap (especially for dating purposes). I mean, back then, I would think of people two years younger than me as "my sister's friends." Now they would probably be the closest people to my age that I've interacted with in a while (in RL). Also, back in high school, I always knew more people in the classes below me than above. Plus, I am a big sister, and as such, have often felt older and wiser (yes, that sound you hear would be my sister choking back laughter).
In college things were a little different -- I got to know the classes above me more, and as such, was sort of the baby of the group for a bit. Not me, per se, but I was the little soph playing with the juniors or something like that. In LJ, things feel even more like that. Possibly for the first time in my life, I got to talk to people who have been reading genre for longer than me, people who have a much better understanding of the sci-fi/fantasy tradition and canon and etc. I never had this sort of community in high school, because we were all discovering the same books at roughly the same time. That was wonderful too, in its own way, just as it's wonderful to show up here and say, "I like such, such and such" and have recs pour in.
I think another big factor is work. Obviously, since I am a recent grad, most people are work are older than me. The people at the bookstore were split between a generation a little older than my parents, and then a few people around my age (give or take ten years). The people at work now are, I think, about ten years older than me, and everyone is talking about not even marriage (which is still a scary thing for me to think about), but having kids and raising kids and kids blah blah. I sort of eye them and my brain goes into panic mode when all this is mentioned. And because it's work, I have to act as though people much older than me are my peers, which is very, very disconcerting. It took me a very long while getting used to calling people older than me by their first names instead of Mr./Ms. So-and-so or Blah ahyi/shushu (auntie/uncle). It still feels extremely unpolite to address emails by first name to people higher up on the corporate ladder.
And so now I feel like I'm just really starting to crawl around in the world and only beginning to get a grasp on things. I feel very displaced and lost also. I can't quite figure out (still) where my life is going, despite the new job, or what the meaning of it all is, or anything. And it's especially odd and frightening watching my parents grow older and worry more about health issues. Mortality seems much closer now than it did when I was in school.
Of course, I will reread this a year or five years, or many more years down the line and shake my head at just how little I know.
Now it's completely different, probably because of the change of environment. It sort of started with LJ and getting to know people of different generations as friends, not as "friends of my mom" or some such thing. I think in school it's so easy to exaggerate that one year difference between juniors and seniors, or the three year difference between freshmen and seniors. It feels like an unbreachable gap (especially for dating purposes). I mean, back then, I would think of people two years younger than me as "my sister's friends." Now they would probably be the closest people to my age that I've interacted with in a while (in RL). Also, back in high school, I always knew more people in the classes below me than above. Plus, I am a big sister, and as such, have often felt older and wiser (yes, that sound you hear would be my sister choking back laughter).
In college things were a little different -- I got to know the classes above me more, and as such, was sort of the baby of the group for a bit. Not me, per se, but I was the little soph playing with the juniors or something like that. In LJ, things feel even more like that. Possibly for the first time in my life, I got to talk to people who have been reading genre for longer than me, people who have a much better understanding of the sci-fi/fantasy tradition and canon and etc. I never had this sort of community in high school, because we were all discovering the same books at roughly the same time. That was wonderful too, in its own way, just as it's wonderful to show up here and say, "I like such, such and such" and have recs pour in.
I think another big factor is work. Obviously, since I am a recent grad, most people are work are older than me. The people at the bookstore were split between a generation a little older than my parents, and then a few people around my age (give or take ten years). The people at work now are, I think, about ten years older than me, and everyone is talking about not even marriage (which is still a scary thing for me to think about), but having kids and raising kids and kids blah blah. I sort of eye them and my brain goes into panic mode when all this is mentioned. And because it's work, I have to act as though people much older than me are my peers, which is very, very disconcerting. It took me a very long while getting used to calling people older than me by their first names instead of Mr./Ms. So-and-so or Blah ahyi/shushu (auntie/uncle). It still feels extremely unpolite to address emails by first name to people higher up on the corporate ladder.
And so now I feel like I'm just really starting to crawl around in the world and only beginning to get a grasp on things. I feel very displaced and lost also. I can't quite figure out (still) where my life is going, despite the new job, or what the meaning of it all is, or anything. And it's especially odd and frightening watching my parents grow older and worry more about health issues. Mortality seems much closer now than it did when I was in school.
Of course, I will reread this a year or five years, or many more years down the line and shake my head at just how little I know.