Sixteen

A week before my 16th birthday, I had no plans. Well, I had things in mind I wanted to do to celebrate my birthday, but the thing was that these people I wanted to spend time with were rather busy. So I was prepared to spend it alone. 'Who says you can't spend your birthday alone,' I asked myself.

Five days before the day, my mum asked me if I'd like to go to the trampoline park with a couple of friends and their siblings, since in homeschool we didn't limit our friendships to within the academic level.

Three days before the day, we went to the trampoline park. Though it was only 1 hour of jumping, it was quite fun. That feeling just after you bounce, when you reach your highest gravitational potential energy and also this sense of bliss is indescribable. After we went for dinner, and moved to a nearby desert place to continue talking and playing games.

Sun set on the 15th

Two days before the day, I went to watch a locally-produced documentary called 我们唱着的歌//The Songs We Sang (I'll write more about it in a later post). It was my first time visiting this grand theatre where it was being screened, and the documentary itself was inspiring as well as informative.

One day before the day, I played futsal with a couple of families in the community- more like the boys and the dads, I was the only girl as usual. Still not sure if it's a good thing or not. That game was good- I warmed up more quickly than usual- and got fired up almost right after I went in.

Today I slept in till 9, and found birthday messages waiting for me. Quite touched they remembered today, and some private messaged me long messages. Really thankful for these people, and appreciate their thoughtfulness.

What I like especially this birthday were a couple of cards, and a futsal ball that a friend gave. To some it may be nothing much- but I feel that what matters is the thoughtfulness of the person.

Overall, being sixteen doesn't really feel different. I'll have to get used to responding 'Sixteen' when people ask me how old I am, and enjoy the short period being the same age as most of the 1999 kids, and older than the 2000 kids.