I'll be 28 in two days.
Guess my 20s was much easier and carefree than my teens, so it wasn't that nightmare described at the Cracked article.
A long explanation why my teens were very busy and without much fun time:
Short version: My dad made me study like hell my whole life to enter a public university and when I wasn't able to, he made me work with him in a tough job as a lesson until I managed to enter a year later.
At the end of that year, I managed to enter at a very prestigious public university. I had 19y. My dad then freed me from working with him and stopped to control my life in a "you are a adult now" spirit. University was free, so I didn't have money pressure anymore (my school was private and my dad would put a lot of pressure on me because of it). I met lots of creative and intelligent people, made good friends. I had much more free time compared to my teen years, studying wasn't a chore because I enjoyed the books I had to read and liked most of the classes and discussions. I felt that I grew a lot intelectually.
Maybe my biggest shock was that I was a nerd introvert type and my course was right in the Art Institute of the university, where actors, musicians and painters have their courses... so that was were all the crazy people studied. But everyone was very friendly and I've changed a lot by living with them, became less afraid of life, I guess.
I started to date a friend from school and we stayed together for 6 years. I stopped beign such a shut-in, had sex for the first time when I was 20, left behind my fears of beign a eternal virgin and learned to love sex and contact with others.
I really blossomed in my early 20s. My late 20s is another thing, though...
Guess my 20s was much easier and carefree than my teens, so it wasn't that nightmare described at the Cracked article.
A long explanation why my teens were very busy and without much fun time:
When I was 14, I started technical school, so I was very busy going to regular school at morning and technical at afternoon. I live in Brazil and here the big thing is to be accepted at public universities, because they are the best and most repected and are completely free, but it's fierce competition to get in one. My dad was a bit like the asian dad meme and had this project of life of putting me and my sisters at public university and I had to keep my grades at the highest levels at all times.
When I was unable to pass the admission exam the first time (it's usually at the end of highschool), he put me at a training course to study harder for the next year and made me work with him at the same time. He works with rental of billiard tables and was like Mr. Miyagi training, because is a very physical job... loading tables at delivery cars, waxings hundreds of billiard balls... and we frequently had to go to very poor neighbourhoods and slums to deliver tables and collect the tables rent money. He told me that this was a lesson to me, that I needed to see what life without a university diploma was like. In the middle of it all, I had depression, was bullied at school and had a poor social life because I was always busy.
When I was unable to pass the admission exam the first time (it's usually at the end of highschool), he put me at a training course to study harder for the next year and made me work with him at the same time. He works with rental of billiard tables and was like Mr. Miyagi training, because is a very physical job... loading tables at delivery cars, waxings hundreds of billiard balls... and we frequently had to go to very poor neighbourhoods and slums to deliver tables and collect the tables rent money. He told me that this was a lesson to me, that I needed to see what life without a university diploma was like. In the middle of it all, I had depression, was bullied at school and had a poor social life because I was always busy.
Short version: My dad made me study like hell my whole life to enter a public university and when I wasn't able to, he made me work with him in a tough job as a lesson until I managed to enter a year later.
At the end of that year, I managed to enter at a very prestigious public university. I had 19y. My dad then freed me from working with him and stopped to control my life in a "you are a adult now" spirit. University was free, so I didn't have money pressure anymore (my school was private and my dad would put a lot of pressure on me because of it). I met lots of creative and intelligent people, made good friends. I had much more free time compared to my teen years, studying wasn't a chore because I enjoyed the books I had to read and liked most of the classes and discussions. I felt that I grew a lot intelectually.
Maybe my biggest shock was that I was a nerd introvert type and my course was right in the Art Institute of the university, where actors, musicians and painters have their courses... so that was were all the crazy people studied. But everyone was very friendly and I've changed a lot by living with them, became less afraid of life, I guess.
I started to date a friend from school and we stayed together for 6 years. I stopped beign such a shut-in, had sex for the first time when I was 20, left behind my fears of beign a eternal virgin and learned to love sex and contact with others.
I really blossomed in my early 20s. My late 20s is another thing, though...
