Seventeen

17.

Growth

Time does pass by so quickly and in the blink of an eye, I've turned from 16 to 17. To be honest, I can't really remember the last time I felt like I had such a big period of growth between birthdays, so the past year has definitely been quite special. I think the biggest difference between this time last year and right now, is my attitude towards life. I think I've started looking more broadly towards life and less secluded to just feeling stressed about tests and things.

A big thing, which I'll explain a bit more in the next section, is that I've been setting goals and hitting them quite a bit. Previously, I never had clear targets to aim for that would bring me pride if I achieved them. This year, even though if I fell short sometimes, I still tried to hit a lot more of these goals and contrary to most people, I do like setting "massive" goals every year to give me something big to aim for. Of course there have been small goals to set along the journey, but these small goals are all in the name to achieve something big.

Some nice things

Given that this blog was written 4 days late, there have been some nice things that have happened recently which I'll cover now (Sunday's blog is gonna be boring). The first thing was that on Monday, I got picked to be part of the Firsts for our school in table tennis which is nice. It is something I really strived to achieve this year and so hitting that goal definitely feels quite amazing.

Secondly, on Wednesday I went to Melbourne Uni and did the University Maths Olympics with 4 friends from school, representing our school as well that night. Surprisingly enough, we came 3rd out of 20ish teams which means we not only won pride, but also a $20 voucher (they still haven't given us the voucher from the last competition). Of course, we lost to Scotch and University High, but given their teams are basically the Australian IMO team, we were very satisfied with our result.

Finally, today (Thursday), I received an email, offering me to attend the Australian Science Olympiads Chemistry Summer School which is actually unreal. Last year, I had barely any knowledge or interest in chemistry so to make this big of a leap in a year is really surprising to me, but also it does feel very rewarding. I'd say definitely my work experience in December last year at a pharmaceutical research centre played a big role in cultivating interest in this subject, so I'm definitely grateful for that opportunity and how it propelled me to do well.

Up until 18

Now that I'm 17, what should I be doing? I'm definitely still not your most independent guy, so taking on more life skills is something I will need to continue doing. Especially cooking, I've spent 17 years of life watching cooking/food videos and wishing I even get a smell of the food they were showcasing, but apart from basic stuff, never really bothered to maybe try make something good myself.

Also, I would definitely love to cherish this last year of being not considered an adult yet. Even though I would love to be above 18 and get all my legal rights lmao, but in some aspects it is nice to still be young and have some liberties of being young (such as cheaper stuff).

But after this last year, life is gonna change quite a bit which is both exciting and terrifying, but we'll see where we go.

Plans for next week

1. Relax up at the end of school
2. Watch Alcaraz tear up the US Open
3. Watch the Sidemen charity match