License To Kill

So you’ve just turned 15, you’re enjoying your birthday, and you have been a teenager for a whole two years. You got some awesome presents for your birthday including that PS3 you wanted and had a wicked party with your friends, and tomorrow it all gets better, tomorrow you are booked in to sit your Learner Drivers License test.

$79 later you’re holding that yellow slip that says you can now drive a car legally if you have your ‘L’ plates displayed and someone with a Full License for two years is sitting in the passenger seat. You can even take passengers in the back of the car.

6 Months Later…

Yes like a movie we have now jumped six months into the future (something has even happened in ‘Lost’ so you know it has been a while) and now $88.20 later you can drive by yourself between 5am and 10pm. This is where I believe things start to go horribly wrong.

Let me start by saying a few people are going to disagree with this including some of my fellow bloggers but I personally believe the driving age is too young. At the age of 15, yes 15, under current New Zealand law you can drive a vehicle on your own anywhere you want. Hell you can even have 30mg of alcohol per/100ml of blood in your body (albeit that’s not much). Does anyone else think this is crazy? And I’m not talking price of fuel crazy, I’m talking G.W Bush crazy.

At the age of 15 you are not legal to; have sex, drink alcohol (without parent guidance), smoke, vote, get married or even leave home. However we are allowed to drive a vehicle up to 100km/h with (very minor) alcohol in our body.  That just does not sit right with me. The Government obviously believes we’re not intelligent enough at that age to contribute a worthwhile vote to the elections but we are however responsible and intelligent enough to drive and risk others and our own lives.

Things also get worse from this point, I’m not going to go into too in depth into the matter right now, but suffice to say if you do your ‘Defensive Driving Course’ at the right time you can hold a full license at the age of 16! So at 16 you can drive any time of day without guidance and with as many passengers as your car can hold and it’s perfectly legal. Scared yet?

Personally I strongly believe we need to up the driving age. We are simply too young and sadly quite often too irresponsible at that point in our lives to risk lives of everyone around us. Although I might be completely wrong. What are your thoughts on the driving age in New Zealand and around the world?

Then again I'm sure we're all 100% mature, responsible and reliable at the age of 15... Yeah right.

**Disclaimer - I already own a full license and have for almost two years, so I might be a bit biased.

Life's percentage mass: 10% what happens, 90% how you react.

There's a saying (which I stole from those people that came and performed at our school from Excel [hahaha Windows Excel]) which goes: Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

Normally when you hear this type of thing you allow it to travel through one ear and out the other barely waving to your brain as it passes through. That's what I would have normally done as I dislike the clichéd "We are here to teach you a lesson" performances that are held our school annually but there was something about this proverb that stuck in my head.
"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react." When I heard it I thought how true is that? So many of life's puny problems would have been solved if people had just reacted in a matter more reasonable than what they did. This leads me to TEENS of course, as this is what this blog is all about, TEENS.

Doesn't it make you sigh just hearing the words "teen" and "problem" in the same sentence? Anyway, as us Teens are full of hormones and the unrealistic ideal of what reality is which have brought on by TV and Girlfriend Magazine (so they say), it's not uncommon to find a situation which we don't over-blow. Number one on this list of over-blown situations is friendships and relationships problems. Friendships and relationships are the subject of many a gossip session. For example: The fact that she slept with his best mate just to get back at her ex. Although it's just absolutely fascinating to listen to these whispering campaigns, I find myself saying “Double-You-Tee-Eff. This is retarded. Why do people drag themselves into these situations? What was she thinking?”

She probably wasn’t thinking. If you are heart-broken the first thing you want to do is get revenge on the breaker but the last thing you want to do is cause more pain to yourself so why did you go and sleep with his friend. Now everyone is calling you a whore and you feel worse than before. Why didn’t you just let it go? Let him break your heart because as Justin says: What goes around comes around. Put it in perspective: Although you feel like your heart is in a million pieces it will be nothing but a distant memory when you’re celebrating your 20^th Wedding Anniversary with your husband… of 20 years.

Btw, that example was totally fake. But this one is real: A girl I am going to name Ashlee is angry at her ex who I will name Pete (name changes, thanks to Mona's suggestion. HAHAHA.) and his friend who is a girl, Lindsey. So Ashlee is angry at the fact that Lindsey keeps saying that she looks like a boy and being a "bitch" to her for no apparent reason. In my opinion I don't see any reason for this type of behaviour. Btw, there has been "something" between Pete and Lindsey so it's more like "friends" as opposed to friends. Anyway they are in a play and there is a prop, a hand bag, which Lindsey normally uses and has put a couple of her own things in there but Ashlee needs it for one of the scenes she is in. She looks through it finding nothing particulary interesting. Lindsey tells her to stop looking through her "things" if gum and a mirror count as things and turns back talking to Pete and pulls the finger when Sarah isn't looking, once again, in my opinion, for no apparent reason. Ashlee is told by another actor that Lindsey just did this and Ashlee asks if she did. Lindsey laughs it off, guiltly but with no hint of fear. (See how interesting that was to read?) PROBLEM: Lindsey is a bitch to Ashlee. SOLUTION: Don't be a bitch to her. In my world you are only ever allowed to be a bitch to someone if they are a bitch to you, she hasn't been a bitch to you as far as I know. PROBLEM: Lindsey had a problem with Sarah looking through her things. SOLUTION: Not care. It's gum and a mirror in a bag that isn't even yours. PROBLEM: Lindsey flipped her the bird. SOLUTION: Keep your fingers together, release your anger another way. I find cleaning my desk/cleaning in general a great way to release anger. PROBLEM: Ashlee asked Lindsey if she gave her the finger which led to more anger on Lindsey's behalf. SOLUTION: You don't need to know. What would you do with the knowledge? Store it in the "Reasons I hate Lindsey" jar? Whats more, why would you want to know? You already don't like her so why would you even want to talk to her?

In my opinion the relationships we have now as teenagers are just practices for the real relationships we have when we are adults. It’s no surprise that people have complicated adult relationships when as teenagers our relationships are expected to be over-complicated and full of problems. It’s like a rule. You aren’t in a relationship unless you’ve had an argument. Well that’s how I feel because all I hear about in terms of boyfriend/girlfriends is the problems they are having. I have kept my life fairly trouble-free by not pissing too many people off and putting things in perspective. If I have a fight with my parents no matter how angry I am at them I always think about how lucky I am to have them and no matter how many times I’m pissed off by my friends I always think of how great they are.

It’s not a big deal unless you make it a big deal.

Do something about it

It always frustrates me when people complain that something "sucks", is "gay", "lame" or that it could have been better, yet they weren't involved. If you can't be bothered to stand up and do something about it, then with all due respect, shut up and sit down.

At school you see a lot of this. A significant amount of effort is put into organizing something, a game at an assembly, an entry for the school choir competition or an inter-class basketball competition. A heck of a lot of effort is put into organizing these events, only to have someone (usually a group of people) say that it "sucked."

A couple of examples:

That game was soo lame, we always play fluffy bunnies why don't you do something different next time.
I'm sorry, what would you prefer to play next time.
I dunno, something better

Well thanks. I'm glad you were so helpful.

Why'd you sing that song, it completely sucked.
If you joined the choir and attended the meetings then you could have helped picking the song.
Choir is lame.
Well maybe next year you could join and we could make it something better, that you think more people would enjoy.
Nah.

So you aren't willing to help choose and perform the song, but you're more than willing to bag the song choice and the performance - again, thanks

Why did we have a basketball competition this year, we had one last year.
The people who organized the competition liked basketball. Maybe next year you could help organize the inter-class sports competition and then help choose a different sport.
Scratch that!

If you aren't willing to change things, why do you think they will - or even should- change.

You notice that the people who complain are usually the people who weren't there when the decision was being made, the people who couldn't be bothered to be part of organizing the event -or even taking part. When you suggest that they take part they give you a look that suggests you have a mental illness or give some slack excuse for not joining.

I feel that if you aren't willing to organize the event, or even take part in the event, then you have no right to voice your opinion. If you tried joining the organizing committees and trying to make a change, putting some effort and work behind your opinions then you might see change. The people who organize events get to make the decisions. This means they get to do what they feel is best, what they enjoy. If everyone who put their hands up for organizing the inter-class sports competition play basketball then expect a basketball tournament. They could be bothered to stand up and do something about implementing what they wanted.

Maybe if you do the same, someone will listen.

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