Teen Girl With a Satchel – on turning 18

By Georgie Carroll

Taylor Swift in concert (who's too old for fairytales?)

I’m now a legal adult and feel that somehow, someone, somewhere, made a mistake. I surely cannot be an adult! I can’t be expected to have adult responsibilities and make official decisions. Who thought it would be a good idea to let me anywhere near a ballot paper? Yet, as the cards floating around my house suggest, and the birth date on my license confirms, I am, in fact, now in adulthood.

This despite when I heard One Direction (aka 1D) are coming to Sydney, I squealed so loud you could probably hear it in space, and the fact that I remain a devoted Taylor Swift fan and will happily shill out to see her in costume in concert, and was one of the many Harry Potter fans to visit the exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum (I could have spent all day there). As it turns out, I am quite the natural at Quaffle throwing – if only it had been an option in P.E.!

I first read The Hunger Games series in 2010, so the anticipation for the movie had been killing me. Like Tswift, it didn't disappoint. The whole concept is a little disturbing, and seeing it on screen was unsettling, but they adapted the novel brilliantly for the screen. I would recommend trying to read the book before you see the movie, as some of the girls I was with hadn’t read them and were confused by aspects that were explained in-depth in written form, but glossed over in the movie.

I caught up with a life-long friend, who has just started at uni in Sydney a few weeks ago, whinging to her about the HSC before she stopped me and said,

"Georgie, hun, believe me, this time last year I was freaking out just like you, but one day you will wake up and it will be all over and you will think to yourself, 'Wow, was that it?', and then the rest of your life will start and you will barely remember your ATAR, let alone all the nights you cried over what you thought you were going to get. There are always back ways, and different paths, and it is not the end of the world."

Sometimes I think I need to remember to listen to my elders, and remember to have fun, and that there will be a life after exams. The world keeps turning, and as I enter my second week of adulthood, I’m enjoying looking forward to what the future is going to hold, because, as Taylor Swift has said, "The lesson I've learned the most often in life is that you're always going to know more in the future than you know now."

Georgie Carroll blogs at Frangipani Princess.