A Trip Down Memory Lane #BehindTheBlogger

Let’s go back.

I grew up as a kid of the 90’s and early 2000’s, so I thought I’d talk about that a bit since it’s only going to get harder from here on out for me to claim that I’m still a kid. (I did get carded last Black Friday for trying to buy Diablo 3 though, so there’s that.)

It saddens me that it is no longer socially acceptable for me to race down streets with friends in shopping carts. (This was actually one of the first things I did last year when I got to see my friends again. don’tjudgeme.) So here we are, a tribute (of sorts) to my youth! Let’s hope that inner child never ditches me.

90’s

I was banned from watching TV at a rather young age, but I did manage to get in some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Batman and Reading Rainbow before the ban!

My brother and I were given “homework” outside of schoolwork that consisted of super workbooks (ginormous books of math problems, stuff on grammar, spelling, etc.), and copying Chinese characters.

I tried to help out with chores when possible, and we’d also practice piano for about an hour a day. I suppose “banned from TV’ is actually somewhat misleading, because come to think of it, we were really just banned from American TV shows. :O

I instead grew up on TVB dramas, Stephen Chow comedies (which, to this date, my mom still disapproves of) and Jet Li films.

After we finished our extraneous homework, we’d get to do whatever we wanted, so in the summer, we took to waking up at 5 a.m. to finish up all our work so we could play Super Nintendo and go biking/rollerblading all over the neighborhood. <3

I had a billion favorite games (here’s my top 10!), but never got to start playing the Final Fantasy’s, Chrono Trigger, Harvest Moon, or Tales of Phantasia until I got my DS (and *cough*an emulator*cough*).

I grew up on classical music (102.1 in the bay area!) and didn’t listen to a single pop song until the end of 5th grade, when my brother decided to be rebellious and switched the station we woke up to each morning to z95.7.

00’s

Of course, there were also the boy bands. I never fangirled over them, and was quite aware that the battle of popularity always seemed to be between Backstreet Boys and N*Sync…both of which I very much enjoyed listening to while lifting weights with the guys at the gym.

My favorite boy band, however, was 98 degrees.

I was (and still am) very much an introvert, so I spent a whole lot of my time writing, reading (Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Neal Shusterman, and Sarah Dessen, anyone?), listening to/playing music, and volunteering.(Seriously, I am nothing if not consistent. :O )

I was also really into graphic novels (mostly Fushigi Yuugi and Ayashi no Ceres), anime (Nana & Azumanga Daioh!), and a whole lot of TVB shows (old habits die hard!).

But don’t get me wrong. :O I also really loved spending time with my friends when we were allowed out of the house from studying (hah)!

We’d have sleepovers, play around on playgrounds, get milk tea, go hiking or just walking around town, and/or engage in highly intelligent spur-of-the-moment adventures (e.g. trying to sled down a super-muddy hill on a snowglider we found on the street). That didn’t end well, but no one broke anything, so we have that to be thankful for.

My high school is apparently considered to be the 18th of the “Smartest Public High Schools in the Country,” so a lot of my time was clearly also spent studying. I was at the bottom of the smart barrel, so my weighted 4.0 and 2100 meant nothing in the world of 5.0’s, 2400’s, and 5’s on all AP’s (whilst also being crazy-talented, athletic, and also super nice). …My class had 26 valedictorians.

I have a strong suspicion that this is where my overachieving tendencies came from.

I know I at least somewhat owe my typing skills to AIM (that and the fact that my dad used to make me type up my brother’s assignments for him).

I used this to keep in touch with people through college, but somehow in grad school, it kinda fizzled out. I wonder if any of my friends still use it?

10 Things I Hate About You was and still is one of my favorite chick flicks. :D I think my only celebrity crush as a teenager was Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which may have been due in part to the fact that I had a crush on someone in real life who looked a whole lot like him. :O Other favorite movies include[d] Miss Congeniality (which I can probably quote in its entirety) Serendipity, Blade, Blade II, and X-Men.

In case you care, my one and only celebrity crush now is the actor who plays Dean Winchester on Supernatural (Jensen Ackles), but he is very much taken. Too bad, so sad. :[

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Thank you for reading a story from #BehindTheBlogger Hop. Every 2 weeks a group of bloggers is given a writing prompt. These prompts are very open ended, so our bloggers can write about whatever they desire. The main rule is that their blog post directly relates to the topic of that week. The point of this hop is for our readers to get to know us on a personal level.

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• Did/Do you have a celebrity crush?
• What decade did you grow up in, and what are some of your favorite things from then?
• What were some of your favorite childhood games/books/movies?
• Do you still like the same things you were interested in when you were little?