2006/06/25

On being 30

To my friends from NTU Botany,

This is a very interesting year indeed, seeing us passing the line of being 30 one after the other. I always think about the old saying that one should be independent by 30 and constantly worrying about not being able to do so.

Now that I passed the line, did I achieve this goal?
Well, it depends...

I do have (nearly) complete freedom at work, but I'm still a lowly graduate student after all. I can support myself (and my dear wife to some degree) financially but all my children rely on their grandparents’ love (and $$). I used to wonder if having kids before having the ability to support them is an irresponsible decision but now I am just grateful to our parents.

Anyway, being 30 or not, having good friends like you guys is a really wonderful thing and I wish you the best.


On a side note, this year I am very pleasantly surprised to get a Nintendo DS Lite as my Father’s Day’s gift (Father’s day is the third Sunday in June in the US). A couple of video games bring back a lot of sweet and bitter childhood memories. It is a complex feeling to discover that my childhood experience has such a dramatic effect on how I think and how I feel about things around me.