A year older, infinitely wiser?

This week, I've been thinking about how many things can change in a year. Since last August, I've changed my job (well, I don't exactly have one at all right now), my apartment (twice), my major, my relationship status... And I do feel quite a bit wiser than a year ago. Looking back to last August, I feel like I've grown up so much... I seemed to have so many definitive opinions about things, I seemed to be so sure about how life would turn out. Well, I was wrong, and if I'm lucky, I might have gotten rid of a bit of my youthful idealism along the way.

Since I have been thinking about age in general lately (how can it be, for instance, that the Finnish olympic team has five members born in the 1990s??), I decided to
look back a few years of my own life.
A year ago:
- I was going to write my MA thesis on American literature
- I thought emotions could be controlled with reason

Five years ago:
- I started my studies at the University (still planning to become a teacher for elementary school)
- I felt like I should do whatever I thought others expected of me

Ten years ago:
- On my 16th birthday, I arrived in Arizona to spend a year with a strange family in a completely new environment
- I'd created a strong conviction of being an irritating person who nobody wanted to hang around with

Fifteen years ago:
- I started 5th grade and became one of the bigger kids at school (though still not allowed to sit at the round tables at the cafeteria, they were for 6th-graders only...)

Twenty years ago:
- I went to preschool and started to learn about schedules and rules (the teacher frequently called my parents to complain about my cheekiness...)