Turning legal

They say that when a girl turns 18, her parents would dress her up in the most beautiful of dresses and throw her a party, with all their adult friends invited, as their daughter's debut to adulthood. It is when the parents present to the whole world that their daughter has reached the ripe old legal age, has blossomed into a supposed lady and is high time for her to choose a mate.

Hold up. Does that mean when I turn 18, I need to get married ASAP? I don't even have a boyfriend yet. Can't I just learn to drive and get my license first?



Kidding aside, I turned 18 today. Whoop-dee-do! But unlike most girls, I didn't get my fancy debut party in a debutante's ball gown with the 18 candles, roses and what-nots and all my friends surrounding me googley-eyed. In fact, I made a deal with my parents last summer that in exchange for an extravagant event on my birthday, I would get a camera of my liking. My parents agreed, and I got my very own Nikon D3100. Then I instantly became a photographer to any event I go to.

However, my mother and sister started bugging me at the start of my vacation if ever I wanted a simple birthday bash, something small with my family and friends nearby. (I have friends from all across the country because of high school and college, I'm not pulling your leg here, thus proximity of invited friends should be explicitly stated.) Last Friday, we decided to have one by Saturday evening so that the whole extended family would be complete. Yes, the whole birthday party package of organizing, ordering and buying food was done in less than 24 hours. Talk about cramming, but I guess I did get a party, or rather, a not-so-intimate dinner with my family, neighbors and family friends.

The best things about Saturday night was my birthday cake, my amazing, blazing, fiery birthday cake. It's actually the most photographed thing that night. And I was the one and only celebrant-cum-photographer. Now, now, I didn't take all the pictures, especially the ones that I was in.

Here's me blowing the fire off the candle on my flaming cake.

Le familia. I love how I am taller than my sister here. Thanks, platform shoes!

Look at my guests. Then the food. Then the balloons! Yes, balloons, so sue me.

Favorite baby back ribs. You can taste it by just looking at it.

Sister trying to bite my candy age.

Stolen shot taken by my younger brother, post-processed by yours truly.

I'm only a few centimeters shorter than my dad. Thanks again, platform shoes.

What are you looking at?

Wacky extended family: aunt, cousins and nephew.

Hi-yah! Cake-slicing, Nadya-style.

On my actual birthday today, my parents invited some friends over (again, not my young friends, but family friends that included my godparents). Nothing fancy: dinner with the lechon cooked into paksiw, a birthday cheesecake and karaoke singing until midnight.

Blueberry birthday cheesecake

Blowing candles the second time around.

With my favorite ladies

Karaoke night started like this...

...and somehow ended like this.

It's quite ironic though that my sister and I "sing" (read: off-key and wrong pitch most of the time) songs sung by male artists and get scores above 90 while my brother sings those by female artists, beautifully in tone and pitch I should add, yet gets scores of only 80s. I guess the machine knows how to satisfy a customer, especially a birthday celebrant.

I used to imagine turning 18 would magically make me wiser and more mature and create a drastic change in me with a snap of a finger. I guess a snap of a finger is too fast for those changes.