So my 20th birthday is fast approaching and I’m wondering when do you begin to qualify as growing old?

One of my friends in college considers 20 as something of a cut off point. I think his view is that we’re officially one foot in the grave as of then, if not half dead. But then saying it with a little objectivity twenty is one fifth of the way to being one hundred, though I don’t intend to live that long (though after all the time I’ve spent sitting in bed and studying for my exams I was starting to feel about a hundred with all the aches and pains I was getting in my back and hips). And I’ll be ten years away from thirty.
I know being in the 20s age bracket is still young, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be more interesting saying I’m twenty, than still a teenager. 🙂

But then aside from grey hairs (which I’m not going to notice anytime soon since my hair is liberally dyed with black and blue) and wrinkles what are the signs of aging?
There’s prune juice in the fridge and ready to eat prunes in the cubbard but I’m not going anywhere near them.
I was watching live footage from the Dail earlier and it was pretty interesting. Speakers from Labour and Sinn Fein were speaking out against the governments proposals to nationalise one of the sinking banks over here because they feel it will become a cesspool for money. The government appear to be trying to rush in some form of legislation to bail out one of the banks (possibly more) without giving the Dail adequate time to discuss it and without proper investigation into why the bank is failing. I want to say an interest in the economics and politics of your country should be a sign of growing old, but in a time of recession it feels almost vital to have some idea as to what’s now gone wrong.

I’m getting distracted by footage of the gathering crowds in Washington for the inauguration. I wonder if Obama will really be able to bring about the change that’s been so hyped up. It would be wonderful to see. There’s been a fair bit on the tv over here about “Is Ireland still on Obama’s radar?”, or “What’s Obama’s policy on Northern Ireland?”.
To be honest I don’t think we should be, or at least not high up on his list of priorities. Clearly as the President of the US, his focus should be solely on his country and his responsibilities to it. America, like alot of other places (I’m not going to say everywhere ’cause in regards to the recession we’re only hearing about it’s effects here in Europe and the US, and then there’s the conflict in the occupied palestian terrotories which is just so unfortunate- but at least a ceasefire was agreed during the weekend) is suffering with the recession, and I think if it can be saved (or would it be salvaged?) by the new President then that’s what we should be looking to in order to follow an example as to how to save ourselves rather than expecting America to swoop in and save us all.