Twins

AS Level, Another Year of Maturity

The summer before AS Level, we had gotten to Lili a bit more, and thus our friendship with her grew stronger and closer.

We were excited for AS Level, as it was the time of our lives where our curfews are extended by another hour, 23.00 and our tutors had become more liberal on our nights out - though still with written consent and permission from our parents, as many of us will turn eighteen but still haven't gone out by the reality of responsibilities: university admission, and ensuring our entry.

Fiona, Henry and Lili have firmly chosen to apply in to Oxford. Pretty much, similar league for their insurances.

I have always been decided to move to the USA for university, hopefully at Columbia where my older brother studied.

Harold and Pauline, are pretty much typical, they go to university for three more years of partying as students without much responsibility - the bearer of responsibility lies in the shoilder of hardworking taxpayers. Should they join their family business after A Levels or after GCSE then they'll be expected to already undergo years of professional training. Who would want that? University life is pretty much a time to examine your tolerance for alcohol, your tolerance for not sleeping six to eight hours nightly and your tolerance for instant noodles or trying to last the one hundred a week allowance from thy parents' coffers or from Bank of Daddy.

Lili's life is rather international, she only returned in to England for her pre-university years, after several years overseas. She accompanied her father through his foreign posts who was an expat at financial services in Hong Kong overseeing pan-pacific transactions. In those years, she had clamored up with other Anglophiles from America, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Israel to some extent - children of other banking executives. She studied at a Jewish school having missed the deadlines of other preferences, perhaps the only one in Asia. She picked up a few Hebrew in the process. Whilst being Italian, night outs with Germans, Swiss and Italian children of bankers were also part of her life. The Anglophiles were her social life. The Germans, Swiss and Italians were her well... her default by heritage group.

Before Hong Kong, her father had warmed up to Australia, after working at ANZ. You can see a little Australian fashion in Lili's life, despite being Austro-Italian.

I never knew anyone would be wearing  Rip Curl t-shirts in England. Her taste for Billabong and Roxy is out of fashion in European standards. But her confidence about it is just what stood out.

Fiona is not foreign to that concept also, her father served as a French ambassador in Seoul and Tokyo. She just knows the reality of such life. Unlike Lili, she has never lost her French ways in her, aside from her Irish first name. After all, Fiona was expected to represent a nation called République Française.

They grew closer and closer, a budding lawyer and a budding doctor - a traditional choice for every true bred bourgeois of generations, so as the schools they attended in England.

As Lili becomes more drawn to being her own person eventually, upon turning eighteen. Henry's intensity level of his attraction have increased, while she assumed him as friends.

She never saw Henry as a date, a potential mate or a sire. He's just a friend to her. A friend who happened to be very handsome, a man who'd receive love letters sealed with Durex.

During that time, Lili's friends whom she had honed in Hong Kong came to visit that summer. An Irish, a Jewish, and an American, through them we learnt a lot more about her. Pretty much in keeping with the cliché of: 'tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are.'

Her friends were older than her - they're actually university kids. The Jewish man from California is in UC Irvine, as he lived for years in Asia, with his family. His father was a director of JP Morgan Chase Manila. He is bookish, and reserved. He barely talked much, unless it is a book critic of Paulo Cuelho. He just came to say hi, but his interests is more on sight seeing as he had never been in London.

Lili was closer to the Irish and the American, who returned home to Dublin for university while the American returned to Boston to work in his artistic crafts in electric guitar and  vocals.

Mike, whom she calls by his surname Lynch, is the tall Irishman. Like really tall. He is in to Asian women, especially South East Asians. We cannot really understand what he is saying, we just nod along. His accent is definitely Irish, muddled up with American and Chinese having learnt Mandarin in Hong Kong.

In my years, I've learnt that in every seasoned group of friends, there's always that one man who's sex drive is up and high. In Lili's old friends, that's definitely Grogan. It is also incomprehensible to begin with. I can see the appeal though, pale and pasty skin, 6'5 tall, blue eyes and blond, is exotic in Asia and also a gold medal for many.

Though I can tell they really weren't close to Lili, it just a predisposed closeness having similarities. The connection was lacklustre - we all have temporary friendships, a very common occurrence.

Matt, is the long haired American best friend of Mike. A slacker. A wannabe Rockstar. The kind of man who would skip university not become a hardworker in the labour market to work his way up to the ladder. Instead he chose to skip university to concentrate or to waste his time trying to be a rockstar as doesn't require university, even when Chris Martin of Coldplay begs to differ.

It came much to our surprise that Matt, is Lili's type. She apparently has a type. The only man that makes her forget the lines she will be saying, despite getting A in English, A in German and A in French, passing the colours highly in viva voce exams.

After all, who wouldn't go nuts for a wannabe Kurt Cobain? Being a groupie also do not require a knowledge of GCSE level English.