The Infinite Possibilities

I'm turning twenty in less than a month. Twenty! That feels so... Old, as a friend put it so eloquently! And yet I feel like I've barely lived. I've not even made a dent in my mental bucket list. At my age, James and Lily Potter were married, Harry was just around the corner and they were fighting the Dark Lord. Bella Swan (idiot that she is) married Edward Cullen at 18. Percy Jackson saved the world at 16; and again at 17. All I'm fighting, albeit half-heartedly, are pimples and an expanding waistline. I've done a decent job with the pimples though.
Twenty feels final. There's no turning back now. It's like an initiation into the adult world. You can't use the excuse of being a kid every time you make a mistake. The mistakes you make now could very well be permanent. But sadly, this is probably the decade you'll make most of your mistakes as well. I'll just comfort myself with the thought that everything happens for a reason. But honestly. Me, an adult? Really? Isn't an adult supposed to have, like, survival skills? And yet, here I am at the doorstep of the official club of adulthood, attending my first potluck and I've forgotten to bring what was asked of me. Can I get kicked out? How are we supposed to have it all figured out by now? Or at least, how do we appear to have it all figured out?
I feel like I'm standing at a crossroads. Conflicted, confused. Much like the poem 'The Road Not Taken'. Can't life be like maths or science? Where there's only one right answer? Why does it have to be like a subject of humanities-one with infinite answers?
And yet, I feel a sense of excitement that maybe now my life will truly begin. I will finally grow up (I don't have much of a choice, do I? :P). And, eventually, I will figure out how to deal with the Sun not shining on my life all the time. It shall be a beautiful adventure
Oh well, leaving you just as confused as I feel, yours truly,
Pallavi

Always..

Alan Rickman is one of my favourite actors. And not just because nobody could have played the role of Severus Snape better than he did. I loved his voice, his talent, his versatility, his intelligence, the fact that he fell in love, married and stayed with the same woman he met at 19. I loved the fact that when you watched him play the role of a villain, you couldn't imagine him as much else. And that's only until you watch him play a romantic role. He's Severus Snape from Harry Potter, Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensiblity, Hans Gruber from Die Hard, Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood. He's all these people and yet he has a quality that's solely his own. His phenomenal voice that can sound intelligent, sarcastic, sardonic, chilling, disapproving, mocking, comforting and kind all at once. His voice, once heard, is unforgettable. He may not have been the most traditionally handsome actor around town, but there was something undeniably appealing about his face and his smile. He was brilliant and he has immortalized himself not just as one of the characters he played but as Alan Rickman. He will be missed. Always.