That's awesome. We've had one get to 20, and at least one to 19, but more than 20 is pretty rare regardless of the record. I believe they say average is between 13 and 20. My current cat is 15, but was recently diagnosed with kidney disease, which is a life shortener generally (super common in cats).
Even without all the stuff you've got going on, 15 is often a tough age. Very few people have themselves figured out at that age. So my biggest piece of advice is to do your best, but don't expect to everything to make sense, and don't beat yourself up when life is messy. It's just the way it is.
Of the ones I've read, I'd have to say Service Model. It was just so fun - much lighter than most of the others though. Shroud was a little more meaty, and I really liked it. Another fresh take on alien life. The one I liked the least was City of Last Chances. It wasn't bad, but it was weaker than his other books.
I completely agree with everything you said. I was okay with the leviathan threat being less noticeable though because they were in an outlying land that doesn't have as much direct threat from them, and because the story took place out of season.
I just feel like his stories are really well crafted, which is the main thing for me.
Well, the song is from 1941 - so would need to be a lot of years, though it was a monster hit, was in a movie, and stayed in the pop culture for a pretty long time. 1941 is decades before I was born.
The sandwich bread is mass produced, baked in racks of loaf pans, designed to give very consistent and convenient slices for making sandwiches.
The second pic is the way many people prefer to bake a more rustic loaf. The dough is just placed on a flat sheet, so there's much more crust, and it can just rise however it does. It's less convenient for sandwiches.
No baguettes aren't used for sandwiches, they're used to serve bread with the meal. If you're eating dinner, you don't really want a slice of sandwich bread, you want something more convenient to hold in your hand, dip in you pasta sauce, or whatever. Plus it has a higher ratio of crust to insides, which can be nice.
Edit: I replied to someone who corrected me, but apparently baguettes are very much used for sandwiches, I've just never seen it. Apparently I'm an ignorant American.
This one might not make sense to more recent generations. There was a popular song way back with the line "Pardon me boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo," but stereotypical movie Indians called trains "iron horses."
My dad was 45 when he had me, yours was 18. I had the opposite experience because my parents were so much older than my friends' parents. I think that's the biggest part of what you're seeing: your dad is just younger than your friends' dads.
But to your broader question, there is no way a person is "supposed to act" at a given age, but there are some norms. For instance, a lot of folks who party a lot in their teens and twenties get bored with that at some point. Also, working to earn a living to feed the family often leaves people more with out and preferring something quiet at home to going out with a bunch of people.
I finally got around to reading your list, at least a lot of it. Pretty interesting. I've read the vast majority of the SF on the list, though not everything (many of them I read before I started keeping the notes in this thread). We have similar takes on a lot of them, but not all. For instance, I really didn't care did 3 Body Problem.
As for your most recent, The Deep Sky, I did enjoy it, but there were elements that I thought were terrible. The whole notion of all the crew having to get pregnant seemed completely ridiculous and makes no sense: what difference do nine months make when you're taking about generations? The technology seemed awfully primitive considering the time it was set. My notes are on one of my above-linked lists.
That's awesome. We've had one get to 20, and at least one to 19, but more than 20 is pretty rare regardless of the record. I believe they say average is between 13 and 20. My current cat is 15, but was recently diagnosed with kidney disease, which is a life shortener generally (super common in cats).