My Nervousness

Recently, I hypothetically asked my mother what she thought of me driving down to San Diego from Thousand Oaks, some one hundred fifty miles, by myself. I will be turning 19 in less than two months and like to feel as though my maturity exceeds my years. She told me that she was unsure, and still felt that it was still too early. While I understand that she’s just being a protective mother, inconsistencies arise, such as the fact that she knows that I take rides back to UCSD with other students around my age with less driving experience than me. I suppose this exception is to make sure I get to school, seeing as the alternatives would be either a three-and-a-half-hour train ride (costing $27) coupled with a half-hour bus ride to campus, or they drive me to school (two-and-a-half hours optimistically) and then back. Anyway, I help pay for my friends’ gas and carpooling is good for the environment, right?

There is one big hurdle that one needs to get over when studying abroad—leaving home. I guess it is a fairly straightforward process that everyone goes through when they leave the nest. Unfortunately for me, I, as well as most of my suitemates (whom I dorm with), have not really left home. We all go home for breaks, most of us have gone home more than once during each of our three quarters (each quarter consisting of eleven weeks), and first and foremost, we refer to our former domiciles as “home,” and refer to the act of visiting as “going back [home].” Last quarter, my roommate went back to Glendale six or seven weekends out of the ten, and another suitemate went home every weekend until just a month ago and still goes back frequently. I really am no different. Fall quarter, my family visited me once, and I went home once. Winter quarter, I went home twice and my family visited me once. This current spring quarter, my mother has visited me once, and my family plans to visit me the weekend after next, both occasions regarding orientation for study abroad.

My home is in Thousand Oaks, where I was born and raised. I can point to minute landmarks and show whoever cares to where I reached milestones in my life, just the way my parents intended. Don’t get me wrong—I love La Jolla. The weather’s great and insects are few; there is much more diversity here than the suburban community close to my heart, and I can see the blue Pacific from by window. In fact, the similarities between La Jolla and Thousand Oaks, particularly around Westlake High School (where I graduated), are plenty. In a sentence—it’s full of old rich people. There are many nice cars, crime is low, and drivers are bad. It reminds me of home in my own personal way and I’m glad to have it. So in a different way, I have not yet left home. My new town is reminiscent of the old and I have yet to start seeing my family any more than three times a year. Therein lies my stage in life.

Well, I purchased my round-trip ticket from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) a couple weeks ago, and ever since my nervousness has been building steadily. I told my mother of this increase when she was here the other weekend. I received the response, “Why?” Simple and succinct, her one word said a thousand. Did you do something wrong? Did you miss a deadline…oh no, did you miss a housing deadline? It would have been a good thing she didn’t say it out loud, but her intonation gave her utterance meaning, possibly including meaning she didn’t mean to give.

My mother used to live in Hong Kong during her early childhood back in the day, so I’m not sure she understands the full gravity behind my nervousness. Previously, my family visited China for two weeks with a tour group. We visited Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, all of which in central and northern China. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is in southern China (along with the good food, my mother tells me!). It was a good experience in every sense. Not only did we experience a slice of culture, we also got too see the developing country in development. There were construction cranes everywhere, and unfortunately the cities were masked in pollution. My brother and I realized the extent of our language barriers (my brother’s more than mine).

Will Hong Kong be enshrined in smog? Will it be hot and humid like the rest of China during most of the year? I already know I will have to give up my California weather—but to what extent? I suppose I will find out soon enough. How will the people be? Will the people spit all over the ground like they did in Beijing? Will the people lift their shirts halfway up their chests so as to mitigate the heat as the men did in Xian? Only time will tell I guess.

And back to my family—I will not likely see them during the four-month semester, nor will they likely see me. Whereas I do not think this is going to be a problem on my end, I know my mother has different feelings, to which I answer, “Well at least I’m not leaving for the whole year.” Little consolation, I know.

Recall that she is currently against the idea of me driving to San Diego myself—a distance of one hundred fifty miles. Hong Kong is seven thousand, two hundred miles away (or forty-eight times the distance), on a journey I will be taking by myself, crowded onto a Boeing 747 “Jumbo-Jet” with some four hundred fifty other people. I know that she will be worrying about me and my safety, and while I tell her that I’ll be okay and there’s nothing to worry about because I’ll watch myself, I know that she will remain worried until the whole episode is over and done with.

This is evidenced by the first time I came home by train. I had a 6:35 p.m. train from Oceanside going north to Los Angeles Union Station; and from there I had a bus leaving at 9:30 p.m. for arrival in Simi Valley at 10:40 p.m. Now, I am confident in my directional bearings more than the average bear, and my parents know of my keen abilities (such as being nocturnal). Nevertheless at 6:15 p.m. my father called me to see if I was at the train station yet. On a side note, I realize this whole time I’ve been focusing on my mother. That’s not to say that my father doesn’t care, I just don’t know if in his silent ways he worries about me in the same way. Because of this, I do not know whether he called me on his own accord or whether my mother had him call me. My parents claim to put up a unified front, so I’ll treat this matter as such.

Anyways, I told him yes, that I am at the train station, on the proper platform, and I will call him when I board the train. The train was late by five minutes. At 6:40 p.m., as I was entering the train, my father called me worried because I did not call him shortly after 6:35 p.m. I cleared things up, but before we hung up, he made sure I was on the correct train (keep in mind that trains don’t come any more often than three or four in any given hour on one of two platforms) and that I had my ticket still.

At Union Station in Los Angeles, I boarded the bus and called my parents again to update them. My father wanted to make sure I was on the correct bus again. I told him I was sure because it had the correct number on it as well as the destination Santa Barbara, along which was Simi Valley, the driver accepted my ticket without a problem, and the bus-loading lot was populated with one bus—the one I got on.

In Chatsworth (one stop before Simi Valley), I texted him to tell him of my whereabouts. I didn’t call because there were people on the bus sleeping.

“I’m in chatsworth. I should be in simi by 1045”

I was texting my brother’s phone, which my parents borrowed to pick me up. My parents, having never owned a cell phone personally except for a short stint in 1994, much less one with texting abilities, made an attempt to reply.

“O 2 n i k 2 m m m” I read it and lol-ed.

Anyways, I got there and saw my parents a couple hundred feet away. I began walking to them when I saw my mother flaring her hands about to get my attention, for fear that I may go the wrong direction, though I was clearly going towards them. It was like a corny movie, a scene that was bound to happen. In the car during the ride home they told me how they were so worried because the bus was fifteen minutes late and that it was night, to which I smiled.

Multiply that by 48 for the difference in distance and 4 for the difference in time gone without seeing each other, and we’ll see where we are then.

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