Queasy, Mushy, Icky - A Story of How I Feel

Today is the last whole day I will be spending in my house, in Pinole, before I will be calling Chicago “home” for the next three weeks - and quite frankly, I’m not quite sure how I feel right now. It’s definitely different from what I had imagine I would feel months ago, when I first got the scholarship. There is less excitement involved – don’t get me wrong, I’m still excited – but a whole lot more panicking than I expected. I have been feeling such a mix of emotions this whole week; I’m basically a mushy mess inside right now, even if I may outwardly appear fine.

I want to bring my books with me

I woke up this morning feeling so queasy, I actually had a little stomachache! Although, I’m not actually sure if that was nerves or something I ate last night. Either way, while I’m physically prepared for the trip, I’m not quite prepared mentally just yet. However, as Lemony Snicket wrote in A Series of Unfortunate Events: “If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives,” so I’ll be keeping that in mind as I move forward not just this month, but in the future as well.

I owe a big thank-you to my mom for helping me with my packing this whole week, so I didn’t have that much left to do. Today was basically my last-minute packing, making sure I had everything, and checking and double-checking again to make sure that I have everything and I wouldn’t be halfway across the country before I realized I left something I needed back at my house. Packing really isn’t fun for me; I don’t like the feeling of not knowing whether I forgot anything important.

I'm not actually bringing the red and black suitcase with me haha

Finally, I’m glad I had a quiet family day today. We had a fairly normal and average day, but I enjoyed spending my time with my parents, as I won’t see them for three weeks. I will be keeping in touch with them, for sure, but I have never been away from them for this long before, so this will be a first for me. Hopefully, I will be able to grow and mature as an individual from this trip. 

And now, to the countdown until we fly to Chicago – our adventure has yet to begin! 

Last Day Before We Finally Leave

Tomorrow’s the day we finally leave to take on Chicago. I’ve been so anxious to leave ever since the night of the interviews, and I don’t think I’ll be able to relax until we finally get on the plane. There have been so many hours put in by everyone involved to make this experience possible. All of the challenges I have faced, from the ILC application to the interviews to the UChicago application, are now behind me and it’s time to actually do this.

I spent a lot of today packing. I travel a lot, so packing is a process that’s pretty familiar to me, but I was so nervous that I would forget something that it took me around 2 hours to finish. Every time I thought I was done, I would remember something that I forgot to put on my list and spend way too much time debating whether or not it was important enough to justify the space it took up in my luggage. For this reason, packing was really frustrating, so when I finally finished I felt very satisfied. 

Packing before the big day took a while.

I’ve been kind of living by myself the past couple of days since I’ve gotten back from Singapore because my dad has been working and my mom and brothers are still overseas, but I haven’t spent much time alone in the house because I’ve been out with friends every day, enjoying San Francisco before I leave, until now.

I've been spending a lot of time in the city.

Today, after I finished packing, I finally had some time to relax and just reflect on all of the events that have brought me to this point. I realized that there have been so many opportunities for failure on this journey, whether it be the initial submission of our essays to Don or the completion of all of the UChicago health forms, and for the first time since this preparation has started I felt proud of myself for making it here. Of course, the actual adventure has yet to start, but even earning the right to board tomorrow’s flight is a huge honor. I’m still nervous, and probably still will be until we’re actually on our way, but I’m also more excited than ever.

Floral T-shirts!

For the first time in years, I had my outfit planned in advance for something. And the only reason it was planned was because Hercules has a tradition of wearing floral t-shirts to match Don every Orientation. So deciding between my one floral t-shirt didn't make it too hard finding an outfit for the day. 

My family and I got there pretty early, so we just examined the framed picture from the School Board meeting and then my mom and I caught up on a little gossip since we don't get much time anymore to just sit and talk about random things. After a while, I got distracted and I ended up sitting with Bianche and Cecilia. 

Our best family pictures are always from Don

Soon enough the Orientation began rolling with Madeline Kronenberg starting it, telling us that our blogs show up when admissions officers Google us. On that note, I just Googled myself and found my Vanderbilt blogs on the second page, while my YouTube account was the second result. (You should subscribe to my channel too). The images on the other hand, were full of pictures from last year's blogs, thumbnails from my YouTube videos, and henna. 

We then broke up into groups with our cohorts where we signed forms and went over the schedule. We get to fly in Southwest, which means I get to bring more clothes! Thank you Don. We then narrowed down the places we should visit at Chicago, because sadly we can't do all of them in the short time we have. (Although that is a nice challenge that I think would be fun to try to overtake.)

Forms and schedules

Ryan came a little bit after, and he gave us advice on what places we should visit. He told us about the activities held by the program. Apparently you could either pick to go with your RAs and have a planned out day during the weekends, or just hang out on your own with others. Sadly, he had to spend a lot of his time working so he couldn't do all those activities. I could see that finding a balance between work and and fun was hard, especially for a class as busy as American Law and Litigation. I know there will be a big workload, but after never having many chances to be outside on my own, I want to to make the most out of everything. 

Then, Don began talking again, mostly directed at the parents to fill them in about what was happening. I admit my mind may have started drifting to some very far places as I had already heard him say all these things before. When the Orientation ended, I grabbed two suitcases that I wanted to claim and took pictures with them. During that time, Bianche left sadly, and we couldn't take our Hercules picture with Don. 

Before I left though, Ryan reminded me of how lucky I was to be able to have this opportunity twice. And I agree. I am truly lucky, and ever so grateful that I was able to be a part of this life-changing program twice. So once again, thank you to Don, all the sponsors, panelists, and everyone who makes this happen. Thank you for making our lives better and giving us opportunities we didn't think were possible. 

Bianche also had a floral t-shirt. Let's pretend these
two pictures are connected.

Floral T-shirts!

Tutorial - But for Parents

Yesterday evening was the orientation for all the ILCers and the parents at Pinole Middle School. Pinole Middle is about only a five-minute drive away from my house, so I had a pretty easy time getting there, and the traffic didn't affect me at all, fortunately. The orientation is basically a reenactment of the tutorial us ILCers had a few months back, but this time, it's all about the parents. Don had to make sure that at the very least, our parents will know at least where we are going off this summer, but I think I can say with confidence that everyone's much more knowledgeable about the trips. 

First, Madeleine Kronenberg kicked off the start of the event with an introduction speech, mainly talking about our blogs and how important it is to write quality blogs while we're back east, because they will be one of the first things college admission officers see when they look us up on the Internet. Before she left, she said she might come to see one of the cohorts off, but only if it's at a reasonable time in the morning, which is totally understandable (I don't trust people who like to wake up early). Then, she was gone, and Don briefly explained our agenda for the evening, Each chaperone from the four cohorts went up and talked a little about themselves and their experiences, so that our parents could become more familiar with them and be willing to entrust us to our chaperones. 

Listening

After that, it was time for the break-out session, which, as the name suggest, was when we broke off into our cohort groups for further information about our specific trips. Ms. Sciacca handed us our parent permission slip forms to sign, because as Don said, the ILC was a still considered a "school field trip," and that meant parent signatures are needed. Our parents quickly signed the two yellow papers; I don't think anyone actually read the papers they were signing. Once that was taken care of, we moved on to go over the very rough itinerary Don has provided us with. Ms. Sciacca wrote down any questions people had, but they were mostly just questions about the location of the drop-off and where to pick us back up from our trips. We confirmed that Raqueeb will be getting his own room, as the privilege of being the only guy in the cohort. 

Fun time chatting

We had a bit of down time afterwards, because the former ILCer that was supposed to be there to talk to us wasn't there yet. Jahnvi answered some questions with her experience from Vanderbilt last year, but eventually, Ryan showed up. Apparently, he was at another part of the school since last year's orientation wasn't in the auditorium. Ryan gave us some really insightful information. He went over our to-do list with us, commenting on what is doable and what might be harder to go, what is expensive and not really worth it, and suggested one or two more places we might be interested to visit. Ryan also informed us about activities he did while at UChicago last summer. He told us that each day, there were activities that were part of UChicago summer program that you could sign up for, and everyone would go to the mall, see a movie, etc. as a group. He said that it wasn't really hard for him to balance his course work with free time, and his fellow cohort didn't seem to have trouble with that either, so that is a relief. Obviously, we have work and papers we will be expected to do, but I was scared it might be overwhelming, so it was nice to have a little reassurance.

The break-out session passed by sooner than I expected, and then it was back to Don again. He talked about loaner items and went over each item in details. It was a bit repetitive for me, but it was good because although I had told my mother about these things before, she was getting this information in person, which is always better. After that, the orientation was over. My mom and I looked over the items briefly, before we departed. Overall, it was a very nice evening, even though I didn't get to talk and interact with my cohort and fellow ILCers as much as I would have wanted to. 

An Evening of Information

Last night was the orientation for all of the ILC participants. It was at Pinole Middle School, which is usually a 10-15 minute drive from my house, but it turns out that during rush hour on weekdays the drive looks more like half an hour. Because of this, I would have been late if I hadn’t double-checked the directions on my phone before I was planning to leave. As it turns out, I got there in time, but I was kind of stressed from the unexpected length of the drive.

Madeline Kronenberg was the person who started off the orientation.  She spoke to us about the opportunity that we’ve all earned in our respective ILC programs, and how we should treat the whole experience as an adventure. She then told us how blogging well could be helpful in our application process; apparently, our Blogger profiles are supposed to be among the first results when we look up our names, which makes it really easy for admissions officers to read our blogs and develop impressions of us based on them. My dad told me to Google my name as she was saying this, and sadly, my Blogger profile was near the end of the second page of results, apparently less relevant than a pumpkin patch I participated in when I was 11. Overall, her talk was really enthusiastic and motivating, which was good for raising my morale before facing the hour or so of information I was about to go through.

After Mrs. Kronenberg concluded her speech, Don stepped to the front of the room and started speaking. He congratulated us for making it to past the selection process and stressed the importance of responding to emails and communicating with our parents. He then talked about how we were likely to experience interactions with kids from more affluent backgrounds and the importance of representing ourselves and the district well. After this short introduction, the chaperones introduced themselves, then we split up into our cohorts and went to different parts of the room to be addressed by our respective chaperones.

The chaperones introducing themselves.

The UChicago group gathered around Ms. Sciacca at one of the tables in the front row. We were supposed to go over the attractions that we definitely wanted to visit as a group, but we had already discussed what we wanted to do on Saturday over pizza and Ryan, who was supposed to give us insight on the city and his experience living in it as an ILCer, was waiting outside of the gym because of a miscommunication, so we didn’t spend much time on that. Instead, Ms. Sciacca took us through the rough draft of the itinerary and answered some questions we had about that. After that, we signed some forms and then kind of sat around. Eventually, we started asking Jahnvi questions about her experience at Vanderbilt last year, because she was the closest thing we had to a UChicago ILC alum. After around half an hour, Ryan finally came to answer our questions. He gave us some suggestions on where to go, such as the Shedd Aquarium, which I hadn’t previously known about, and broke down how he balanced his coursework, blogging, and free time. Based on what he said, it sounds like it’s not that hard to find others to go places with, which is a good thing because I like hanging out with a variety of people.

Filling out forms during the cohort info session.

After the cohort information session, we reconvened as a group, where Don started telling us about the various types of loaner items that were available and what they were used for. A lot of the stuff had already been covered in the tutorial we had way back in April, so I was kind of half-listening until he held up the toiletry bag and started talking about it. Even though it was hot pink and technically for the girls, it had all sorts of empty bottles and containers inside that looked really useful for travelling, and I was instantly enamored. After he wrapped up his presentation, I went over to go look at the bag and wondered if he would let me borrow it. Unfortunately, my wishes were shot down almost immediately; Don caught me eyeing the female bag and told me to choose one from the boy pile. I relented, and chose a handsome brown bag that seems functional enough, but still doesn’t have all of the travel-sized bottles and liquid containers.

I went home after taking the toiletry bag. This meeting was my dad’s first time experiencing Don speak for an extended period of time, and he was amazed by Don’s ability to back up almost every one of his points with some sort of anecdote. We didn’t have much free time during the orientation, and almost everyone left pretty quickly, so I didn’t get to talk to that many people. We did, however, go over the prospective attractions again, and seeing them all written out on paper showed me just how many things there are to do this summer in Chicago. From this orientation, I got a toiletry bag and was also reminded of some of the activities we’ll be doing in our free time this summer, so I’d say it was a decent experience overall.

Hark! The Parents are Now Clued In!

When Don first mentioned that we were having an Orientation, I was a bit confused. ''Isn't that going to be similar to the Tutorial?'' Which as Don mentioned in the email was true, but this time parents would be there. They would finally be clued in on what all of us kids knew about, but hadn't spilled the beans on. It would also give parents the chance to get to know the chaperones more so they would feel more comfortable, having their teenage children spend three weeks across the country.

Everyone's ready to learn

My mom and I ended up getting there right at 5:45, to see that most of my fellow ILCers were already there. Don had an array of suit cases and various loaner items set out for us and our parents to see. We started out by waiting for everyone to get there and some basic formalities. Madeline Kronenberg spoke quickly about how excited she and the entire school board were for us to be attending our programs. She and Don laughed about the prospect of her showing up early to see us off on Departure Day—which I'm guessing means that it won't happen.

Don gave us a speech on what we'd go over, followed by the chaperones introducing themselves, and how they're going to take great care of us. We already knew all that of course—Ms. Sciacca is great. 

We them splintered off into groups to discuss any concerns or questions parents had, and to narrow down the list of places we wanted to go. At our meet and greet we had already worked on narrowing down the places we wanted to see, so it didn't take much time to get that done. We did find out that we're flying Southwest, which means if it comes to it, we can take two bags on the plane. It also turns out we're meeting at El Cerrito High early in the morning, at 5 AM. Though I'll be eager to get to Chicago I doubt I'll be eager to wake up early that morning.

Figuring out our proposed sight-seeing list

Ryan showed up and we were able to ask him questions, about places to go, what the dorms were like, and how activities were organized. Apparently there are often organized activities over the summer session and you can sign  up to participate in  different ones for a more structured pattern to follow. I'm intrigued to see what that is like and whether I'll choose to participate in many of those or opt to 'choose my own adventure.'

When we once again gathered as a group to discuss blogs and loaner items, Don instructed us on how to correctly format our blogs. It's getting closer to departure, so our blogging has to be organized correctly by now. He spoke of the various items we would require while at our programs, and how many of these items that we could get from him. It wasn't long before we began packing up and mentally readying ourselves for the next time we would meet. Departure day.

The Birth of a New Mom

There were absolutely no parking spots, so after a while, my dad decided he would trust me and dropped me off at the corner of the street so I could walk to Jupiter. I got out of the car, confident that this time I would not get lost. Pshht...I'm definitely not directionally challenged.

After a little, I lost my patience. I was positive I was going in the right direction, but I just couldn't see Jupiter. I asked a random guy next to me, but he didn't know. Right when my confidence dwindled, I saw Cecilia's mom. I ran up to her and gave her the happiest hug of my life, and asked her if I was going the right way— which I was. I cherished that accomplishment, because there's very few times where I'm headed in the right direction.

Once there, we went upstairs, and the first thing I heard was the waitress saying there was a 45

If you look closely, there's only one slice left

minute wait for pizza. That was a little depressing but on the bright side, more time for us to bond. The conversation involved some very different things, from learning Ms.Sciacca had a fraternal twin, to deciding to call her mom, and our theory that Raqeeb is always late because his hair.

We ended up ordering two vegetarian pizzas since Mom, Raqeeb, and I were vegetarian; plus, Lindsay didn't really like meat. My mission now will be to turn Cecilia into a vegetarian in the three weeks I'm with her. She will get to explore the world of vegetables and grains that are healthy and harmless.

I don't remember the exact name of the pizzas, except that they were so good we got right to eating, and didn't even think twice about taking pictures. I do remember, though, that one had a pesto base and the other the traditional tomato sauce. 

The Dancing Boy

We continued talking and even unanimously decided on some places we definitely wanted to visit in Chicago. I noticed from the balcony that there were some nice colorful lights below and I wanted to explore it, so I asked if we could go. 

It was an extension of the restaurant with many people eating in the open, and a band playing at the far end. In front of the band there a toddler dancing as if no one was watching, and he had the cutest and brightest smile. I currently can't get over how adorable he looks and I still want to just pick him up and give him a hug. 

We then headed back in front of Jupiter to get picked up. After a couple minutes of talking, my dad arrived and I headed home. On the ride back, I realized how much I really could no longer wait until it was time for departure. There are just too many adventures that lay ahead. 

Behind the restaurant. Squad.