It wasn’t until these past several days when I realized how terrible goodbyes are. From our three and half hour “kumbaya” at Laguna Beach to the momentous senior sleepover Tuesday night, it’s difficult to imagine everyone scattered around the country in just a matter of weeks or months.

For the past four years, I’ve been fortunate to befriend such brilliant and highly motivated classmates, and as I reminisce about our wonderful high school experience, I am astounded at how much we’ve changed in so little time. As we now regularly discuss life ambitions, graduate school, and everything that college-bound freshmen can dream of pursuing, I realized that for all the farewells that we will be saying in these upcoming months, parting the high school chapter of our lives will be our one true goodbye.

At this point as a fresh 18 year-old, I’m grateful for parents who have always pushed me to be independent since a young age. From my elementary days when my mom brought me to her clinic and instructed me to preoccupy myself with Scientific American magazines to the days when they allowed me to spend my summers living at UC Davis, my parents never spoon-fed me solutions to my problems. In fact, when I received my first ever ‘D’ on a Pre Calculus exam my freshman year, my parents’ first reactions weren’t fury against the abysmal score or urgency to hire a tutor right away. Instead, my dad glanced at the ‘D’ on my manuscript and remarked, “Stop moping, and do better next time!” And as he often jokes to his friends, the best thing that he’s done to help me with my high school career has been to do little to nothing at all.

With that being said, my parents were never ones to teach me the difference between book-smart and street-smart, and it’s ironic that I learned all the basic living essentials – how to do my own laundry, how to cook, how to maintain a healthy lifestyle – during my summers away from home. Furthermore, they didn’t tell me to apply for newspaper my freshman year, and when they realized just how much work the job actually requires, they didn’t tell me to stop either.

Nevertheless, as someone who once always cringed at new beginnings, I marvel at how such independence has helped me grow into someone so different in the span of eight years. When I joined this institution in 2003, I have tacked on many inches to my vertically challenged stature. I have studied for over 50 final exams. I have celebrated my first large envelope. I have survived my first small one. And through it all, I am by no means the same fifth grader who trudged through Bucknall’s halls so many years ago.

Having grown up in Taiwan, my parents often share the story of their moving to San Jose, and I want my life to be boundless with possibilities as how my parents took the risk of entering their lives in the United States. I can’t foresee my life in five years nor can I imagine how far change will take me. After my great eastern migration, who knows if I’ll end up back on the golden coast; as we embark on our separate college journeys, who knows if our lives will cross paths or how our lives will carve out.

Nonetheless, there’s plenty of time for soul searching later. As for now, with the sheer exhilaration of having a roommate and living independently 3000 miles away, the thrill of college has successfully dug its way into our lives, and there is no question that wonderful experiences await us wherever we go.