#UCLABound
Saturday night was big here in the Espinoza household.
All the college acceptance letters had gone out, and Charli had narrowed it down to her top three – UCLA, UC Berkeley, and NYU Shanghai. She has worked hard, and that’s an understatement, to earn these opportunities. I don’t know that I’ve ever, literally EVER, had to tell her, “Do your homework.” I have, on countless occasions, told her, “Close your tablet and go to bed!”
I am so proud of her for her dedication to her studies and her passion for learning. It is a joy to watch as these next steps unfold before her. My prayer has been that she would be able to go to a college where she will soar. Even if it meant she was far away from home.
She’s been able to visit UCLA but not Berkeley and certainly not NYU Shanghai. Now in the middle of COVID-19, a Berkeley tour isn’t in the cards any time soon. So once she had tagged these as her trifecta, she asked that we get together as a family to watch virtual tours together and talk about her options. We all cleared our “shelter in place” calendars (clipping our toenails, DIY haircuts, and alphabetizing the spice rack), and put Saturday at 5 on the books.
Family dinner is always the best. Just...the best. We had BBQ ribs, roasted brussels sprouts and butternut squash, homemade whole wheat bread, roasted lemon herb potatoes, and salad. For dessert – fresh, hot espresso chocolate chip cookies (with coconut flour, so they were basically a health food).
After dinner, we gathered around the TV, set up a Zoom call with Dr. Aunt Cho (working on the front lines in LA), and pulled up a virtual tour of NYU Shanghai. I won’t lie. I was hoping for an obvious rat infestation in the dorms or creepy tour guides with poor grammar. No such luck. The campus was quite impressive and the tour guides engaging and knowledgeable.
Next, we looked at UC Berkeley, then UCLA. Both really nice campuses with lots of study spaces — they had Charli at “study spaces.”
After the virtual tours, we gave Charli our feedback, trying really hard to be unbiased, but each of us knowing how gut-wrenching it would be to put Charli on a plane to fly across the world in the fall. Charli had expressed that one of the benefits of NYU Shanghai is the opportunity to travel and to be immersed in a new culture. Chase, not one to conceal his preferences, enthusiastically interjected, “Charli, if you go to Berkeley or UCLA, I’ll give you a $20,000 travel stipend!”
Toward the end of our discussion, Karen (a licensed LMFT) said, “Charli, I wasn’t going to say this because I thought it might sound too therapisty, but I think you need to follow your heart.” I knew this was wise advice, but I was silently praying her heart was leading her close to home.
The discussion concluded when Charli said she’d come to a decision.... “But first, I have to go to the bathroom.” Cliffhanger! I was on the verge of tears, bracing myself to hear, “I’m going to NYU Shanghai,” and telling myself to smile, to be excited, and to NOT cry.
A few minutes later, Charli came back in the room wearing a different shirt. She said, “I’ve decided this is where I’m going.” I saw the UCLA t-shirt and jumped about three feet off the ground screaming, “YES! YES! YES!” The relief, I cannot even tell you.
So this fall, Charli will be studying microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at UCLA – just over an hour away from home! I have assured her I will not show up unannounced multiple times a week with boba.
I can honestly say if she had chosen NYU Shanghai, I would have been excited for her and 100% supportive AND simultaneously distraught at the thought of her being so far away for so long. Apparently, my facial expression, comments, and body language betrayed my attempts to appear completely neutral during our family discussion, so I’m glad my acting skills were not put to the test with an NYU Shanghai announcement.
I am amazed and, quite frankly, impressed, at the wisdom and maturity Charli demonstrated in her decision-making process. She carefully weighed her options, and with her end- goal in mind, she made her choice for all the right reasons.
I wish Chandler could have been here. He always bragged about his little sister. He would have been downright obnoxious about this. There is a good chance he would have disappeared with the clippers and shaved his head to say Go Bruins.
