I remember in elementary school, on my walk home, I'd pretend to hitchhike whenever I saw my friend, Jake's dad's truck. They'd occasionally pick me up and drive me home (a measly 0.3 mi. according to Google Maps).
It's funny how some of my most precious memories are from walking home. In elementary school, I walked with Elias and Christian Andrews (these are the main 2 I remember).
Once I graduated to middle school, I would walk home with Elias, Johnny, and Enrique. I still remember walking through the hole in the fence in the far back field of WMS. This is around the time that we all got into skateboarding too.
In high school, we would walk or skate to a bunch of different places after school to hangout. Around 10th or 11th grade, we outgrew all of that and started riding bikes.
After that is when I finally got a car. I remember I got a car right after I started my first job as an iPhone technician. I cringe thinking about how much money I wasted driving >100mi/day back and forth from San Jose/Pleasanton on weekdays and how my car was constantly having mechanical problems. In hindsight, I should have gotten a Prius...
Yesterday I went on a bike ride with Sammy in Irvine and wow, it has really been a long while since I've gone on a bike ride to just enjoy the scenery and explore Irvine. We started near UCI at the Dartmouth apartments (where I lived for 3 years), then we rode around the yale loop to Melissa's house, and lastly back home down all the way past IVC back to Culver. It's truly amazing how much I associate memories with places and locations. I was pretty overwhelmed with emotion and memories from the last 6 years of my life in Irvine.
It's pretty bittersweet with everyone moving out of the Irvine house. Even though it's not the greatest city by many standards, I have so much love for Irvine and even more love for all the friends I've made there. It will always have a special place in my heart.
I just wanted to reflect on some of my fondest memories here (non-exhaustive):
- first home away from home
- 4 amazing years at university
- sleeping through class
- first time working at a food/restaurant establishment
- meeting kevin & diane at cyberdeck
- first time failing an exam (don't think i ever actually failed something in HS)
- first time living with some of my best friends
- first time moving (and many times following)
- first time being truly broke as a joke
- first time worrying about where i'm going to live next
- falling in love (and out of love)
- heartbroken
- getting my wonderful cat, and first real pet, Winston
- first time going to vegas (and second, and third...)
- roadtrip to arizona (flagstaff, grand canyon, phoenix)
- cinco de mayo in denver, CO
- engineering student council (ESC)
- going to the beach and seaside at 2am
- bar crawl in newport beach/dtf
- clubbing in vegas
- HK in TJ
- day trips to SD
and many more.
So, thank you Irvine for the memories. Who knows, maybe I'll end up back here? Although Irvine isn't the best city by many metrics, it's incredibly sentimental for me and I'll cherish these memories and the people I met here forever.
Thank you, Irvine.