Student from Los Angeles Takes Metro for First Time
by Axel Hellman
Jocelyn Chang, a freshman majoring in puppetry performance at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, announced that she recently rode an Exposition Line train from USC to LA Live. It was her first time using the Los Angeles Metro Rail system.
Chang comes from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Studio City, which is near stations on the Metro Red Line, however, Chang said that she never had time in her busy schedule to take the Metro. She recalled, “To get to high school, I would drive about an hour, maybe more, depending on traffic. I would take the 101 to the 405 to the 10 to get to my school. Or the 101 through Hollywood to the 110 to the 10. “
Chang added, “Unless of course there was traffic on the 405 and the 101. Then I would take the 110 to the 134 to the 5 to the 110 to the 10.”
“I would spend about two hours a day driving to school and back, then two hours driving to my puppetry studio. If my family went out to dinner, that would be another two hours of driving. That’s already six hours driving in a normal day. How could I have time to take the Metro?”
Maggie DiGiulio is a freshman in the Thornton School majoring in barbershop quartet performance with a minor in jazz hands studies who accompanied her friend Jocelyn to attend a movie at LA Live. According to her, Chang found the experience confusing, “Once we got to the train station, Jocelyn wasn’t sure if we were in the right place. We were on the platform and she had to ask a couple of people, ‘Is this where the train stops?’ It was really embarrassing how clueless she was.”
Many passers-by were so perplexed as to why Chang would ask such an obvious question that they did not feel the need to answer, furthering her confusion. Her doubts were only resolved by the arrival of a train.
Once on board the train, Chang was unable to find an open seat. She recalled her experience, “There were no seats available so I had to sit on the ground. There was all this exposed piping around that looked like I could hold on to, but I had no idea what was in those pipes. If it was hot water, I could have been burned. Those things were NOT insulated! When I was sitting on the ground people looked at me funny.”
Chang speculated, “It’s probably because I was the only one there who wasn’t poor.”
Chang said that she does not plan on riding it ever again because it was, in her own words, “hella sketchy.”
