Interview with Juan Alcala

The first interview I had conducted with Juan Alcala was very informative and full of positive conversation. Juan is Thirty-Nine years old and married with five kids. He himself automatically told me he was a “full time student, full time worker, and full time dad.” From this point, I knew he would have many interesting things to say about himself and his life. After he graduated from Channel Islands High School in 1991, he was already working. In 1995, he had been the Army active duty until 1999. He has several role models but the one that stuck out most was Sergeant Lonnie Crittendon from the time he served in the military. Juan described Crittendon to me as “short guy who had been in the military for twenty-two years, but had so much respect from senior officers and other Sergeants.” To this day, Juan says he still talks to him too. Juan told me that Sergeant Cittendon encouraged him to work for his current employer, which is for the federal government. Currently Juan works for the Department of Homeland Security based out of Santa Barbara. He first started in Phoenix in 2002, but then transferred to Santa Barbara in 2007. Toward the end of our interview, Juan had told me the reason he is earning a degree is so he can transfer to Channel Islands and continue in business. In addition, he had mentioned that he has “topped out and needs that degree to get any more of a promotion.” In the end of our interview, I asked Juan what the importance of school was to him and he replied to me by saying, “How can I preach to my kids the importance of education if I don’t do it myself.” Truly, Juan was a positive individual to talk to and getting to know a bit about. 

Family

Family is great and important to have. Sometimes family members may seem to be in your business every second from the moment you walk in the door to the moment you go to sleep, but most of the time it is only because they care about you. In some cases, it may be seem this way only because they want to be more involved in your life and make sure you still acknowledge them. Having family in your life has its benefits and difficulties for some. The benefits are having good influences to look toward while growing up. For others they may grow up and see that did not have the chance to establish who they are from being who they really are. They are pushed towards believing in such and such and are told that this and that are the right things to do. It can be difficult for some in various ways.

            While family can seem annoying to some, to others family is the most important in their lives. If a person were to get in a situation, they would have their family to help cushion the pressure from whatever it may be. Family is usually there for any kind of problem. In addition, other family members are bound to have the experienced something you may encounter. This makes life much easier and less stressful for some. Family is also a great way to get educated in some crucial day-to-day problems and morals. These can vary vastly depending on what way a family raised someone. Examples could be anything from how to jump-start a car, to choosing how you want to live a decent and bearable life. Luckily, family is there for these particular kinds of issues since schools (Elementary-High School) do not teach any of this.

            For some family is good, but from experiences with people they feel that they aren’t truly who they are because they were influenced with religion and other beliefs and morals. Some feel that they weren’t given the free will that they are recovering because they are slowly departing from home life to their own life. Although some may see these as problems, others will see these as a blessing. That’s for the individual to decide not anyone else.

            Personally, family is the most important thing in my life. Although we argue or disagree on issues, we don’t take it extremely personally. At the end of the day, we all sleep under the same roof and wake up like whatever it might have been never happened. They have always been there for me and I will always be there for them.  

           

            

Significant Event

Four Wheels, For Life

            April 2, 2011. A beautiful and breezy sunlit day. Another perfect day to do what I love which is the semi-extreme sport, skateboarding. The whole day was filled with awesome skate sessions and classic shenanigans with my good friends Joe and Theo. We were all riding all around the city of Ventura until we reached one of our many regular skate spots. This one in particular happened to have everything we liked; stairs, rails, gaps, ledges, pads. The one peculiar thing about this spot was the fact it was a school, Portola Elementary School. We would often be told to leave by stressed and aggravated teachers who came in to do their paperwork on the weekends. In some cases we have even had the cops called to kick us out. However, April 2, 2011 there was nothing that got in the way of a great day of skating. The only thing that could have made the day a bummer would have been a broken board from the gratuitous amount of skating we got in.

            Being sixteen at the time, I was still stepping my skate tricks up to the next level. As I warming up, I was doing faster and cleaner flip tricks as time progressed throughout the day. We were having a great day and decided to start doing tricks off the set of stairs they had in the main entrance of the school. A set of four that was perfect for doing simple flip tricks off. Every time I would roll down the hallway entrance I followed the sketchy wheel marks from previous skaters just because it was just the routine way to hit the stairs. The echoes from are boards were getting louder each time we would each get a trick off because the skate session was getting intense. Finally, I made the decision to make this the day I really pushed my skills on the skateboard.

            Although I was decent at doing stairs on my skateboard, I wanted to do something big that would show some of my skills built from my years of practicing. I rolled up to side of my friend Joe and told him I wanted to do the monster stair-set. He knew exactly what I was talking about since he and I were the ones who gave that specific stair-set its infamous name. The reason for it having this monster name is the fact it has ten stairs, each about one foot in height. He replied to me with, “I bet you can nail that by now.” However, he had this look of doubt after when he looked toward the monster. I was fully motivated and determined to do something as notorious as this; since at the age of sixteen I had been taking skating seriously for about five years.

            Moment after moment I looked down from the top of the stairs. I was looking for good landing points and looked at all of my surroundings to see if there were any poles that I could potentially hit out of carelessness or obliviousness. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon now and the clouds became a bit denser than they were earlier giving me a bit more of an uneasy feeling about doing the trick. This stair-set was by far the biggest obstacle I have ever had any thoughts about doing. The time came as I put my board down roughly fifty feet from where the leaping point was. My front foot was on my board feeling the sandiness of the grip-tape hugging the waffle grip of my Nike’s. I boosted forward as I pushed with my back foot only hearing the sound of the uneven wheels of my skateboard rubbing the concrete at a high speed. The thought ran through my head of my friends’ expressions on their faces, giving me a little more confidence into doing the trick. By the time that I finished that confidence boosting thought, it was time for to bend my knees to prepare to pop my board up from the top of the monster.

            My back foot popped the board up and my front foot helped lift and straighten the board out. My entire body was in the air for a good two to three seconds giving me a lot of time to think of what the fall might feel like. I came extremely close to hitting the ground so I braced myself for the impact. The wheels of my board landed even with each other and I bounced a little and had to catch my balance. That was it; I had done something I thought I could have never done. But with that being said I got overly excited and also did something I had never done before that day too. My mind got the best of me and I wanted to up the difficulty on the already oversized stair-set. The first time all I did was a simple Ollie, a jump. This time I wanted to add a kick-flip. I found myself in the same scenario as the first attempt. My friends were at the bottom of the set; this time probably talking amongst themselves saying what a bad idea it was to add some difficulty to an obstacle that was already difficult. I gained a lot of speed, more than the first time. As I came closer to the stairs I prepared to pop my trick. My back foot went down and my front foot went out toward the air. The atmosphere was so quiet I could hear the sound of my shoe being scraped by the grip-tape. I brought my front foot back to catch the board that had successfully flipped. There was an issue with the way I caught the board though. I had my feet too far apart and when it came time to brace for the impact of the landing, I was not ready this time. I slammed the ground extremely hard making the concrete leave its mark on my left arm and hand. I got up just as if it was any other fall. This fall was like any other, but on a bigger scale. I though all was well, but about three hours later, it was night now,

Instantly, I knew something was definitely wrong. I could feel bones touching one another when I moved my index and middle finger. This called for an immediate hospital run. Soon after x-rays were taken, I found that I had fractured my scaufoid bone. This is a bone in the wrist. The break required surgery after months of examining the healing process. Did this stop me from doing what I love? Absolutely not. Actually, it encouraged me more to continue doing my favorite hobby.

Not only did I only did it overcome a challenge, it fueled my love for skateboarding even more and to this day I still skate when I can. Besides, I have a wicked scar from this accident and a cool story behind it. Some may see this story and may not see the significance behind it, but to me, the trick, the confidence I gained from it, the accident, this break was caused by overcoming something I thought was difficult and to me, gives it significance. 

Texting

            Texting is an everyday of communication these days. Actually, I believe it is the most common form of communication nowadays. It is a great and very convenient way of communicating to other people. For instance, there may be a situation where someone cannot be too loud, but with texting, it makes it possible to communicate with the other person while remaining silent. With that being said, texting does have its downfalls. The responsibility is on the individual that is texting though. Texting and driving is what I am trying to get across here. The fault should be on the person that is/was texting if anything like an accident were to occur. I have seen many times that at more times than others, a younger driver is speeding along the roads with their face pointing down toward the right with their phone in their hand. Some can pull it off; while others start to weave into others’ and even my lane.

            Although texting is a great tool to use a form of communication, it should be used in the right circumstances. I, along with everyone else in this country, am a frequent texter; sometimes it is just more convenient than talking. However, there is always the dos and don’ts of texting. Happy texting.

Reality Television

Reality television is something I do not like to see while flipping through channels. Sadly it's more than half of what's on channels these days too.  Personally, I believe reality television pollutes the mind of the common sheep causing an all out flood of pointless trends and stupidity. It is as if peoples’ lives are so utterly boring that they need to watch other peoples’ personal issues and drama to get some kind of fulfillment out of it. Not only do I despise seeing it while going through channels, but when I heard students in high school talking about certain actions done by one of their favorite reality television stars all I could really do is take the palm of my hand and smack it to my face. I do have some friends that watch shows like these and it does not make me think differently of them. Only do I change my opinion about a person is when they follow the trends of these so-called stars and want to live their lifestyle.

If my opinion on reality television is not clear yet, I will specifically state what I despise about these piece of garbage excuses for television shows.  The fact some people from these shows are praised for being incredibly inconsiderate and belligerently drunk baffles me. Such characters as “Snooki” from the wretched spawn show “Jersey Shore.” I get sick to my stomach thinking about these clowns.  Another example would be any of those Kardashian clowns. The everyday sheep somehow seems to reach my eardrum with their Kardashian talk and other pointless reality television recaps.

As much as I have seen going through high school and being a college student, I do believe reality television does play a factor in harming society as a whole. The fact that these shows, even the slightest bit, plant an idea in one’s head gives them that extra reasoning behind the choice from some of their decisions.  Not all. I could go on for a while talking about how ridiculous I think these shows are but I believe I have made my opinion clear by now. I apologize for the rant, but these are feeling about reality television shows. Maybe one day, a reality television star will say it is cool to not watch reality TV and then people may start to see outside the idiot box (TV).  

Another point I would like to add just for reference and to back up my opinion is the movie Idiocracy. This movie depicts what society will be in a few decades if people keep praising the television and fueling reality television. The average IQ dropped about thirty points making the film that much more accurate of what will come.  If you have not seen this movie, I suggest giving it a shot if you are not entirely convinced that reality television shows do not have any negative effect on society. Now that I have that out of my system, thank you for taking to the time to read my rambling but somewhat organized rant.