I consider myself a very shy but friendly person. I have always been like this since I can remember. I don’t remember one time in school were I got in trouble. I like hanging out with my family and friends and I have always liked to help people. That’s why when I grow up I want to be a nurse. Since I am one of the oldest cousins I had to help all the ones who just came from Mexico or simply people whit needed homework help. And I am glad I can do it because when I was younger I didn’t have anyone to help me because when the homework was in English it possible for my parents to help me. Currently I a junior in life academy, well for a few more days then I will officially be a senior. I cant believe time went by so fast I remember when I was in middle school as a sixth grader I would tell my self that I had a long way to go now I don’t want the year t be over. After high school I want to continue in college but I am scared because I have hard that in college the classrooms have over three hundred students. So I am planning to look for small schools I don’t know were yet though. Then I plan to graduate and become a registered nurse, I know that will take more school time but I am willing to do it because I know that by the end I wont regret it. When I start saving my own money I plan to invest it n a nice home of my own and a pretty car of my own. I also want to help out my parents like they have always had helped me.

Yesterday June 5th

Yesterday it was my birthday, although it seemed like any other day until I got home. My dad came home with a caramel frapuchino from Starbucks and said that was my gift. It was funny because he said he preferred cheap gifts. After that my aunt called us and told my sister and I to come over and have dinner over there. So we did go over there and my uncle bought us pizza. I had fun with my cousins although they can get on your nerves sometimes I love then to death.
I have been visiting my cousins almost nine years since they moved next door to were I used to live. Since it was next door we would go every day, my mom would even say “Don’t you get tired of going over there” I would respond, “No can I go now”. Now that we live like fifteen blocks away we still go every Wednesday, Saturdays, and Sundays. We have quite a difference in age, the smallest is nine and the other is thirteen but we get along like if we were all the same age. The smallest gets along with me really well she always looks forward for me to play with her or what so ever.

This Years Postsession

This time in post session it was time to for me to leave my shyness behind. I learned that if I kept being the shy person that I am I wouldn’t be much of a help to my group. I never imagined going up to strange people and asked them random questions about whatever topic we were focusing in. I really had trouble telling my group that I really wouldn’t like to be the interviewer, I just felt that wasn’t my thing because I don’t have a loud voice. But since I wasn’t the interviewer I wound be the note taker and in other group I would go up to people and ask them if they would let us interview them. This time I decide to not try something new and interview these strangers, I now I could have done it if I would have pushed myself but I didn’t. I leaned new things and visited places that I never imagined being there. For example who ever thought I would be walking in the Castro district in San Francisco I learned new thing and saw new things. But I also enjoyed part of this post session like going to lake merit and using the paddleboats, I had a really good time. We went to places were I would fit in like Fruitvale village and others like Chinatown were I would feel being stared at and being watched simply because I was in a way different. But after all I thought these were cool trips, overall I had much fun.

Castro District of San Francisco

Walking around the Castro district in San Francisco was a little different then walking around somewhere else. I saw something’s I have never even heard of here around Oakland. The Castro district is very well known for people who are gay. People in the Castro district walk around with their partners and kiss in the street and no body comment it because it is a normal thing for them in their community. Once you enter the Castro district you will know it because there are rainbow flags everywhere you turn around and look. This flag is like a symbol to them. People over there were very nice people we went into several business and they treated us real nice, when they preferred not to give us an interview they would apologize. While doing some of the interviews we were assigned we got into to a store that seemed like a regular store but once we got the we were asked if we were adults, to me that was a weird question because never in a store they had asked me my age but then the man told us that we had to get out because it was an adult I have never heard of adult stores, but now I now what they are. In San Francisco the transportation is different that here in Oakland they have muni's they run with electricity.

my trip to lakeshore

My trip to lakeshore was fun. We walked around the lake until we got to Grand Avenue. We were supposing to get easy interviews since we were in a place were the people seemed nice but we weren’t so lucky. After walking for a while it was time to head back to our meting point and walk towards the Oakland rose garden. The garden was beautiful there were all kinds of flowers to look at and to smell them. When you walk into this place there is a beautiful sence touching your nose. This place is a nice place to spend the afternoon and walk around just admiring the beautiful place.

My Trip to Old Oakland

On my visit to old Oakland we visited the farmers market that gets set up there every Friday. The farmer market is not that big its only four blocks in between Broadway and clay. I really liked walking around and seeing all the things the people were selling. One lady who was selling blue berries said she didn’t live here but she came here six times a week to sell in markets like the one in old Oakland. Old Oakland has very old buildings I guess the name says it all. while walking around the market I saw a person painting I thought he was doing some portraits of people who volunteered and I walked around him to see what believed was a portrait and I was surprised of what I saw he had painted part of the farmers market exactly how it was on live I really liked it.

My Trip to Rockridge

On my trip around Rockridge I learned that not Oakland is the same. Rockridge is a nice place if I didn’t know it was Oakland maybe I would have thought it was a different city. Rockridge is a place were there are a lot of retail stores really expensive by the way. I liked that there was a lot of people, it seems like a really united community, and it looked pretty save although a lady we interviewed said there was a lot of crime.
Before we got there I thought we were going to get a lot of interviews and that it was going to be easy to go up to them and ask them if they could be interviewed but it wasn’t. My group got rejected more than teen times. Some people said they didn’t have time and others just didn’t want to.
Some differences I saw between Rockridge and Fruitvale was that in Rockridge was that in Rockridge there is a lot of Farmer Markets here in Fruitvale the closest one would be in Macarthur avenue and people own cars like BMWs . Also in Rockridge in my opinion the majority of people were white. Some similarities I saw between these two places were that these two places have a lot of retail stores and little shops. In Rockridge there were tons of shop in every block and here in Fruitvale there is quite a lot of shops as well especially in International boulevard and in Fruitvale village.

Oakland

I was born and raised in Oakland and I like that Oakland is a community were everyone can have fun together. In Oakland there are a lot of places to go and things to do. Some of the things that I really like about Oakland are that they celebrate days like 5 de Mayo and Dia De Los Muertos with big festivals were you can enjoy with the whole family and were you can feel you are in Mexico. The have folkloric dancing, marches from schools around town and all kinds of music.
Something I don’t like about Oakland would definitely be the about of crime that there is in the city. All they talk about in the news is how another person got killed or shot. Every year the death rate is higher and the more people try to do to stop it just doesn’t work. Recently the amount of police officers were increased but that just doesn’t seem to make this people stop.People are afraid to walk around the city late at night because they know what could happen to them. My personal opinion I like to ware jewelry like gold bracelets and gold rings but I am afraid to ware them when I am walking around either at lunch or on my way to the store. I have had friend who were assaulted and had there money taken away. That is just not right.
But not everything in Oakland is bad, Oakland has beautiful parks that people don’t even know about or knew they were there. Last year in a class I took called Inner Strength we went to a park called Lake Temescal and it was beautiful. Besides parks Oakland also has beautiful churches and temples were you can visit.

My trip To Chinatown

Yesterday May 27 2008 we took a trip to Chinatown here in Oakland. It was the first time I went to that part of the town. Chinatown has a lot of places to walk around and see the different kinds of shops. While walking around we saw over ten stores that sold groceries, stores that had the carts outside full of fruits and vegetables. Some vegetables I had never seen before. Before I went there I predicted that there weren’t going to be a lot of diversity but once we got there I saw all kinds of people, I was surprised.
Some differences I saw between Chinatown and Fruitvale were that here in Fruitvale there was a lot of Latinos compared to Chinatown were the majority of people were Chinese. Like I said before I was surprised that besides Chinese there were lots of white people most of them being some kind of business men because they were all dressed very professional and look really busy.
Some similarities I noticed between Fruitvale and Chinatown were that both have very busy streets. There were tons of cars in the street and parked all over. As well as Fruitvale there were lots of people walking in the sidewalks shopping in the little marts and looked like they were having fun. Almost every store we went into had music and I noticed the same thing the day we were walking around Fruitvale.

The Garbage Trip to the Bay!!!

This garbage right here was once in the hands of a human being. This person who once had this piece of garbage thought that one little piece wouldn’t affect anything or anyone, they never thought what would happen if everyone threw a little piece of garbage into the drain, the drain that heads to the bay, the bay that we have surrounding our community. Once this waste hits the bay the water will get contaminated worse than it already is. Life under the sea would get affected, this small piece of garbage can be “POISON” for the little harmless fish. In our trip to Walnut Creek the drains were clean, compared to the ones in Oakland. This picture shows only one drain but I guarantee you that at least half of the drains we have in Oakland are similar or worse that this one.

My Journey Around Fruitvale

If I compare my experiences in Fruitvale to my experiences in Walnut Creek I would definitely say that interviewing people in Fruitvale was way harder. This time it was harder because here in Fruitvale there were lots of people but many of this people dint want to cooperate with us. Some did but when they saw the recorder they would back off.
Something new I learned about the Fruitvale community was that if you would like to go around and interview people you need to contact the Fruitvale management a day in advance. This really sucked because in the Fruitvale plaza was were a lot of people we could have interviewed.
Some positive things I liked about Fruitvale Village were that there was a lot of diversity. We could have interviewed different kind of people if we were allowed to after all. About Fruitvale in general I like that there is tons of different places and shops we could visit.
Some negative aspects that I didn’t like about Fruitvale were that there were a lot of homeless people and many of them if not all of them were drunk and that aspect makes the community look bad.
What I learned about my topic in Fruitvale was that many people don’t like the fact that there is a lot of tagging around graffiti. But some of this same people commented that they like some of the graffiti around town. For example Pete Villasenor one of the librarians said that some teens should get paid to create murals around town. “Graffiti is art.”