Dolores, Goodbye. For now.

I met with Dolores on Friday and we decided with finals coming up, it was best for us to continue our work together next semester. She thanked me and said she had came a long way. I agreed. I look forward to taking it further next semester. She indeed has come a long way. We are going to have to figure out how our schedules will be next semester to see what time we will meet at. We then basically discussed everything from the current news to our winter break plans. I told her I was going back home to Los Angeles and she said she was looking forward to spending time with her kids.

My First Car

I remember when I got my license, I was very proud. I walked to my dad with a smile on my face. All the practice with him had paid off. There was just one problem: I didn’t have a car. I didn’t want to ask my dad for one right away, but I wanted start driving right away. That afternoon I approached him about the situation and he said we would begin looking in two weeks. That was a lie. A month had elapsed since my victory with the DMV. I was growing agitated because the rest of my friends were already driving themselves around and I wanted to do the same. When we did begin to look, it seemed I would never find a decent car at a reasonable price. We spent another two weeks looking at cars that weren’t even worth our time. One day as we were driving home we passed a private dealership where we saw a green Range Rover for a decent price. I instantly fell in love and I remember lusting after it like it was a beautiful woman. I pointed it out to my father and we pulled over. The dealership appeared to be closed but when we neared the vehicle behind the fence, a man popped out. He invited us into the dealership to see the car. It was in excellent shape. The engine appeared to be in pristine shape. The paint looked brand new and the interior was gorgeous. It was a 1999 model but it was well taken care of. When he dropped the price on my father, he seemed impressed by the deal. I was hoping that he would decide that this would be his choice for me. He told the dealer he would return to give it another look. Sure enough he told me he would buy the Range Rover. I was very happy and I saw myself riding in style. He then told me that he was going to buy it for himself and he was going to give me his 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I didn’t mind that either. I was just happy to have a car. The first time I drove by myself, I turned up the radio and went cruising by the beach after crusing through the freeway. Ever since the, the Jeep has been mine and I have made many memories while driving in it and just in it as well.

9/11

I remember exactly where I was on the morning of September 11^th , 2001. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to get to the bus stop. I was in seventh grade. As my father drove me to the bus stop, we heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. My father didn’t know whether to believe it. The DJ was Rick Dees, who was known for being quite a joker. We then flipped the station and realized that the coverage was on almost every station. I knew something was wrong. As I boarded the bus, I plugged my Walkman into my ears to hear what exactly was going on. The bus’ radio was not working that week, so not many people knew what was going on. So there I was, twelve years old, wondering what was happening to my country. I just had a gut feeling that a commercial airliner would not accidentally slam into an enormous building. My father drove away with a angry and concerned look on his face. It was like something in a movie, on the 45 minute ride to school, I was telling everyone what was going on. I told them when the first tower fell down and everyone couldn’t believe it. The bus driver was getting updates on the radio and I remember the terrified look on her face. It appeared everyone knew that it was no accident. When we got to school, our teachers informed us that there had indeed been a terrorist attack on our nation. Some parents kept their kids at home. The entire day everyone was on edge. We didn’t have football practice and everyone was told to talk to our parents about the day’s events. It was a long bus ride back to the bus stop. The bus we took back had a functioning radio and we heard the estimated deaths and stories that were storming into the newsrooms. I live relatively close to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I had never seen police and police cars in such a plentiful amount. They were patrolling what seemed like everywhere. I grew up accustomed to seeing planes in the sky. It was eerie not seeing a single plain in the sky. There was much less traffic on the roads and I am sure that people were glued to their televisions wondering if Los Angeles would be next. It made sense. New York had been hit, so why not us? I remember taking a shower and worrying what was going to happen to our nation. I’m glad we came a long way.

The Journey

For graduating seniors at my high school, you had two options. You either had to choose an organization or facility to devote three weeks of community service to, or you had to go on a grueling excursion in the mountains for the same amount of time. It was a mandatory exercise for us if we wanted to graduate. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I would challenge myself and go on the trip. We went to an informational meeting. They told us we would be going through rigorous terrain and that it was not for the weak. We would be covering a span of 100 miles in three weeks, which didn’t sound horrendous until we actually got there. I figured it would be a good learning experience.  We departed on a Sunday morning and the journey had begun. Over the course of the next three weeks, we had many struggles and victories. The Sierra Nevadas are full of treacherous terrain with much uphill so it was physically grueling and tiring. Every day we would appoint a pacer, a leader, and a compass man. The day I was leader was our hardest day. We had just reloaded on food for the second half of the trip and everyone was complaining about their packs being heavy. The day consisted of much uphill terrain, river crossings, breaks, and extreme fatigue. When we reached our destination for the night, everyone started throwing his or her packs on the floor. Some immediately began to rest, some cursed, some ate. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was a flat valley that was once covered by an ocean millions of years ago. We found fossils if ancient organisms from long ago. The best part was going to sleep since we weren’t rolling downhill as we were accustomed to on the uneven land. The rest of the trip was just as bad and when we returned to school, we were all smelly, tired, unshaven, and dirty. I remember I was very glad to see my parents and I immediately went to go shower. It took me an hour in the shower to take all the dirt off of my body and to shave. I felt like the journey’s dirt was no longer on my body but the effects of it were everywhere. I felt more mature and I knew I was a stronger individual because of it. I still look back on my trip and the things I learned.