Hello again sonia!

I would like to tell you about my little suburban town SAN MATEO! Other than being awesomely awesome, it has a variety of things to do. Luckily, San Mateo also has such a diversity that no MAJORITY is really evident in town. If you walk downtown San Mateo, you will come to a place where you can get Mexican, Salvadorian, Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Japanes, Korean, and American food, all in one place! My favorite food is definitly Latin food and i love to go to Tres Amigos and get a super buritto with refried beans, carne asada, extra guacamole, sour cream, rice, and chile! It’s the best ever. Moreover, you can get a coffee in practically every corner of the downtown area. From Starbucks to Peets to Bean Street, any coffee from any place is absolutely amazing. ANd yes, you do have your normal boring big chain fast food resurants like KFC and Jack in the Box. (do you have those in Spain by the way?) Or variety of resturants defintily reflects the diversity within our San Mateo. San Mateo is blessed with a magnificant High School district with, if i may add, Aragon being third on the list. In addition, San Mateo has beautiful parks like Central PArk, Beresford, Coyote Point, and the Aquatic Park. San Mateo has also built our own big chain movie theater, which has been a big hit. I reallty want to see Take the Lead and Phat Woman soon. Everything is pretty nice here, you would enjor the diversity and the many things to do here. Even though all of this great things, many people still complain that San Mateo is boring and there’s nothing to do, but i beg to differ! =D Sonia, would you come here? How is your city? would i enjoy it? =D

Sonia, i hope we could still remain in contact where have you been!? The assignment for today is to tel you about my job…it’s really quite interesting. As i’ve said before, i work at the local supermarket, Albertsons. I am a courtsey clerk and work roughly 15-25 hours a week. I get an hourly pay of $8.40. My typical day at work is– at times–ver stressful. becuase i am one of the oldert courtesy clerks, i get to choose the schedule i desire. I always choose 7am-4pm on weekends. I start off by clocking in, getting restroom logs, doing some carts, cleaning the check stands, doing “go backs” (where we take grocery items that people didn’t want int eh last minute or if they thought it was too expensive). Depending on coustomer traffic, i usually take out the trash into this huge garbage truck looking thing in the back. It’s so sad–at timess– how much food goes to waste at a grocery store. One day, i remember throwing away 38 gallons of milk, a cart full of deli meat, and 15 dozen eggs. It was quite sad, i always remember the pooor kids i saw in El Salvador that begged me for some money to get food. Some coustomers can be very rude, want to know my biggest pet-peave?! here we go, Jose complaining about his job. When costoumers have huge orders, i mean huge, and they ask for double paper. Sometimes i feel like saying, “do it yourself!” or, when you ask the coustomer what type of bags they want, and they dont answer, and once their groceries are bagged the want the opposite type of bag! The most annoying one is when i say “Hello” and the first thing the reply is “paper.” Without even saying HI! HOW RUDE IS THAT?! well, i dont take that from people, so i say “hi, how are you.” and they say “okay..how are you?” i then say, “fine thanks. So you said you wanted paper?” i mean com’on, just becuase i’m a bagger doesn’t mean i dont deserve respect, infacr i’m doing you a favor!

ANYWAYS…….

I love working at Albertsons, although sometimes my manager can be very pushy. I understand that my job h
has hurt my grades, since in the weekdays i usually go back home at 10pm, but i just need to work. My mother works hard for low-pay and it just barely covers for the rent and maybe the bill for storage and her cellphone. becuase i am a student, i took it upon myself to get Comcast–the local cable company along with internet. I pay my cell phone bill, the union, and the cable bill. I enjoy helping my mother by paying some bills and buying my own personal–you could say– luxuries.

…althought i recently had a tough family break-up, i wouldn’t mind talking about my entire family. As you know Sonia, my family is a highly traditonal Latin American family. We believe in the most common and harsh rules some natives do, but my family has broken that tradition i love. I have a sister, she is 20 and goes to the local community college here in San Mateo. My dad, not really a part of my life anymore, is mechanic at a bowling ally near San Francisco. Enough of the people who aren’t in my life anymore, let’s talk about my mom.

My mom, wow what can i say about such an amazing woman? My mother is corageous, although short, smart, brave, sincere, and caring — everything that makes a mother a mother. Our recent family break-up was caused by my alcholic father. My father has always had a passion–if i should even be calling it that– for alcohol. He was, and still is, obsessed witht he toxic substance. He always used to beat my mother to the point where i had to call the police on him 4 times, at the age of 9. Becuase my father believed my mother had called the cops and placed him in jail for a month, he began to loose the “love” he had for her. Guilty for my mother paying the price, i was almost prepared to tell me father the truth. My mother, however, told me not to for she would not be able to bare my fathers hatred towrds me, so we left it at that. As my fathers “love” for my mother became slim, the house became more and more uncomfortable as the days went. My parents would’t speak for days, and i would always be the messanger between the two. Somehow, i managed to have my best year academically in high school during those times. Finally, after the final beating for my mother, i told my dad we would leave him. I knew he would laugh, he thought we would never do it, but we did.

Now i live with my mother in a small but peaceful studio apartment that we love. Although privacy is jeaprodized, peace is definitly gained. It feels so weird knowing i dont have to worry when i come back from school of an intoxicated father and the sleepless nights. My mother has always been the backbone to my success and future aspirations, my mothe fully supports my intentions for college and can’t wate to see me graduate. My mothers dream, when we came to this country, was see her son graduate and see him step foot in a top university, she will. I can’t desribe the immesne love i have for my mother, most people would say “mommys boy,” but i say, “son who respects his mother for all the hard work she has done for him so he could have a better future.” My mom is awesome, i love her to death.

my mommy and me!

I like listening to music so much: dance, pop, and latin music especially, although I like all types of music.
I like dancing, but I don’t go very often to the disco.

I like skating and riding a bike, but I prefer practising these sports when the weather is good, for example in spring.
Finally, I like travelling and going to see animals especially. Two years ago I went to Valencia to visit the “Oceanographic” and I saw a lot of animals as penguins, sharks and whales (belugas) although I prefer the animals running free.

I live with my parents, their names are Javi and Josefina. I don’t have any brothers or sisters but I have a lot of little cousins. One of them is my cousin Jana, a little baby who is only five months old!!

By the other hand, most of my family -uncles and grandparents- are living far from Barcelona ,in Málaga. and when it’s possible I make a visit them because I can’t see them very often.

My name is Jose Gonzalez, i am 17 years old and am of Salvadoran origin. i am in my senior year of high school and have a dream to attend the University Of California in Berkeley, the best public university in the nation. I am very nercous, i don’t have that confidence, I always say “how can, a young hispanic immigrant go to the best public university in the natiion?” many, people in my school, think that I cannot, but my family says that everything is possible.

I have one passion, the violin. I have played the violin almost, about 8 years and I want to continue playing in the unviersidad. If you want to see the university that I want to go, visit www.berkeley.edu. Do you like the University? That’s awesome that you’ve majored in geogrophy, I want to study politica science. How old are you? What’s the name of your Universdidad? do you like the work load? I would love to visit Spain some day, I want to see all the beauty the country offeres. What are your plans for the future? Let me know!

Goodbye from California!

By the moment I’m a student. I’m studying Geography at the university of Barcelona. I’m in the fourth grade, and the next year I will finish my studies.
Everybody thinks that geographers only make maps and learn the name of countries, but Geography has a lot of areas as land processes, climate and meteorology, population studies or GIS (geographical information systems).

I want to do a PHD on GIS when I finish my studies of Geography.

Hi!
My name is Sonia, and I’m studying English on the first grade. I am twenty-two years old, and I live in El Prat de Llobregat.
At the same time I’m studying Geography at the University of Barcelona. I think this project is very interesting cause we can meet people from another countries and culture.

I like animals so much, I have three pets: one dog and two parrots. I also like travelling and I would like to travel to Egypt especially.