Too Much HOMEWORK!!! (Blog 9)

My blog for this week is about too much homework. I know we are in college and expect some challenges but come on, we all have lives outside of school. I have couple jobs and things around the house to get done but I can’t because I have so much homework to do. I actually had to turn down work, even though I need the money, just because I had so much homework to do. We don’t need 10-15 hours of homework a week to learn; we get up early every morning and come to class so we can learn. I like the classes that give 1-2 assignments a semester. Those teachers grade those asignments hard but at least it gives us time outside of school to do what we need to do. It seems like I am doing less work in my classes and more work at home. If that’s the case, the college should just have nothing but online classes since we are doing more work at home anyways. Some of the work I do for my classes don’t even relate to the subject but the instructors act crazy if you don’t do the assignment.
The other problem I have is the grading. Like I said before, the teachers that give one or two assignments a semester do grade those one or two hard which I understand. I hate the ones that give tons of work each week and grade each one hard. They ask why we didn’t do a better job and I have told them it was because I am getting too much homework and try to turn in something. Rather get a few points on an assignment than no points.
What the point I was trying to make was either give us a couple assignments we get graded fairly hard on but have time to do or several assignments a semester that don’t take long to do and we get graded fairly easy on.

Should Marijuana laws be relaxed? (Blog 8)

So the question I decided to answer and give my opinion on is “Should marijuana laws be relaxed?” and my response to that is NO! I’ll start out by giving you my opinion on both Paul Armentano (Pro) and Robert DuPont’s (Con) answers to the question. Then I will give my own thoughts about why the laws about marijuana should not only be enforced but also be enforced even more than it is right now.
Lets start with Armentano’s point of view. I don’t agree with the way he thinks about it. He is basically saying that since a lot of people use it in some way that it should be legal to use. That is just a dump way to think about things. Just because a lot of people do something wrong doesn’t mean it should be legal. If lots of people robbed other people, should we make it legal to steal or rob from other people? He makes another point that the government spends so much money on the fight against it and that they should make it legal so they wouldn’t have to. I say if the people would stop using/selling it, the government wouldn’t have to spend all that money on fighting it.
DuPont has lots of points about how you don’t really get into that much trouble if you are caught with it. You get more into trouble if you are selling it. That is true but I don’t see why using it is less bad than selling it. I’m not saying the people should that use it should get into lots more trouble but make it equal. He also states all the health problems users get from what else, using it. Ok, if people want to harm their own bodies in their own homes that’s one thing but when they are out in public I don’t want to smell that stuff or have to inhale the smoke. That’s my views on those two interviews.
My opinion is if people were able to obey the law and only use it in their homes, I’d be fine with it but they aren’t. I know that once the government makes it legal people are going to get high and then drive their cars. That’s what worries me is I’ll be going home from a long day of work and get hit by someone that is under the influence. Just like drunk driving, the person doing the right thing will get injured or killed and the person breaking the law will walk away without a care in the world. So that is my opinion of marijuana in short. I could go on but this is getting too long as it is.

Family (Blog 7)

What is family? Family is something everyone has. It could be the normal mom and dad family. It could be close friends and their families. Some people even consider their pets as part of the family which I would agree with. Yes, people might say, “I never had a family growing up.” They might not have grown up with them but they still had a dad and a mom even if they never really knew them. Those people also have aunts and uncles somewhere in the world whether they know them or not.
I was fortunate enough to grow up with both my parents, two brothers and one sister. To some people that might not be anything special while others have said that I am lucky to have grown up with all of them because they just had one parent growing up or lived with other people like grandparents or foster parents. I consider other people lucky to have their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles around them during their childhood. All my family like that live 2,000 miles away so I don’t get to see or talk to them much. I could never go to a relative’s house for the holidays or help celebrate a birthday with them. Last time I got to see any of them was back in 2002. To me they were all strangers when I finally did get to see them again because I moved away from them right before my fourth birthday. Just recently I have been able to talk to a few of my family members because of Facebook. It’s nice because I am getting to know some of them all over again. It is still a little weird calling them family because I don’t know them and I seem to talk to them more like friends than family. I am also asking certain family members how I am related to them because there are so many.
Now I do have one person right here in California that is not related to me by blood but we are so close we consider each other family. We went to high school together but didn’t really know each other then. It was after high school that we were introduced to each other from a mutual friend and ever since then we haven’t gone more than 3 days without talking to each other in 5 years.
So no matter how you want to look at it, I say that everyone has family in some way or another.

The Happy Anniversary Crash

My story all happened back on Saturday, October 1, 2005. It was a normal day for the most part except it happened to be my parents wedding anniversary. My dad was taking me to work this day. See, back then, before I got my motorcycle license, my dad use to take me to work on the back of his motorcycle. We had cars but the bike was always faster and better on gas than the car. I had been around bikes ever since I can remember so riding on them never bothered me. On this day my dad had to take me to work about an hour sooner than he normally would because he was going to help out a friend of ours with his race car at Ventura Raceway, which is where I was working. So we, my dad and I, got our stuff like our jackets and helmets together and headed out the door. We put our gear on, climbed onto the motorcycle, and headed off on a nice, fun ride to Ventura…or so we thought.
It was a beautiful sunny Southern California day. You couldn’t ask for a better day for riding. As we rode up the coast on Harbor Boulevard, we leaned one way on the bike and then the other way to follow the twist and turns of the long two-way road. As we got into the city of Ventura, the sunny sky started to become cloudier and cloudier. You would think that would give you a clue that the once nice day wasn’t going to be so nice but it didn’t. We had a red light at Harbor and Seaward. So we waited there for about forty five seconds before taking off when it turned green. We ended up the first car through the next intersection which was Harbor and Monmouth coming up on In-N-Out Burger. I saw a line of cars in the number 2 lane waiting to go through the drive though but that didn’t bother me because it was always like that on Saturday afternoons. So because of that, I turned my head to the left to see what was going on that side of the road. That might have been ultimately the best thing I could have done for what was about to happen.
As we were going around the curvy road in front of In-N-Out Burger, I felt the motorcycle JUMP straight up almost as if there was an unexpected turn I did not know about! I quickly turned my head back to the right to see why there was a sudden change in direction when out of the corner of my eye I saw in slow motion a black object drive straight in front of my dad and me. All I could do was hang on for dear life. My dad tried to avoid it by steering the motorcycle in the opposite direction we were going. He clinched down on the clutch with his left hand as hard as he could while pulling the front brake lever back with his right hand until it couldn’t move anymore! But it was too little too late.
We struck the driver’s side of the black 2003 Ford Thunderbird doing between 35 and 45 miles per hour. That doesn’t seem like we were going fast but believe me, it is a lot when you hit a solid object. The motorcycle’s tire crumbled into the front fender of the Thunderbird. I was forced into the back of my dad, crushing his pelvis into the gas tank and splitting his femoral artery. I then was thrown into the air flying twenty-five feet up Harbor Boulevard before landing on my head and shoulder, cracking my helmet. My right clavicle snapped like a twig and came piercing out through the skin. I then bounced onto my right side cracking my pelvis and sliding on my back. The rough surface of the hot asphalt ground up my back as if it was a piece of meat going through a meat grinder. I luckily didn’t feel any of the pain because I was knocked unconscious when my head hit the ground. My injuries were paper cuts compared to what happened to my dad.
While I was flying through the air doing my thing, my dad was stuck on the bike and was forced into the windshield of the T-bird. The impact was so violent that it sent a chain reaction of destruction through his body causing damage to any and every thing inside him. Almost immediately his brain swelled up causing parts of it to die. Along with the brain, his spine began to swell in which paralyzed the entire right side of his body. His kidneys were sliced and diced from the sharp edges of the spine. After my dad fell off the car onto the ground, the car continued across the road smashing into a SUV and then came to rest on the sidewalk across the street. My dad’s suffering didn’t stop there. As he was lying there yelling my name, “CODY!! CODY!!” his femoral artery squirted blood everywhere like a water gun. What was so amazing about this whole thing was there just happened to be some fire fighters eating lunch across the way. They heard the crash and came running out to help everyone. The fire fighters got to my dad first and managed to stop the bleeding. It he would have gone another minute without it getting the bleeding stopped; he would have bled to death right there in the middle of the street.
The fire fighters called for multiple ambulances for my dad and me. I ended up going to CMH where I woke up an hour and a half after the crash. When I opened my eyes, my mom was standing over me. I asked, “What Happened?” She replied with, “You and dad were in a motorcycle accident” as tears started to fill her eyes. “Is he okay?” I asked. “Yes” she answered. “He is getting ready for surgery.” The pain started to get to me. Al I could say was, “It hurts!” The nurse asked me what hurt. I couldn’t really tell her where exactly because my whole body hurt. The main problem was my hip. I told her that I thought it was broken. They couldn’t do many tests except for trying to make me walk. They got me up but I couldn’t move more than about two inches. The nurse said that it would be best if I just stay over night just in case.
My dad, on the other hand, was taken to VCMC where he was rushed into surgery. The doctors were able to stabilize him for the time being but they had to put him in a drug-induced coma. Doctors let my family know that with all the injuries my father had suffered, there was a 50/50 chance he wouldn’t make it over night. He ended up not only surviving the first night but was in a coma for eight days and spent a total of three months in the hospital where he had multiple surgeries. Towards the end of his stay, he gained about 70% of movement in his right side and was able to walk the day after his last surgery.
I had surgery three weeks later to have a plate and five screws put into my shoulder to hold my clavicle together. Eight months later I had it removed so I could have full motion in my shoulder again. The only evidence left that I can show of the accident is occasional popping of bones and a few scars.
Every day that passes my dad if getting better and stronger in the areas he had once lost. This accident may have been bad in a lot of ways but something really important came out of all this and that was it brought my family a lot closer together. It’s true what they say, “You don’t know what you really have until you lose it”. Or almost lose it in my case.

The Sylvia Gaona "Martinez" Interview Blog =D

So for this blog I was supposed to interview a fellow student at random. I was fortunate to get the chance to partner up with Sylvia Gaona and ask her some questions. She also goes by Sylvia Martinez. I’m not sure why. Maybe she gets bored with one name and changes it from time to time (Joke). Anyways, I asked her several questions and this is what she had to say. Sylvia was born and raised right here in Oxnard. Her family moved a lot in the area so she went to several elementary schools. When I say several I mean seven. Actually it was five different schools but two of them she attended twice. What motivates her to attend college is her kids. They mean the world to her. She wants to set a good example to them. Her husband keeps her going. Every time she thinks about quitting, her husband is there to steer her back into the right direction. As of right now Sylvia goes to school Tuesdays and Thursdays while working Tuesdays through Saturdays. Sundays and Mondays are left to spend time with her two kids. Her husband is her mentor. He is her “rock” as she likes to say. Whenever she has a problem he allows her to vent to him. She sees herself as a role model for her children. She wants them to see and understand how hard she is working for them. I asked her to describe herself in three words and she said, strong, honest, and loyal. I would have to agree from the short time I’ve known her. In five to ten years she sees herself as a third grade teacher and her husband a cop. She told me a great motto she lives by and that is “Regardless of the situation, never give up”. I couldn’t agree more with that motto. What she likes most about Oxnard College is the person sitting in her English class. To be more specific it’s the guy sitting in the third row, right side, fourth seat. Still don’t know? Well it’s me, Cody. Sylvia also said she likes the other people here at OC but I was number one. What Oxnard College needs to improve in her eyes as well as many other students’ eyes is the parking, the cost of food and books, and needs more student benefits. She is still going to attend Oxnard College if they don’t change not because of her culture but because she herself wants too. The two things that have surprised her most about Oxnard College is the cost of text books and me, Cody. She said that I’m awesome and that she didn’t expect. I think this is a good way to end this blog about Sylvia so thanks for taking the time to read this. Bye!

Text Me and I Text You Back

Texting is a big part of my life as it is with many people around the world. I can’t remember the last day I didn’t text someone or someone didn’t text me. I actually have the unlimited texting plan because I would go through the limited texting in a day of two. What texting allows me to do is talk to people that I can’t talk to face-to-face or on the phone. It makes it easy to get answers from people that can’t talk on the phone at the moment. Something that I use it quite often for is getting friends’ addresses. I am able to keep them on my phone, which I have with me all the time, until I am able to look up the directions. I am able to send friends pictures or even videos of whatever I may want to send. Sending what are called “forwards” isn’t something I do much but if it happens to be a funny joke then I might send it to a few friends. I’ve even been known to text while on the motorcycle. Yes, that sounds bad but I would be stopped at a light so I had time to text. I got a lot slack from several friends about it so I stopped doing that. I’ve actually text while writing this blog. Well, got to go. I have some more texting to do.

Reality Shows

Do I watch reality shows? No, I do not watch reality show much anymore. I use to watch reality shows when they seemed to be more real. Back in jr. high and high school I would watch shows like Survivor, the Real World, and Road Rules. Looking back on Survivor I don’t think it was as real as what I once thought it was. The other two shows were real or at least seemed to be. The so called “reality” shows just don’t seem real to me. They are way too scripted in my opinion. I’m not saying they are completely thought out before hand but some things just seem too planed. Back when reality shows first started they would pick your “average” people. By doing that it would seem more real because you can relate to them easier. Now the shows go for the crazy/outrages people or the better looking people. The producers do it for the ratings which I understand but don’t call it reality then. A lot of the people on these shows act one way for TV and then act completely different on the street. I don’t know if the shows are harming to our society but they definitely give a false impression of the cities and or the type of people these “characters” are portraying. Let’s look at the very popular MTV show called Jersey Shore. I know everyone is going to talk about this one. The people selected for this reality show are supposed to represent the Jersey Shore in New Jersey. Now I know there are people there that look and talk like them but it’s hard to believe there are enough “guidos” to make a TV series about them. If I go to the actual Jersey Shore, am I really going to see a bunch of slimy haired dudes “fist pumping like champs”? I doubt it. Another popular show that I hear friends talk about all the time is The Hills. I truly can’t see the point of watching this show. It is just about a bunch of people having dating problems. The worst reality show ever to be aired on TV is any of the Real House Wives of whatever city. Those ladies are so annoying. That show isn’t good for the public because it gives the message that all rich white people are crazy and just like to argue about nothing. I try my hardest to avoid all of these modern reality shows because to me it’s not real. But I can’t seem to get away from them because once one of those shows are over, Facebook just turns into a bunch of friends blogging about what just happened to whomever on whatever show. It’s bad that I don’t even have to watch a single episode and still find out what happened that night. I say get some shows that more people can relate too and stop with all these dump people complaining about how terrible their rich lives are.