Maria Berber

I had the pleasure to interview Maria Berber during the last class session. She was a great sport when asked these series of questions:

1) What is your name and age?

                " My name is Maria Berber and I'm 18"

2) Tell me about your background?

" Well, I have always lived here in Oxnard and I have only one younger brother."

3) What motivates you to stay in college?

" What motivates me are my parents. Also I know that I will have more opportunities in life with a degree."

4) What's your current schedule like?

" I am a full time student. For the most part I have classes in the morning but  I am off by two and wednesdays is when I have my only night class."

5)How do you balance family, school, and work?

" When I'm in school I focus all of my attention on the class and I don't work so when I get free time I spend it with my family."

6) Do you have a mentor or role mode in your life?

" I would consider my mom to be my role model because she raised to children as a single mother. She taught me that sometimes life can throw some hardships and you have to learn how to be able to handle them."

7) Do you consider yourself a role model or mentor for someone?

" I would consider myself to be my brother's mentor. I would like to know that he'll follow my lead and continue to go to school once he graduates as well."

8) How would you describe yourself in three words?

" Organized, mature, and nice."

9) Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

" I see myself starting my career, maybe a new car and finally becoming successful."

10) What's your "motto" or philosophy for succeeding in school?

" To do all of my work and not get distracted."

11) What specific things about Oxnard College do you like?

" I like that it is so close to my home so I don't have to drive far or commute."

12) What are some areas in the college you think could be improved?

" The prices of the books could be a little lower and the counselors could be a little more helpful."

13) In what ways does your culture influence your decision to come to college?

" In my culture it is custom to have to work hard for the things you have which is why I feel I have to work hard to earn my career."

14) What's been the biggest surprise about your college experience?

" I was not expecting the amount of work required in order to pass a class."

In the end I got to know Maria and where she had come from. The interview went great and she was not afraid to share some of her personal life with someone she had just met. Thank you Maria for being so polite and open about your life.

My First Day

 Being the middle child, out of three girls, you'd think that I would be pushed into the background. However, this was not the case with me. Both my sisters were very shy but I was very outgoing. As a result I became very aware of my confidence and lack of shyness. My confidence came in handy when I really needed it because as a child my family moved around a lot. The fact that I was full of confidence helped me make friends every time I would switch schools. So when it was time to transition from elementary school into junior high school I felt it would be a breeze. In fact I was more excited than I had ever been before. The thing I was most excited about was being able to ride a school bus. I had been to so many different schools before but none of them had required to take a school bus.
 The summer before my first year of junior high was long but the last two weeks seemed to go by extremely fast. Most of my summer was spent answering questions like, " are you nervous?" and "are you scared?" However, I would always answer with the same confident, "no" because I was honestly not nervous or scared of my new school year. In fact I was more anxious and excited to start the my new school year. This time I was definitely not nervous or scared because I had friends from elementary school going with me to the same junior high school so what was there to be scared about? By the time there was only two weeks left, we were told to go to orientation and got to see the campus for the first time. There were instructions given out in the quad area. This part of the school was full of long, blue benches in the middle and towards both sides there was a patch of grass with long, green pine trees which dropped the orange colored needles down into the grass area. This really gave me a feeling of fall and the start of a new school year. We were sent into the cafeteria and through those double doors I saw so many unfamiliar faces. Naturally, seeing all of those unfamiliar faces began to intimidate me but I still maintained my confidence.

The last day before the new school year seemed like any other day during summer. That night my mother kept asking me if I was nervous or excited. She seemed to really want to get my input since the whole summer all I said in reference to my new school was "no." In a way, she made me a little bit nervous and I started to second guess my confidence for my first day. Later that night I found myself not being able to go to sleep. There were to many thoughts going through my mind. At 3 in the morning, I was still wide awake and I started to feel worried that I would be exhausted on my first day. Taking this into consideration, I decided to wake my mom up. Unfortunately, waking somebody up at three in the morning turns out to be a really bad idea. It took her about five minutes to realize what was going on and then finally got up to help me figure out what to do. When she got up she made me some chamomile tea and poured it into her favorite hand made, blue mug and told me to relax my mind. Once we began to talk it was quite obvious what was going on. However, neither of us dared to point out the fact that I, for the first time, was nervous about my first day of school. This of course, came as a surprising shock because what was I nervous about? I had friends, I had seen the campus. My mom and I decided that it would be best for her to actually drive me to school instead of taking the bus. The one thing I was most excited about throughout the whole summer, was something that I would not be able to do because of my nerves.

As we arrived at my new school, now, Fremont Junior High School the first thing I saw was a line of cars dropping off kids at the school.  We could hear honking, yelling from the excitement of the returning students, and a lot of laughter. Each time our car moved I began to see more and more things that were not there at the orientation. The gate towards my left seemed so high and empty. Further down, there was a small park outside of the school with a yellow, green, and purple playground. There were so many kids around my age walking into the wide, black front gate. I got out of the car and joined that large group of kids walking into school through that metal gate I immediately saw all of the footprints from the kids that had walked through the morning dew grass. When I got through the gate there seemed to be more kids in there than outside. Maybe it was the smaller space or maybe there were actually more kids inside but I felt lost within the huge cluster of kids who seemed to know exactly what they were doing, unlike me. All I could think was, "there were definitely not this many people during orientation here." There were so many things going through my head and as I began to see all of these kids and none of which I had gone to my previous school with, I began to feel a little bit more nervous. As my nerves started to get the best of me I saw my first familiar face, Jasmine. She looked exactly the same, tall and thin with long black hair that went all the way down to her hips. Back in grade school we hadn't been the closest friends. In fact, we only really talked during class  but finally seeing somebody that I could actually talk to felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders. Neither of us knew were to go so we decided to look for more people that we went to grade school with. As we walked towards the bus drop off section of the school, all I could smell was the disgusting smell of the bus exhaust pipe. Unfortunately we were unable to find anyone else. Thankfully seeing at least one familiar face made me gain my confidence back. Suddenly I didn't feel so alone. 

So far I had been to three classes and met a lot of new people. The class I had before lunch also included some of my former grade school classmates so we decided to have lunch together. Lunch at my new school was very different than my previous school. At my previous school we all lined up with our class and our teacher guided us to the line. This time we had to go on our own and had the option of eating the cafeteria food or the cart food. The cafeteria food was given out in white, plastic lunch trays while the cart food was given out individually wrapped and we had to pay for that food. Of course, everybody wanted to eat the cart food because that consisted of : cheeseburgers, chicken wings, pizza, chimichangas, chips, and cookies. We decided to buy the cart food because it felt more "grown up." As the day went on I began to feel like I was gaining more and more of my confidence back. It felt like any other new day of school once I began to see more familiar faces. The rest of my classes went by really quickly and I began to open up and meet these new people that began as unfamiliar faces but ended as my new classmates. Once the day ended, I really wanted to take the bus home. However, since my mom had dropped me off in the morning we had agreed that she would also pick me up at the end of the day. At the time that seemed like a great plan because I hadn't expected my first day to go as smoothly as it had but when it finally ended I was upset at not being able to ride the bus home. Then I realized that there was always tomorrow to look forward to and I could ride the bus both times, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. My first day had gone absolutely amazing and I had definitely not expected that.

What had begun as an unknown environment ended as a new beginning for me to meet and connect with these new classmates. I was so nervous that I almost called home to ask my mom to pick me up. Looking back I am proud that I did not call home because it would have just been a cowardly way out. Although I had never been nervous about my first day at a new school before, being nervous for this first day was a new fear that I had to conquer. My first day at Fremont Junior High School was very significant for me because it was the first time I would be more than two blocks from home by myself. It was also the first time that I would have more than one class. I had to go from one class for six hours to six classes in seven hours. The fact that I was faced with these nerves makes me glad that I lived through it because it made me realize that I could conquer anything that came my way regardless of my fear.

Texting: Risky Distraction

There are many controversies when it comes to texting. Not so long ago the concept of a text messages did not even exist. Now it seems to be the only source of communication that people use. I'll be the first to admit that I would rather text than call to contact somebody. It is easier, faster, and saves some time by not having to engage in extra conversation. Yes, it is true that texting has it's downsides but it also contributes to the fast paced world that we live in today. Moreover, I believe that the biggest downside of texting is texting as a distraction.

Texting, in many ways, is very convenient because it does save a lot of time. However, it also serves as a heavy distraction. When people go from calling at home to texting in class it starts to become a distraction. I believe when texting first started up people were using it as a substitution of calls. Now we use it for everything. We went from texting as a need to texting as a luxury which is becoming a huge problem, mainly for students. Students will text in class and because of that they will stop paying attention in class and put all of it on their side conversation which in turn can affect their grade. In this way, texting serves as a risky distraction.