My name, David, was given to me by my parents purely
because they liked the way it sounded. I have no interesting back-story behind
the origin of my name and I wasn’t named after anyone in particular. An
interesting story about my birth involves my father, a skateboard, a palm tree,
and an impaled arm. The date I was due was December 25, 1989. It was Christmas
morning and my father was playing with my sister on her new skateboard. My
father hadn’t ridden in years; he made one unlucky move and ended up entangled
in a palm tree with a palm impaled through his entire arm. I don’t know if that
had anything to do with the delay of my birth, but my dad was taken to the
hospital and I wouldn’t be seeing life for another six days. I was born on
December 31, 1989 and at that time my father was also in the hospital. I am the
youngest in the family and have only one sister who is three years and four
months older than I am. My sister has a kid of her own now, so I guess that
makes him the youngest since he lives with us. We don’t get to spend as much
time with our grandparents as we’d like to because they live all the way up in
Seattle. I remember one time when I was very young when my sister fell into a
lake in Washington and my grandfather had to dive in after her to get her out.
She was terrified of the ducks, that is something we’ve never let her live down.
I don’t think there is anything particularly unique about
my family. We are about as average as they come. Maybe our diverse background
makes us unique. I have so many different nationalities that no single one is
greater than the other, so I suppose that makes me a mutt. On my father’s side,
who is a Canadian, I am Scottish, Irish, German, and Dutch. On my mother’s side
I am Russian, Italian, Polish, and Austrian. Our holiday traditions have stayed
the same throughout the years. On Christmas my dad’s side of the family, who all
live in California, all come to our house to celebrate. Our family gets bigger
and bigger every year as more of our cousins are having kids so it gets pretty
wild in the house. My favorite holiday memory would have to be my nephew’s first
Christmas and taking him to Disneyland on that day.
I have lived in Oxnard all my life. The city has gotten
drastically bigger since my parents moved here from Los Angeles twenty-one years
ago. Like most people who live in Oxnard, I don’t plan on staying here for too
long and hope to move out of it some day. I would miss it though; Oxnard is the
only home I’ve ever known.
My favorite
hobby is basically anything involving music or film. I like watching movies
and I love filming and being in movies just as much. Over the summer I try to
make as many movies as I can. I also love music, which is why I started
playing
guitar. I took lessons when I first started, but after that I just
started learning on my own. I don’t play as often as I used to. Last year was
probably the highlight thus far of my musical career. During guitar class last
year a couple of other guys in the class and I would go on what we called
“tours” where we walked around the campus, burst into any random class room
and play for them. Surprisingly, not many of the teachers got mad at us. Ever
since I started working I haven’t had much spare time, but when I can I like
to play video games. I tried not to get addicted to video games, but all my
friends’ had
X Box 360s so I gave in and bought one as well.
A few years ago I used to swim on a team for a year round
club in Ventura. I was on the team for about three years. I really enjoyed it
but it takes a lot of endurance. Swimming is a lot harder than it looks. What
I liked the most about swimming is it kept you in great shape, that’s one
thing I miss and regret about quitting. I wouldn’t say I was a great swimmer,
but I do have several first place ribbons on my wall so that counts for
something. The team I was on was the Buena Ventura Swim Club. I’d say we were
a good team, I can’t remember how we were ranked though. I remember our team
always did very well at meets and tournaments.
My family doesn’t travel too often. I can’t remember a
best family trip but I can remember the worst. When I was ten my family took
us down to Mexico for a week long vacation. It started out nice enough, but it
became pretty bad. The place we were staying at was very dirty, the city was
poor, and people were constantly harassing us and trying to sell us things. We
also got pretty ill from the food and the water. One of the good things about
where we stayed is it had a very nice beach with warm water; I spent most of
my time there. The beach was definitely the best part about the trip. The
worst part was just about everything else.
What I like about school is being able to hang out with my
friends. Although there are still many things to dislike about school, it is
better than just staying at home doing nothing and it is definitely better than
work. I really dislike block schedule though, it seems very rushed and
unorganized. Most of the classes drag with block schedule. I also really dislike
how our schedules always get screwed around when they don’t need to and our
counselors are never able to help us. I very much dislike the school’s policy of
off campus lunch; I don’t see the harm in it, especially since most people
return on time anyways.
My favorite subject I took was guitar class during my
junior year. That class was a lot of fun and I met a lot of cool people in it. I
also liked U.S History; I did very well in that subject. The subject that I had
the most trouble with and which always gave me a headache was Chemistry. I tried
hard, but that was just one class I could not get myself interested in and most
of the work really confused me.
I haven’t really decided yet what I plan on doing after
high school, although I probably should as time is running out. I will most
likely go to a junior college first and then from there go to a university. The
plans I do have are mostly unrealistic, but I would very much like to either be
a film director or a professional musician. As far as a career goes something
involving film or music would be great. I consider myself fairly creative so I’d
like to be either a screen writer or a film director. I’d also like to be a
musician or maybe even teach some sort of music class.
I live here in Oxnard, I have my whole life. My family is
pretty average, but I wouldn’t change that for anything. My hobbies include
almost anything music or film related. I love playing guitar, listening to
music, going to concerts, and filming movies. I also like to play video games in
my spare time when I’m not at work or at school. I probably enjoy school more
than most people, even with a lot of the stupid and pointless rules that we
have. I hope to do well enough in school to be able to go to a university. I
still haven’t determined what I want for my future yet.
