Winter Break!

After this week, it is finally winter break! Actually after thursday at 4 for me it is winter break! I can't be more excited about it.  All quarter I have been so busy with school , sorority, work and everything else!  I don't have any plans really for break it is just the fact that I don't have any plans is why I am so excited! I don't want to wake up early for school and I don't want to worry about studying, homework or anything.  And it's Christmas! This time of the year is my favorite time! The holiday music, decorations, the whole feeling during this time of year is the greatest! I love that the weather is getting colder and we just started putting our Christmas decorations up and our house is finally starting to feel like Christmas time! I'm so excited and I can't wait for break! :) yay!

Thanksgiving!

So for Thanksgiving this past weekend I went to Glamis.  It is a few hours away towards Mexico and it is a place to ride dirtbikes and just have fun.  I went with my mom, dad, grandpa, and some aunts, uncles and cousins! It was a lot of fun! There were so many people out there, it was packed! We left at 5 in the morning on Thursday and came home on Saturday night.  We cooked turkey out there and stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, even pie! It was a lot of fun to have all my family there hanging out and riding together the whole weekend! We have a dune buggy and so does my aunt and uncle and my other uncle and cousins have a rhino (like a golf cart made for the dunes) and we would all go for rides together.  At night we bundled up because it was freezing and we went to Oldsmobile Hill (Olds).  Olds is a huge sand dune that people ride up and down on all day and night.  At night it gets really busy there and it a lot of fun to watch everyone race up and down it doing wheelies and other cool tricks.  On Saturday we all decided to take one last ride before we left for home.  As we were going through the dunes we looked back and noticed that my uncle with the rhino was not following us anymore, we quickly turned around and began searching for him just to be sure he was OK.  We found him and my cousin stuck at the bottom of a dune and once we got them out we thought it would be fine.  But as he was driving to get to where we were, he started sliding down the side of the dune and flipped the rhino three times!! We didn't see him roll it, and my cousin walked over and saw the rhino on its side at the bottom of the dune.  We all ran over, panicked that he would be hurt, and found that he managed to get out OK! So three hours later we were able to fix the three messed up tires, the tweaked axel and the banged up doors!  

   It was crazy, we see it happen all the time, people rolling their stuff out there, but I always think it won't happen to us!  And even though my uncle was OK, it was still a little bit scary! Other than that, the whole trip was a lot of fun and the Thanksgiving food was amazing! :)

The Holidays!

I've been trying to think of things that my community does especially around the holidays that are coming up! I remembered last year seeing people line up along streets, pull their cars over on the road and stop where they were.  As I looked I saw police cars, fire trucks, cars and other vehicles coming down the street.  They were all decorated with lights and garland and other festive things! They went through the streets playing loud holiday music and waving out the windows. It was s lot of fun to watch them go by, it really gets people in the mood for the holidays! Also our local mall puts up a HUGE Christmas tree in the middle, and decorate it with huge ornaments! It's so pretty and every year it seems to get bigger and better! Also on certain nights at the mall in the center by the tree, they make it snow! Of corse it isn't real snow, the flakes are bubbly but it is still so fun! I go every year to watch my boyfriends' little brother sing with his class around the tree and it is the cutest thing! There is also holiday music playing throughout the streets of our mall and not only is the center area where the tree is decorated, every tree and lamp post has little twinkling white lights on it!  I love this time of the season, it always outs me in a good mood and I love what our community does around this time of the year! :)

Veteran's Day

So I could not think of what to write about so I looked at the list on Blackboard and decided to document an event in my community.
On Veteran's Day, last week, I went with my boyfriend and his family to the Rancho Cucamonga Central Park where they had a special day set up for veterans and their families. We got there and started walking around and we saw so many things from the wars. My boyfriend's grandpa was in the army and fought during Vietnam. He was in a helicopter and it was shot down! And the only reason he survived was because the helicopter hit trees to break its fall instead of the hard ground! All day he told me, my boyfriend and my boyfriend's brother stories back when he was in the army. Around the park there was army trucks and guns and gear set up so everyone can see. Some soldiers were there too and they were explaining how they use the equipment and what it is for. One of the cannons they had there shot almost 20 miles in distance! It was really neat to see all these things up close. We got to put on the helmets that they use and some of the gear and sit in the big huge trucks! My boyfriends little cousins were all there too and they all found it to be so interesting!
The best part was how excited his grandpa was to talk about all of the things that were there. He was so excited to explain what everything was and did and to share all kinds of different stories from when he was fighting. It was really cool to see my city do such cool things for veterans, they did so much for our country and should be rewarded all the time. There was even a black hawk helicopter that flew above our heads! We could all tell how much it meant to my boyfriend's grandpa and how much he enjoyed it. My city put together a good little tribute to the vets! :)

My night in Pomona

My best friend, Ryan, is in a fraternity at Cal Poly Pomona and the the other night he invited me and whoever I wanted to bring, to a party that his fraternity was hosting. The theme was Jamaican Me Crazy, so we all put on our Bob Marley shirts and left. The fraternity house is in Pomona off of a street called Gary.  My mom always told me what a bad area that is but I didn't care, I really wanted to go to this party.  I drove and we left at 10:15 on Friday night.  My mom was right, the area was gross and dirty looking but it didn't seem too bad.  We stood in line because they have to check IDs to make sure we were all 18.  When we finally got in, it was a lot of fun. There was loud music, dancing, friends I haven't seen in months and I was being introduced to all of Ryan's new friends!  It was a lot of fun!  But at around 12 midnight, the cops came and shut it down.  They said you had to be 21 to stay with a wristband from the fraternity.  Since we weren't 21, but had wristbands, we had to leave.  Now that it was almost 12:30 in the middle of this place my mom said was so bad, I was getting a little nervous to walk to my car a few streets away.  We walked out of the fraternity house to a bunch of angry people yelling about how they didn't want to leave.  We all quickly walked past them.  Then my phone rang and it was one of my older friends who stayed at the house, she called to warn me that one of our other friends just left and called her to tell her that there was a crazy lady with a gun in the area.  I didn't want to yell "lady a gun everybody go!"  So I just told my friends we need to hurry so we all started walking extremely fast always checking my surroundings.  We finally go to my car, got in and locked the doors. 

On our way home, we were all talking about how scary that was.  We said that has never happened to us in Rancho, luckily!  My one friend who has lived in the same house in Rancho for 18 years, said she has never felt as scared and worried in Rancho that she did in those couple hours in Pomona.  I came home and told my mom and she said "I told you so."  She also works in Pomona and was telling me about other things that happen here, shootings, kidnappings, drug busts and deals.  I was shocked, I always knew it was not considered a super nice area but I didn't know it was that bad!

Good ol' RC

     I couldn't think of anything to write about so I looked at some of the options that were on BB.  I decided to research some history on Rancho Cucamonga, California.  Well I pulled up Wikipedia and these are some of the things that I found.  The population of my city from 2000 to 2006 increased by over 50,000 people! The name Cucamonga comes from a Tongva name meaning sandy place.  I didn't really understand why, since they isn't much sand in RC.  But as I kept reading I found that because the surface soil is extremely sandy and rocky because of the water  runoff from the mountains. Interesting.  I also found out that some things I thought were rumor about RC were actually true!  The actor with the funny voice in Malcolm in the Middle lives here, the boy from Disney Channel's Mike's Super Short Show also lives here and the setting and filming of the move Next Friday was filmed in Rancho Cucamonga.  I think that's really cool

     I also went onto urbandictionary.com because I heard that RC is in there and I've always wandered what it said about this place I call home.  I found that it was actually really funny! A little true...maybe but still funny! It said that RC was full of overpriced house with parents who have a lot of money and they let their kids spend all of it.  That isn't entirely true for me.  I work and use my own money for most of my things, but my parents buy me the expensive things.  Urban dictionary also named off a few places with nicknames that everyone in RC knows and it was just funny to me some of the things it said because I could relate.  It said you don't belong in Rancho if you don't know what Harvard on the Hill (Chaffey Community College) is, what VG stands for and what usually happens at the top of Haven Ave.  I found this funny because these are things my friends and I talk about a lot and it was weird reading about it online.

    I learned some new things about my city from this blog and I got a good laugh out of it as well! :)

Where I'm going

I am a first year student at Cal State University San Bernardino and I plan on getting my general education done here. Then I plan on going to the University of La Verne and finishing school there. It is such a beautiful campus, it is small and feels so at home there! I want to become a psychologist. I am still not 100% certain what type of psychology I want to do, but I know I want to work with people and talk with them. I have always loved talking with people about there problems and alot of people tell me how I am such a big help to them. I took a year training class at my high school to learn how to talk people through their problems but not answer their problems for them. I also did Peer Counseling which got me really interested in the field of psychology. I'm pretty sure I want to focus helping and trying to understand how people act the way they do when they are in groups. It interests me how some people can fit in with any group and others can't fit in with any group.
So as of right now, I am going to be focusing on getting my general education finished here at CSUSB and finishing my plans at La Verne in the years to come! Sometimes plans change, and I am okay with that as long as I am doing what makes me happy :)