Paper for Sociology

I am an individual, nothing else. I’m different than anyone else out there and I aim to keep it that way. I may come off as shy, but once I get in a comfort zone, I’m as eccentric as Robin Williams on coke in the 80’s. I love to laugh and I love to make people laugh. I love watching sports, but you’ll never see me in a uniform. I love music, but good luck getting me to strum a chord on a guitar. I love film, but I’ll never direct a film...writing a script, however, would be another story. As you can see, I like very basic things in life that many people around me like, but I like different aspects of everything that will always keep my peers on their toes. I’m hoping by the end of this paper, you’ll realize, or at least have an idea of what makes me tick.

I’m heavily influenced by the entertainment world, not so much to become a socialite or care about celebrity news, but media is a big part of my life, and it’s also a huge reason why I’m able to keep my job. I try to keep myself well versed in cinema and music, usually this love for both forms of media borders on pretentious. I’m a huge fan of film and try to watch as many movies as possible. I don’t think anything can top Pulp Fiction, which I consider to be the best film of all time, but I appreciate the directorial works of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, the Coen brothers, Judd Apatow, Mike Judge, and many others. All of those directors have fueled my desire to try out screenwriting, which hopefully will take off for me, considering that writing is the only thing I think I’m good at as a viable skill.

Music on the other hand is something I hold so near and dear to my heart, which I end up scaring people off. From an early age I can remember listening to the same music my parents would play for my brother and I. Bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, U2, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and many other bands your parents probably listen to. This has subjected me to enjoy many of my favorite bands I listen to now, considering that many of the bands I listen to are influenced by the bands I mentioned earlier. Groups such as Radiohead, unquestionably the most important and best band of this generation, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Wilco (America’s best band of the past fifteen years), My Morning Jacket, and countless others, have helped shaped my musical tastes which comes off more like a list of “see how cool I am”, rather than a coherent paper. Yes, I told you I bordered on being pretentious, but I feel music is such a vital part of everyone’s life that there’s many great bands that deserve more attention than what’s usually fed to the masses.

Family is important to seemingly every Hispanic or Mexican culture. It’s no different with me. I love my family, even my extended family. I think of my parents as the best people in the world. They’ve always been supportive of me, and have stuck by me through all the major mistakes in my life, and there have been many mistakes that I’ve made in my twenty years. But more than that, they’ve taught me the value of life, the fact that I’ll have to work hard for everything I get, because that’s the right way to do it and everyone admires a hard worker. Everything I do, I always take in advisement what they’d want me to do, because they’ve stuck by me this long, to forget about them now altogether would be foolish of me. They’ve made my life a heck of a lot easier, and it’s about time I return the favor. My brother is also a big part of my life. He’s my best friend in a sense, and yes I know it’s lame to say that, but since I don’t appear to have any real friends, he’ll do. He’s my buddy; we’re always quoting The Simpsons, or Judd Apatow films, or talking about how much of a cool band Oasis is. He’s also been nice enough to let me hang out with his circle of friends and I don’t know what I’d do without him, I learn from his mistakes and he supports me through everything. Like every set of siblings, we have our moments, we fight, and we don’t get along, but we’ve been brothers for twenty years and have seen it all, it’s truly a bond that can’t be broken at this point.

I love keeping busy. I need to stay in school as well as keep my job. If I’m not busy doing something constructive, I feel useless and I find something to do, no matter how tedious are unnecessary it may be. I enjoy schooling, even if I may be the classic underachiever. I’m going to school because one day I hope to make a living off my writing. Along with that, I love my job. I’ve been working at Best Buy since February and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve worked my way up the food chain there and have even surprised myself of how successful I’ve been in such a short period of time. I’m usually relegated to working customer service and watching over the cashiers, but I do anything that’s asked from me by my managers. It’s been a terrific experience and maybe, just maybe, it might turn out to be something more than just a job to get some extra cash on the side.

Like many men, sports are a vice for me. There’s nothing I love more than watching thrill of competition and the agony of defeat. I’m a huge fan of basketball, football, and baseball, and it’s been a huge part of my life since I was in middle school. I never had many friends, so instead of doing other activities or hanging out, I watched sports and gained knowledge, trying to explore even the most obscure of sporting material. I watch sports so much; I’m even watching the Raiders/Chargers game as I type this up to you. As you can tell, I’m a huge Boston Red Sox fan, since I’m always seen with the hat on. I’m also a huge Dallas Cowboys fan and of course, I love me some Spurs basketball. I’ve never been athletic, and I suppose it’s pretty late to think about starting a career as an athlete, but my dream job is to coach football, whether it is College or Pro, nothing would excite me more to have the control of 53 men to go out and work as one to become successful.

As much as sports excite me, if I’m not watching that, I’m keeping up with current events. I love politics. I can’t help it, especially left wing politics, as I’m a registered Libertarian. I tend to watch MSNBC a lot and read several websites each day just to get the different stories and both sides of the spectrum. I wouldn’t mind being a political commentator of some sort, as I feel both sides have become prone to having their huge problems. As you may remember, I had admitted in class to working on the campaign for President Obama, and before that I did fundraising for John Edwards (before I found out he cheated on his poor wife) and Hillary Clinton. As you can tell, I’m very one sided, but I like to think of it more as choosing the lesser of two evils. I may not know as much as Keith Olbermann or any political pundit out there, but I hope one day to learn and maybe work on the campaign trail for a politician in the future. Maybe I’ll write a speech.

Like I stated earlier, I like very basic things that your normal person would like, but I hope I did a good job of explaining the different aspects I enjoy about those items I mentioned. Each thing I posted was near and dear to me and they are things that have shapes me now and will continue to shape me for the rest of my life. Whether it’s picking up the paper and reading the news, watching the Cowboys play, listening to Radiohead, or checking up on my family, I always try to keep busy and make sure I enjoy what I’m doing. You can never have a dull moment in life if you like what you’re doing and I’m loving life right now, something I never would’ve said or even thought possible when I was in high school. I’m at the happiest I’ve been in my life in some time and I aim to keep it that way for a while.

As for as grades go, I feel at the very least I should get a B. I really poured my heart and soul out into this paper and put things in here that I’m pretty sure my family doesn’t know about. I also feel that I made a great attempt to write a paper and make sure I stayed on topic and not stray away from what was asked. So in response, I think I deserve an A. I don’t want to toot my own horn here, now matter how ego-maniacal I may be, but I think I wrote a darn good paper and gave you a pretty good idea of what kind of person I am. Hopefully you enjoyed it, and even if you didn’t, I hope you learned enough about me.