This is who I am - my first blog

To paraphrase Navin Johnson: I was born a poor Mexican child.

I spent the first 18 years of my life living on a farm in a small three bedroom, one bathroom migrant laborer house in Northern California, 15 to 20 minutes away from the city of Tracy.

I was the last of eight children. I grew up seeing most of my sisters go off to college. Seeing their example, I grew up not wanting to spend my life on the farm or in the surrounding areas and so after I graduated from Merrill F. West High School in 1996 (first graduating class) I went off to college in Southern California. I immediately made an eclectic group of friends. In fact, it is thanks to one that I now go by my birth name instead of an English version of it. He forgot my name and read what was on my dorm room door. Everyone quickly followed and it has stuck ever since.

I originally wanted to go into sports medicine, but after taking an anatomy class where I looked a cadavers of people who donated their bodies to science and learned a lot of things that I felt had no relevance to what I wanted to do, I decided to move on.

The one thing I could do was write 10 page papers the night before they were due on books I had only partially read and get A. My roommate hated it.

It was at that point I refocused my life goals to become a reporter, a sports reporter to be more exact. I began work at school paper, The Daily 49er, during the fall semester in 1999. In four semesters I moved up all the way to Editor-in-Chief, mainly because there was a lack of options. Hey, let's be honest.

I was told there would be a lot of due paying before I was finally doing a job I liked and would be fairly compensated for. Everyday newspaper reporters aren't in it for the money.

After graduation, I took a job in Sparks, Nevada for seven months where I was paid $7 an hour to start. I left because, well, you try living off of $7 an hour.

Fast-forward to now where I am working at the Press-Telegram in Long Beach where I design sports pages for much better pay. I am no longer a reporter, but I always have that option.

I work in a department that is fun to be in. You just never know what is going to be said next, but you know it is going to be shocking. Not only that, but there's a chance someone is going to lead the group in singing "Jesse's girl."