"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

It is a question that is asked every time you apply for any job in print journalism – maybe it is asked in other professions, I wouldn't know.

For those that are driven with goals of becoming a reporter with a star beat especially in sports where you can cover a professional or college team, you know where you want to be.
The first time I was asked that question, I gave an honest answer: "I just want to be happy."

Being the son of immigrant farm workers, I saw my father work in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley from sunrise to beyond sunset for minimum wage and no overtime. If he could have found something else to do with more pay, no doubt he'd do it. Whatever it was, it would beat working in the fields where temperatures can sometimes rise above 110 degrees. It was clear to me that work goals, while they are nice to have and should help you advance your career, should not be the most important focus in life.

I could tell that the sports editor sitting across from me never heard or anticipated ever hearing that answer. He quickly asked me to amplify my answer. "And what would make you happy?"

Again I shocked him when I said just writing about high school teams and filling in elsewhere is what I would be doing as long as I was happy.

I always knew my role. I never had a star personality; I was always a role player trying to make the best of my situation. I show up and do my job with all the little things in between. Fax machine jammed: I'm on it. Someone has questions about the computer program: I'm there. Punch yourself real hard on the side of the head: … maybe I am not that committed. It has been 5 years since I first answered the question. In striving to attain my one goal I have made a lot of friends and have learned a lot of lessons. I have been praised and have been told never to work for another newspaper again when I was fired from my last job.

However, reaching your goals is never a straight line. There will be peaks that will make you think you're about to touch the sky and valleys where it seems light can't escape.

But if survive the voyage you will find what you are looking for.

And five years later, I have never been happier.

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."