MITCHELL LAKE

Me and my sister took the trip to visit Mitchell lake. I pass by this lake everytime I go to visit my aunt and when I go to Mission Flea Market. I always thought it looked pretty when we would pass by it, but I had never been there before. Now that I got the chance I realized it is a nice place to visit. It is a calm, quiet, enjoyable place for any age. It is a very quiet place where a person could go and think. My dad said when he was little he used to go swimming in the lake. There were a couple of birds that I kept running away from, because I don’t like birds. People go there for bird watching, it’s a nice place for that. The fields are pretty and it looked nice since everything is starting to turn green with the weather change. It was a little hot but enjoyable. There was not a lot of other people when we went so it was quiet. I would like to go visit again, because I did not have that much time to visit, but it was a beautiful place to walk around and see it. When we were walking you can hear all the birds and it was kind of creepy. Its so out there all by itself. My mom said now that the lake is clean more people would start going to visit and look around. I would like to go visit again and maybe take my little cousin to go look at the birds. I think many people well enjoy this lake once people start going. It is a nice place and a real change.

FRIDAY 2008

On Friday March 14, 2008, a woman came to speak to us about the Edwards Aquifer. She told us how they keep planning to build near and over the aquifer; this puts damage to it because oils and everything you can think of leaks into it. When they build houses or stores around the water goes through to the Aquifer and we do not filter our water, so whatever bacterium doesn’t die before we drink. She is the one that goes before the committee and tells them whether it would be a good idea to build something or not. They don’t always do what she thinks is right but I believe this makes a difference for the most part. This was a very informative presentation. She made me understand more about what problems can be made by building. She have very interesting pictures of how the aquifer looks and she showed where the recharge zone is, how big it is and where the recharge zone is. She had a little project for us to do, just to give us an idea of the kind of work she does. She put us into groups and presented each group with a folder that had a case in it. We had to decide if it was a good idea to build this or change the place. We had to decide if it would harm the aquifer, or if it was going to be built over the recharge zone, if it was going according to the codes. We had to decide whether it would be a good idea or a bad idea and present to her and the class what we believed. I liked this, it made me feel like I was a part of her work. The cases we had were real cases at one time and were both denied. I really enjoyed this presentation. I felt she did a good job.

MY NEIGHBORHOOD

I live near Somerset road, or by Military and Palo Alto rd. It really depends on how you want to get there. I live in the city of course. I live on the south side. I live in right in between, with Palo Alto rd. on one side and Somerset on the other. The highway near me is IH 35. I live near south west Military.

My neighborhood is lower middle class. The houses around are well kept, they have been rebuilding the houses so a lot of them are new. People down my street like to work on there houses and yards, so most of the yards look nice, though not all of them. All different ages live around my neighborhood, young, old, big families, and little families. Mostly Mexicans live around. All my neighbors speak spanish as there main language.

The major features of my neighborhood are, well I live near Golden International Park, a lot of kids go there to play basketball, and fly kites. Not too many people go to that park mostly just people who live around there. The park has a lot of tagging, and sometimes things get broken, but they added a new playground for little kids so now a lot of parents take there children. I live near South West General Hospital, so sirens and ambulance can be heard some of the times. Kindred Elementary and South San High School, so when driving in the morning and between 2:00 and 4:00pm there is traffic and kids walking around and speed limits of 20mph. Next to the park is a St. Clare’s church, so on Sunday mornings there is a lot of people and cars there. I also live near a corner store named grandma B’s this is a store where a lot of the near residents to cash there checks, buy a few groceries, or just to by snacks. Down my street there is a Mortuary so once in a while there well be a lot of cars parked there for a funeral and its hard to get by, or they well be driving for the funeral so its easier to go through the other roads near my house. There is construction going on, on Palo Alto rd. but its further form my house, I’m not sure what they are doing. That is causing some traffic because only one lane is open on either side. On military there is construction also, they are putting curbs in between the street so it makes it kind of complicated to turn into certain stores.

My neighborhood is usually not too noisy in the morning, it’s calm and quiet and nice to sit outside. Then around noon it starts to get loud and cars are driving by, music is on, and people are talking. Around 5 or 6pm it’s the same thing, then in the night depending on what day it is, it’s loud and people are having parties. I’ve lived next to my neighbors for all my life, I know most of the people who live around my neighborhood, and I used to go walking all over my neighborhood. My neighbors on the right are the calm type they don’t make a lot of noise and once in a while have parties but nothing big. My neighbors on the left, which I like to call “the gangsters” like to have parties, have there music playing loud, usually rap, and like to have a lot of cars parked everywhere, this sometimes causes problems but usually if we ask them to move there cars they do. My neighbors in the back always play their tejano music and their borracho music, we get that a lot and when they are drunk you can hear them singing, it’s entertaining. The people in the front like to have their TV super loud. There use to be a band that lived there and they would play cumbia’s at night. There are always parties going on in my neighborhood, this doesn’t bother us because we love music and kind of enjoy it. I don’t think we have a big problem with gangs, although there are some kids who cause trouble. There is tagging everywhere so I’m sure gangs can’t be too far but recently there has been no big trouble with gangs near my house. There is shopping on military with the mall and other stores. So it’s a very interesting place. I think the only problems are the park that place seems to attract a lot of attention. I think there have been a few murders in my neighborhood one recently. I think they had something about the cops, at the park near my house also. But I enjoy living here, its an interesting place.

I work and study at Palo Alto College. I go to school Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and I work on Tuesday and Thursdays. I’m there till about 4:30 or 5pm. I don’t live far it takes about 10 minutes to get there.

Usually for fun I go to parks, or just downtown, no where near my house really. A few of my friends live nearby but no one that I talk to a lot. Two of my closest friends live near but that’s all. My other friends live far about 20 to 30 minutes away. Mostly I like to go to the park to run and exercise, I go with my sister and sometimes we take my little cousins. I identify with my neighborhood well, I’m used to all the people walking by, and all the cars. I used to walk all over my neighborhood, but now I don’t get to, so now it doesn’t really feel like home anymore, because I don’t know everyone and see everyone. I spend half of my days there and I would not like to spend more time there. I rather would be out somewhere else. I spend about 30 minutes a day getting from place to place since I usually go to the same places.