funny question ;-p

 I actually work in two places, the two jobs I have are in restaurants. One is owned by a big corporation and the other place is owned by a single owner.  So the story starts yesterday, when I arrived to work (corporation owned) one of the managers asks me if I could work for them on Sundays, to which I told them “sorry but I can’t because I work at my other job”; so the manager asks if I could ask to my other job if they could give me at least Sunday nights off because they really needed me.  That is the funny question you may what is funny about it? Can I just ask?, and the fact is that I could; I just did not want to. Let me tell you why; working at this corporate place I have to be doing something the whole time while I am on the clock, there are at least two managers in each shift and they are always checking what is going on, if everybody is working, and if we are working the way they want us to, so just imagine that is all day, every day we work.  In a corporate you will most of the time work for the corporate, so if the corporate is making a good profit they will keep you; but if the corporate is not at least making decent money they will send people home.

 In the other hand working in the other place is like a break of work to me.  It is really intense if its busy it is going to be crazy busy, but if is slow it would be time to take a nap wake up and still be slow if not pretty much dead.  Working at this place as long as I am doing what I am suppose to; none of the managers tell me anything.  I could be talking to customers or even working mates but if I have everything under control no one would say anything to me. It is really cool, relax, and the managers appreciate the hard work we do.  They understand that if it’s crazy busy we would not have time to take a break which I don’t mind because if it is slow the managers also understand that there is not much to do.  On Sundays I could be watching a little bit of football talking about the game with a manager; that is how cool this place is.

So back to answering the funny question I told him “I could not, that most people went back to school and that they did not have enough people to work “, to which he answered to me “hey we are giving you back the Sunday you used to have and if you don’t want it we are going to give it to somebody else?”  Man I love this psychology question he made on this situation; make me be the one that needs to work instead of doing them a favor , no. no bueno.  Shoot by the way I forgot to mention that they took away my Sunday some time ago to give it to the person is working it right now.  They just noticed he sucks at work, sorry for using the word sucks in here, but he actually does. So I told him “sorry but I respect that working place as much as I respect this place so I am ok with you finding somebody else to work it”.  Isn’t that crazy, they just could not with me.

Super Juan

  It is complicated to see that time changes everything and everybody. Last week i was going through my pictures from high school and i started to remember my days in the varsity soccer team. All the memories from the days of practices in the rain, sun or snowy weather at the Southwest Athletic Complex, the home field of the Chief Sealth Seahawks.  I remember i was strong and with good physical condition, thanks to that i was good in sports. I used to love getting on the field start running, non stop, jumping on the basket ball court, going from one side to another on the volleyball court.
 Everything started when i was a little kid, i was born in a large family with lots of cousins, all of us were into sports and everyone wanted to be better. Now in Seattle I would go out and practice everyday, because i wanted to shine, i wanted to be better in sports.  Everyday i used to spend a lot of time trying something new, trying to make it more difficult. By doing this I did became better, going out on the field  i felt like if i was super man, unbreakable, unstoppable.  I remember i twisted my ankles several times but that did not stopped me, because i would be already doing sports again three days later. I loved everything about those moments being very physical, getting nervous before our matches, knowing that in the other team there will be players that wanted to beat our team.  Yelling and screaming motivating each other to give our hundred percent out on the field. I love those memories.
On 2004 while i was playing basket ball I broke my knee, that injured also broke Super Juan and all i had worked for.  It was very hard, that changed my life a lot that is the worst injure an athlete could have, personally just me i had to be in bed for three long, boring moths. I thought i was going to be fine but no after that injury i was not the same, my knee was not the same and worse, me mentally i was not fine.
   I finished going through my pictures and i decided to go out in a field for a run, the pictures got me motivated to do some sports.  Sp i get to the field and started to make plans about what my workout of the day was going to be. Thinking i could go about 10 times around the field just to take it easy and without thinking started running.  Hahaha funny after the second lap i had to stop, i could not go anymore.  Man i am so out of it i think i should of change the title of this post to: "Juan So Out of Shape" because at this time i am still sore. I ask myself is it too late to do this?

August 26, 2001

Two weeks before this date I was boarding a plane to the Airport of Newark, New Jersey; i just said two weeks because i don't remember the exact date. I was exited to see my aunt Hortencia that had lived in New Brunswick NJ for a long time, and i had not seen her since the time she was leaving Mexico. She is very nice to me and once she found out that I was in Seattle she found a way to get in touch with me.  Once she got my phone we kept communicating each other and pretty much on each time we talked she used to invited me to go over to which I could not because I was in school.  Summer arrived and I decided to go over, she bought the tickets and sooner that i thought i was already flying to the East Coast.  I had my seats next to a window and i was looking out all the time. When we were close to the airport the pilot announced that we were arriving toe the Airport of Newark i kept looking out, i was already tire but kept looking out.  The airplane started to go low and lower and not too far from where we were landing i could see two giant buildings that looked like two gigantic graphic bars.  Yes those buildings were telling me that we had arrived to New York.  I spend two weeks in the East Coast going to different cities with my aunt.  On August 26 we went to Manhattan Island, and visited different touristic places there.  The place that amazed me the most was the visit to the top of World Trade Center.  The day was beautiful, it was hot and sunny with no clouds at all, so the view from the top of the World Trade Center was nothing more than amazing.  At the top of the building there were two floors just for tourists, one inside of the building and another on the ceiling of the building.  In the floor inside of the building you could buy souvenirs, you could also see a model of Manhattan with all its streets and buildings.  Inside too you could look out there were some type of seats... no not seats, something like a bed of metal bars where you could lay horizontally "/" and face outside and down the building, in this position you could see down the tons of people, and the cars in the streets, it was a really nice experience. I stayed in one of those beds for a long time just wondering how they were built and how much more time of life will they have. Outside now you could feel the nice air waves that were going in different directions, it made me feel like if i was flying.  Out there you could look around, the building was very hight and because of that it used to give one of the best and peaceful views that i have seen so far.

In Manhattan we visited other places then we went back to my aunt's house because i had to fly back to Seattle on the next day.  Came back to Seattle and kept with my normal life going to work, going to school just my usual life here.
Every morning i used to set up my alarm clock to be on radio, at the time i did not understand much english but i noticed that the guy who i used to listen in every day before school was not joking like he used to do every morning.  This time he was sad and talking quiet, when he was speaking the only thing i understood was World Trade Center that is when i got up from bed and turn on the TV.  It was really really sad what i was seeing on TV, I could not believe that the one of those towers was falling apart and the other tower was already hit with big chances of going down too...  I did not want to believe it, two weeks and three days exactly, I was there after that nothing was the same to most people in the United States.