fast food craziness

              I have been eating fast food for as long as I have been alive. When I was a kid I remember my parents buying my siblings and I McDonald’s almost every weekend. Since our local Wal-Mart has a McDonald’s inside, they found it easy to buy us something every time they would go grocery shopping over the weekend. I remember looking forward to the weekend because my brothers and I would be expecting McDonald’s. We would always get Happy Meals, which are pretty much McDonald's kid’s meals. I would get a cheeseburger almost all the time because I felt like the four piece chicken nuggets would not fill me up. That thought was quickly over powered by the toy though. I'm pretty sure that was the main reason we always got happy meals. They would have a different theme of toys every month I believe. Sometimes it would be a movie that would be coming out at the time. Other times it would be a popular cartoon or a cheaper version of a popular toy. I also think we enjoyed it because it was a change up from the regular routine. It was nice not having a home cooked meal and I'm sure my mother thought it was nice not having to cook a meal for that day. As I got older the Happy Meals were no longer what I wanted and at that time I recall them coming out with the “Mighty Kid’s Meal” which I think was supposed to be the teenage version of the Happy Meal. Although it had bigger portions, I soon outgrew it and started having regular adult meals. Over the years, as I grew older, I started exploring different fast food places. We tried many different varieties of fast food like: sandwiches, tacos, and burgers.  

              My fast food habits now can get out of hand sometimes. Having so many different places so close by can be a heavy burden for my wallet. Even so, I find myself buying fast food multiple times out of the week. I definitely like some places better than others. My current favorite fast food place is The Habit because of the quality in their food. I am aware that most of the time you pay for what you get. I believe laziness also plays a role in the constant purchasing of fast food. Maybe if I wasn’t so lazy to make food at home I wouldn’t spend do much money and I could possibly save a few bucks. I probably won’t change that habit though because I like the simplicity of fast food too much. Even though it’s a little more expensive than McDonald's or other places I don’t mind paying the few extra bucks. I have pretty much left McDonald's as a last resort and only eat it if I'm starving and I only have a few bucks on me. I think since I have eaten McDonald's most of my life I'm pretty much sick of it by now. I have a list of preferable fast food places. The first is The Habit and the last is McDonald's. 

Past. Present. Future.

Hello, my name is Manuel. I was born on December fifth, 1991 in the beautiful beach city of Ventura, CA. As a child I had a relatively good childhood even though we didn’t have a lot of money, my parents always reminded me to be grateful of what we had. Both my parents were immigrants from different countries. My mother is from Mexico, while my father is from El Salvador. Like most other people, they came to the United States in search of a better future, since they realized they would not have a very good future in their countries of origin. They came here separately, in their early 20’s and worked as field workers. They met each other while at work and then started dating. Soon they got married, and then had me a couple years later. I was the first of 4 children. We always had enough to get us by and my parents always instilled in my siblings and I to always be content with what we had. They seemed to live that way and we all shared in that. Early in grade school and through junior high I feel like I was a very good student. In high school though, I slipped up and started becoming lazy. My grades slipped for a couple years because I made other things the priority so I barely got by. I managed to graduate and now I'm going to college. I have made plenty mistakes throughout my teenage years and growing up, as I would imagine any teenager to do, but I don’t have many regrets because I feel like my mistakes have made a better person.

Currently I am a full time student at Oxnard College. I have had quite a bit of jobs in the past couple of years because mainly they were all temporary or did not fit my school or social schedule. I’m not exactly sure what my career path will be yet so for right now I'm taking general education courses. Lately I’ve been leaning to three career choices: business, computer technology, or something in the social work area. I live at home with my parents and four siblings. We fight at times, just like I would imagine any family to do, but I love them very much and there is nothing I would not do for them. I’ve worked some good paying jobs the last couple years which have allowed me to purchase a few things including my car. In my time off I like to work out at the boxing gym and do other physical activities, since I am a big fan off mixed martial arts. I also enjoy football among other sports. On the weekends, I like to go out to social gatherings with friends and spend time with my family. So that is what my life pretty much consists of now a day.

I’d like to finish community college in the next couple of years and from there make the decision if I want to continue on with my education. I have been told that routine builds character and you have to be very dedicated to anything if you want to succeed but I'm afraid I lack ambition at times. I’d also like to travel to some places in the world, I feel like I'm very social and friendly and I would definitely like to meet people from different parts of the world with different perspectives and see the beautiful sites around this globe. That might have to wait though because money is always an issue. I definitely want to settle down one day and start a family and be a father, but right now that is the farthest thing on my mind. I believe it takes hard work to get to the point where you want to be in life and I'm going to keep working at it until I am where I want to be.