Caden Simpson: Alright Alexander my first question is what is the story behind your green

headphones?

Alexander Rodriguez: So I bought these when I was in fourth grade and I had just gotten some
money from my great-grandpa for my birthday and fo christmas. So I went to put that towards
them, and at the time green was my favorite color. It was a month or two after that that my
great-grandpa passed away and I started to wear them everyday.

CS: Which have you enjoyed more: elementary, middle or high school?

AR: Honestly high school. I mean not the classes.I find the classes too easy, and then its just
like… you know I feel like throughout high school so far I’ve found out more about myself than
any of the others.

CS: What were your thought on the 2010s?

AR: Um… 2010s… um… it was a weird decade, because everything I didn’t expect to happen
to myself happened. At that point I was just… so much happened throughout the last decade
that it just all came to a point where I just felt overloaded towards the end of it nut now I’m fine
again.

CS: How do you feel this coming decade?

AR: I think the key to the next decade is to stay optimistic about it​. ​I had a career path, but now
its not necessarily the path I want to take, but as long as I stay optimistic with it and I keep my
mind open to what I could do and what I could achieve then I think I’ll be fine.

CS: Do you prefer the main campus or the freshmen campus?

AR: It would probably be the freshmen campus just because its a lot tidier,a lot cleaner, and this
one just always seems gloomy because there’s hardly any natural light that comes in.

CS: What extracurricular activities are you doing and which one do you like more?

AR: I’m a debate student and I am in hockey. Its kind of hard to defer between the two because
the hockey kinds of brings out my aggression because I know that in hockey I can obviously be
rough with people, but then in debate I can also bring out my emotion by expressing political
points. So, its probably a balance between the two and I don’t know if I can defer between which
is my favorite.

CS: What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you at school?

AR:I don’t even know. Not that much has happened to me throughout high school. I mean
there’s been subtle things, but nothing uh nothing really that bad. Probably the hardest thing at
school was getting frustrated with one of my math teachers because I was failing his class and I
needed him to put some of my grades in which took him like ages to do so. In those ages, my
parents were getting frustrated with me because I was at a low grade and I could have been
higher if he had put the grades in.

CS: What will you be doing for Spring Break?

AR:I don’t have any official plans yet, but um me and my group of friends, we’re talking about
going camping. However, there’s nothing official like I’m going to do this.

CS:How do you feel about Black History Month and are there any specific African-Americans
you've taken a liking to that are just special to you?

AR:Uh Black History Month. Its important. Throughout history I don’t think the African-American
people have been represented well enough throughout our history and throughout our records,
and so Black History Month knid of restores that view of hey these people still matter so we
should still be focusing on what they accomplished and what they’ve done with their… and how
they’ve built themselves up to yeah. Um its going to sound incredibly stereotypical but Martin
Luther King really just kind of seals everything for me because he just kind of sealed that these
people still matter and they still build up the workforce and they still help… they still contribute to
make America what it is and I think he kind of expressed that the most.

CS:What was your favorite class so far this year?

AR:I… probably world history with Coach Hill because he’s one of the most chill teachers I’ve
​ ou can learn from him all the time and beyond being a coach he's a spectacular teacher.
met​. Y

CS:What is your favorite genre of music?

AR: Uh electronic/EDM. Electronic/EDM Its just kind of… I don’t know how to express it. The
bass and everything that just flows altogether, just repetitive movement that changes slightly. Its
like ear candy to me. I just can’t ever stop listening to it. Then I’ll take breaks from listening to it
and then the next day I’ll come back to it. Its what I like.

CS:What was your reaction to Donald Trump claiming he would build a wall?

AR:I think… Its kind of a hard question. I think the idea of it isn’t that bad. I think that we should
still be trying to encourage the South American immigration to be going through the legal
process of actually registering as a U.S citizen or actually getting the visa, but I think building a
wall to keep them out is a bit extreme. You can increase the security of the border, but don’t… it
just seems stupid to be wasting milions of dollars on a wall just to keep desperate people out of
our country because those desperate people will end up heping our economy in the future.

CS:Was there any teacher you felt that went above and beyond?

AR:Okay um… sure. Mr.Wilkinson on my ninth grade year was probably my favorite teacher of
all time because he would always… if I was struggling on stuff or if my grade was slipping, he
would always just come to me at the beginning of class and be like hey are you okay, and he
would just check on me to make sure if I was okay, and if I was slipping then he would help me
get back up there. He was just probably the biggest encouragement as a teacher like hey these
people actually do care about you succeeding in high school.

CS:What are your feelings on block lunch?

AR:Its needed. I don’t see why our new principal wants to take it away because block lunch is a
social time. We already are spending 7 to 8 hours a day in a school building learning. Block
lunch is our one break during that learning time to spend time with friends or to go to clubs. It
can even be a time for us to make up our test grades or study for a test, or work on a project. Its
just, Its probably the most important part of our day because it allows us to actually get what we
need to do done, or if we already us have what we need to do done then it allows us to relieve
some stress by communicating with friends and i think when you take that away, you’re taking a
very valuable part of the student’s day.

CS: What are your feelings on advisory?

AR:Advisory um I think its necessary for the key lessons like the suicide prevention and the drug
pervention, but I don’t think we should be having it every single week. I think, because I feel like
advisory is just a time filler, so I feel like we should only have advisory on scheduled days for
these important lessons, so that we’ll actually do something, or even things like our LISD
password change, but if we’re not going to doing much in Advisory then I don’t think we should
be having it on that day.