How Faith Took Daniel Amezquita From Weary Bones to Memorizing Bones

Learn how Daniel Amezquita went from a tough job, to training for an unexpected new career. 

Daniel Amezquita heard about LBCC’s Talent Show because he helps publicize SLC events. He loves his new nursing program. He is making friends which is also making the challenging coursework more manageable. He spoke with The Commuter about the Talent Show and his path to LBCC.

“Oh, man, so before coming to college, I was working at a farm. And I think that was really where my personal curiosity for faith grew. Because it's tough work. 

I would put on music and I started getting interested in different gospel music. I started listening to Hope 107.9. I would get in the car, drive to work, and it would just make me feel, like, ready to work and it would boost my mood and everything. 

(“The Goodness of God”) was one of my favorites on there.

You'd go out there, you'd be, like, freezing in the morning. So you'd work winters, too. You'd have to have rain gear on pretty much all the time and you'd be working, like, all day in the fields.

I was in charge of the drip irrigation for a while. It's kind of solitary work. So being out there alone, you start to want to have, you know, something to listen to working. 

Working that job definitely taught me a lot about being resilient when it comes to different challenges and in the power of friendship through that.

You know, you'd have hard jobs to work on, but as long as you had someone there, you kind of talk to them about it and then you almost like, bond through that challenge.

I thought to myself, I want to do a song that brings a message. So originally I was going to do a song that's called “Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys.”

It felt personal to me as well. I was on the farm and I was really just toughening it out. But I realized that I also want to have  a job where I not only was like helping provide food for society, but also, maybe nursing could be another way to help give back to my community. And I think that song might touch on that a little bit. You know, not being like a rough rootin’ tootin’, like cold hearted person, but also knowing how to do something that might take a little bit more time and effort. 

(There is) that rock star kind of mentality, where you're gonna push yourself.  But, you know, going to college is pushing yourself in a different way. It's not as straightforward as like, moving a pallet of blueberries from the field to a trailer. It's more like, you can't really put your finger on the way that you have to learn an anatomy and physiology class. 

You just gotta be able to accept that both are gonna be making you want to quit. And either way you're gonna have people on the way that are gonna be there for you. So I think closing off one option for yourself, maybe that's not the best way to go about it. Maybe you can be open minded and try different things.

I think of a song by Luke Bryan. It's “Hunting, Fishing and Loving Every Day.” It talks about being out and getting muddy and kind of like celebrating that. But, you know, another thing is learning the parts of the different bones in the body. It's like I've never heard a song kind of talk about that.

And there's value in that. So I think that's why I wanted to do that song originally. But I thought about it twice and I told myself I wanted to give another message, which is like a testimony almost. And that was the goodness of God for me because I think that I wouldn't have ever gone back to college if it wouldn't have been for my faith. Because I think that's where I felt the ability to say, you know, maybe I don't have to do farming. This doesn't have to be the end all, be all for me. It can be going back to college and trying it again and maybe my life will change. You know, it doesn't have to be what's right in front of me. There's something bigger for me and it can change. You know, it doesn't have to be what I see right now. Things can kind of just blow my mind basically. And now I see that. I'm at college and something that I would have never expected to be doing, which is nursing, is happening and (I’m) doing good and making friends.

Because I think when, when I was originally going to college, I think I had faith, but I kind of had it on the back burner. And I never really saw anything for myself besides maybe a couple of things that I knew I liked from high school. Like, I know I like music. And outside of that…if you told me, what are you going to be when you grow up? Well, that's kind of a hard question to ask

Going to college, I think there's a courage that it takes to say, this is what I want to do and I'm gonna do it. And I think when you have faith, you're able to have that courage to say, this is what I'm gonna do and I'm gonna be committed because I know that whatever I want to do, I know that there's something behind that…You feel a sense of safety and you feel supported in whatever you want to do when you have faith. 

It's kind of unheard of to have someone in my family being a nurse as a male. So I definitely had that kind of second thought in my head. Like, (it’s) not stereotypically what you'd  see, I guess. But I've heard from a lot of people that they  want male nurses, and it's actually not what I thought. I'm happy where I'm at, and I think my family's definitely, if they're not proud, they will be proud eventually. I know they will. 

I would say maybe 25% (of his class) or less is male. It's been interesting because you kind of want to ask, well, why is that? And when I think about it, I think maybe it's just like, stereotypes. But I think everybody can bring value to a job. I also think back to the farm jobs. There were actually quite a bit of women out there.  They were very, very good workers. And it was like, everybody could encourage everybody else. 

So the original song I looked at was a cover by CeCe Williams. She had a very gospel voice to it. I wanted to take that and then, like, fuse it with another (version that) had a very subtle tone to it. I wanted to have something in between. I wanted it to be something a little intimate, but also have that belting, you know, a little bit of that.

I thought to myself, the simpler, probably the better, and just kind of keep it down to the bare bones. So I knew I had to play with dynamics. If I'm not doing anything with like riffs, I know I have to keep the crowd entertained in some way. So on certain parts I would take pauses and I would also change the strumming. Different little, like very discreet things I did. But I wanted to do that to make it a dynamic performance, which actually I learned when I was attending here doing music.

I did the Corvallis talent show a couple years back (at the Majestic Theater) and me and my brother did a cover of “Blame it on the Boogie” by the Jackson 5. I did the singing and guitar and my brother joined me singing and he did a dancing part. I got a lot of people after the show telling me, you should do it again. And we got a standing ovation. 

I try to look at music as messages. There's something that the artist wants to say. You can definitely make it groovy and add layers to it. But if you boil it down, they're saying something. 

I felt really happy (with his performance). I had a test right beforehand. being able to recall the like 46 different bones. So you can just imagine coming, rushing, getting ready my guitar and then being there and kind of situating myself. But I was on time.  

I think it was a special show.”