Introduction

When people think of Hawaii, what do they think of?  Palm trees and endless beaches?  Summer all year round?  Hula dancers and grass huts? For me, I think of home.  I was born on the main island, O’ahu, in the capital city, Honolulu, on July 19 and there I stayed for 18 years.  I was the typical local: I tried surfing, ate a lot of spam, and soaked up the sun.  One thing, though, is that Hawaii is a pretty isolated place so I grew up pretty naive about the world. For example, I thought that Hawaii was the only place where there were beaches and that this was the only place where it didn’t snow.  That changed for me, though, when I started taking French in high school and my teacher was actually a French woman.  From hearing her speak about her home country, and googling information later, I began to gain a real interest in places, not only outside of Hawaii, but outside of the United States.  I dreamed about participating in other cultures.  I wanted to explore, so, I moved to Canada.

Everyone has, not only their own story, but someone to think that their story is interesting. I think I am one of those people to find everyone’s lives interesting, so I am excited to learn about other people’s life narratives.  One question that I would like to think about in class is this: How had their life/ lives been before the event happened and after?  What changed?  This question is of particular interest to me because, because we all start as “ordinary” people, living “ordinary” lives and I would like to see the different perspectives of what ordinary is and how different our lives are from those who succeeded at the end of the day.  It also inspires me because it means everybody has a chance to make a difference.  The other question I would like to pursue is this: What would have happened if the person hadn’t done that or had to live through that experience?  I want to pursue this question because it’s interesting how one life or one action can make a big difference in the world.  I think that an example of this is Steve Jobs (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/98923-how-steve-jobs-killed-the-stylus-and-made-smartphones-usable).  He was a normal guy with a goal.  Before him, smart phones weren’t really a thing, but he put it out there and now we have so many companies focusing on making only smartphones and Apple basically comes out with a new model every half a year.  If he hadn’t tried to make things simpler, we might still be using flip phones or blackberries.  However, because he made it so popular, it revolutionized the world and now, even I have an iPhone.