Welcome back to another blogpost. Similarly to my last post, this post will examine looking at past events through different lenses. As you probably remember, these lenses are Historical Significance, Evidence and Interpretation, Continuity and Change, Cause and Consequence, Historical Perspective, and Ethical Judgement. However, instead of applying these lenses to famous historical events, they will be applied to things that have happened in my life that I have deemed significant. Ranging from my birth to an event that occurred last week, these stories all mean something to me for different reasons:
This is a book that I made including photos that tell the stories of the four events. For more clarity, read the descriptions that I have written about the event while looking at the photos.
The first significant event is my birth. I was born on September 17th, 2000 at the Children’s Hospital, surrounded by myparents and a select group of family members. Luckily, everything went smoothly and after not too long (22 minutes after my birth), my mother was holding not just me but my twin sister as well. This event is not only significant for me, but also for my family, since I was not only my parents’ first child but my grandparents’ first grandchild as well. It is when my parents stopped being normal adults and started being parents. It is obviously a milestone for me as it is when my life began. The evidence I have pertaining to my birth lies in the stories I have been told about it. I have heard accounts from different family members all describing the sequence of events that occurred. I also have access to photos from that day and I can always check my birth certificate for more information. I can’t speak to what changed in my life when I was born (since nothing happened before my birth), but I can speak to the changes in my parents’ lives. From that day on, they were always thinking about me and my sister, and that continues today. Since the time I was born my parents have had not their own, but my best interests at heart and for that I am truly grateful. The consequences of my birth were me beginning my life and my parents beginning their journey as parents.
The next significant event is when I learned to ride a bike. Correction- when I learned to ride a bike without training wheels. I don’t have a very good memory of this event as I was quite young, but as I remember the story is as follows: I always rode my bike with training wheels even though I probably could have learned to ride without them. Then one day, my friend invited me to his birthday party, which just so happened to be a biking party. Now I really wanted this cool new bike helmet, but it was a helmet meant for pretty serious mountain bikers. So my parents told me that they would only buy me the helmet if I finally took my training wheels off. Reluctantly, I agreed and without much trouble began riding my bike without the training wheels on. I think that I knew deep down that I didn’t really need the training wheels but they were a sort of security blanket for me and I felt comfortable with them on. This event was significant for me as it showed me that sometimes we have to go outside our comfort zone to achieve a goal. The evidence of this event lies in my own memories of what happened. It also didn’t just change the way that I rode my bike but changed the way I thought about advancing in life. We cannot get complacent and must take risks in order to “remove our training wheels”. The consequences of this event were me becoming able to ride trails and also receiving the snazzy helmet that I had my heart set on.
To gain a different perspective of this event, I interviewed my mom who was right there beside me when I learned to bike:
Although the main points of our stories are the same, my mom has a slightly different recollection of the event than I did. For one, I had no idea that before that time, I had been riding my bike with the training wheels barely touching the ground, rendering them useless. In other words I had already been biking without them, which would have made me less nervous when I was going for what I thought was my first ride without them. But my mom also remembered that I didn’t know that I could do it which isn’t quite true. I actually knew deep down that I could do it, I just wasn’t very confident. These differences illustrate that different perspectives can change the facts of a story. Neither me nor my mother were lying, yet our stories were different. This proves how important it is to examine a past event from all angles and perspectives.
The third event I chose was my first trip to California when I was 7. This was quite significant for me since it was my first time travelling any farther than Portland, and the first memory I have of travelling at all. It was also my first time on a train, as well as my first time on a plane. We did many exciting things on the trip: went to the beach where I tried to surf and boogie board, spent a few days at Disneyland, went to the La Brea Tar Pits, the Getty Museum, and the Venice Beach Boardwalk. The evidence of this trip is my memories as well as the countless photos that my mom took throughout the trip. This trip changed my world view, it showed me that there was a much larger would waiting to be explored and that the world was a lot larger than my small community. The consequences of this trip were my views on Los Angeles and California as a whole. It went from a place that I didn’t know much about to a place that I wanted to go back to. In fact, I loved California so much that I have traveled back there with my family five times since my first trip when I was 7.
The last event I will talk about occurred only a week ago, but is extremely significant none the less. Last Thursday was seniors recognition night for my high school basketball team. This event was very important to me as it marks the final stretch of my basketball career- there are only a handful of games left. It was very nice to receive recognition for all the hard work I’ve put in over the years. The evidence for this event was captured in my memory and the memories of all the fans who attended the game. There were also many photos taken which could serve as primary sources. This event marks a serious change in my life, the end of my high school basketball career. It serves as the conclusion of not only my 5 years of high school basketball, but my 5 years of club ball as well. I have been playing basketball for 8 years and the end of my competitive career of this sport will be a major change in my life. As for consequences, they are still to be determined as the event occurred less than a week ago.
Well, those are 4 significant events in my life. Through the past few weeks I have really learned that history is not a list of facts, rather it is a multitude of perspectives. Facts can change depending on what lenses you look at an event from. The closest we can get to finding out what actually happened is when we consider all perspectives, and even still, there are many events where the truth is left open for debate.