Assignment 1 – Autobiography

I was born against incredible odds.  There wasn’t any complications during my birth, I was a healthy eight pound baby boy.  The incredible odds I talk about are the way my parents met.  My father grew up in Hawaii and my Mother grew up in a small town in Austria.  What are the odds that my mother would travel over 7,500 miles to meet my father?   My mother is the ultimate hippy, moving from place to place on a whim, trying out all the latest holistic remedies and organic foods on her helpless son.  I should have foreseen that nothing would be “normal” in my life.

I went to two completely different high schools, the first was a private school that is more expensive than the University of Oregon for a year.  The second a public school whose Algebra 2 was the private school’s Algebra 1.  Instead of going straight to college after high school, I worked in retail for  a few years.  And now in college, it has taken me more than the average number of years to graduate.

Coming from these two polar extremes is very interesting.  I have to find my own path down the middle taking a bit of the hippy with a bit of the Asian.  I want everything to be perfect, and yet want things to happen naturally and spontaneously.  I need a plan, but want to live in the moment.  It is difficult to do, but I have finally stopped trying to please both of the extremes and started making myself happy and that is the ultimate trick.

I love where I am, at UO working on a Product Design degree.  I love being able to work with my hands while also being creative.  I enjoy the city that I am in, working on as well as riding bikes around town.