Personal+Inspiration+Narrative+(A1)

CCT333 Professor Michael Jones Assignment 1: Personal Inspiration Narrative February 2nd, 2010 By: Nader Masoudi I am a 25 year old man who came to Canada with his family at the age of 12. If I was asked about the coolest technology I ever encounter before I came to Canada, I would have answered CD-ROM. And this is quiet true. Prior to 1997 I don’t think many of the cool things we see today existed, let alone if you were living in a country like Iran. I remember my aunt bought a Sony stereo with a CD player, and that really WOWed the whole family.

When I came to Canada something else WOWed me even more: the smoke detector. You know when you were little and you go in the kitchen to watch your grandmother prepare a delicious meal, but you have no idea what she is doing? It makes you think if you’ll ever be able to cook like her. You might then wonder where to even start. Would it be boiling the water? Turning the oven’s temperature to a certain heat? Well, I asked myself these questions when I came to Canada in 1997. I was exposed to computers for the first time in my life. Cell phones were almost unheard of in Iran. Automatic sliding doors seemed very cool to me. Seeing technologies at that level for the first time was like me as a kid watching my grandmother as she prepared a meal. Well the smoke detector was what started the spark for me. It made me realize that I’ll be living with devices and technologies that will change my life forever.

I remember it was a month after we came to Canada. We had just moved into our new condo and started to unpack our languages. Everything was new to us. The stove oven worked with electricity instead of gas. We had a dryer which meant there was no need to hang our clothes on a rope to let them dry. I met my first Iranian friend the same day. He lived 4 floors above us and he promised to show me around. He told me about the device that is installed on the ceiling. He said if I ever hear it beep loud I should just fan it and that makes it stop. So I went home. That night my mom was making a meal. I was watching television. She was still getting used to the electric oven. All of a sudden a loud beeping sound started. It caused panic in everyone. My mom and dad started walking back and forth from the kitchen all confused. My little brother started crying and my older sister held him close to her, then it all came to me. I grabbed the picture frame from the wall and started to fan the source of the sound. After a few seconds it stopped. Everyone was quiet and confused. Nobody knew what this device was on the ceiling of our home and why it was starting to beep all of a sudden.

The smoke detector incident is something I will always remember because it marked the moment I experienced the clash of technological differences between the two countries. It made me realize that technology is making our lives easier. It is present in our homes, school, car and work place. That incident inspired me to catch up with technology from then on.