Living in Hawaii for 19 years, I am definitely a stranger to city life. A regular weekend for me was going down to the beach and not seeing a building over 4 stories. Los Angeles was just a place far away where all the movie stars lived. This may be why my original perception of LA was so stereotypical. All I had to go off of were movies and television shows. From films like White Chicks I learned that everyone in Los Angeles was either rich or famous. And from other films like LA Confidential and Pulp Fiction I assumed that the city was a place chock full of crime and deception. My views of the city were completely changed the first time I visited. I was in the city because my dad had a business meeting there. Unlike what I thought before, not everyone was driving a Range Rover or wearing a Gucci belt. There were actually real people just like me who lived in this place. And when my family went out to the nearest Korean BBQ place, we did not get robbed or get sucked into an intense murder mystery movie. From that day on my views of the city were completely changed. The more time I spent there, the more and more that I liked it. Rather than being scared and intimidated by the tall skyline I now saw the city as a way out of my island home. It became a goal to me to live there amongst the wealthy and elite that occupied beverly hills. This class has reintroduced me to the mindset that LA is a land of unlimited possibilities. Seeing how films and fictional books perceive the city is very interesting. The class so far is very interesting and I am excited to learn more and more about this city that is so new yet so familiar to me.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

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