Vahan Sirekanayan

4-29-04

Per.1-2

Oral History

On March 13^th I interviewed my Grandfather Vahan Tonapetyan. Vahan is 67 years old He was born in Yerevan, Armenia at the 8^th Hospital. Vahan lived in Armenia his whole life until the last 13 years. The reason he came here was so he can live a better life with his children’s families. At Armenia Vahan got good grades and graduated from the top Universities but couldn‘t do much even with his good grades because of the countries problems. Vahan worked as a top constructor but he wouldn‘t get paid a lot and the business would not increase. Vahan and his wife were the first ones to come to America and then after 5 years he brought his 2 daughter‘s families to America.

In my life there have been couple of changes that I’ve witnessed. The most significant is the change of the teenagers between my teenage life and now, in my time the teenagers would always listen to their parent’s every words they also weren’t this violent, but now most of the teens don’t even mind their parents. A more significant change was the invention of the computers. Computers made our everyday life easier. Well not mine but for today’s teenagers. In my time when ever there was an assignment dew for school, we would use the books to find something, but now there are easier ways like the internet and the Encyclopedia on the computer. I think that is a really big change. When the computers just came out they were really big and you couldn’t do much on it like you can do on today’s computers, but as the years go on the computers get smaller and more powerful. What I’m trying to say is that the teens in today’s life have an easier future since the computers get better every day. Their future is in their hands. I was born in 1937 and since then I never used a computer. I never had one and I never will. I can’t have one anymore because it’s too late for me to learn how to use one. Mostly everyone owns a computer these days. In my days if you owned a computer, you would have been considered really rich and lucky. Right now I’m really happy for the fact that even my grandson has one which I am proud and would always want him to have the best computer so he can be able to do more stuff with it and make it easier for him.

I don’t want a computer now but I remember that when the computers just came out I really wanted one, everyone wanted it and I wasn’t the only one. The reason I don’t want one now its because I’m really old, there is no need for me to use a computer also like I said earlier on, I am too old and I wont be able to understand how to work a computer, but teenagers in now a days need one because they can do a lot with computers and their future is in their hands and working with computers will make them reach to their dream. Even though you can cheat off computers you should still not cheat when you have time to do it and learn. Do good in school so you can reach something in life and not be like me who doesn’t have enough money to keep his family I had no future, but if you do good in school you will have a good future. None of my friends back in Armenia had a computer but when we just came to America one of my neighbors had a computer and that was the first time I saw a computer. I think it was called Macintosh and I was really amazed because I had never seen one before my whole life. The only place I saw was on television. As the years go on the computers improve and they get smaller like the laptops. As I was saying, none of my friends had a computer because when we were small it was very expensive and now we are old but don’t need one. We didn’t have enough money back then. Today’s computers are cheaper and much better.

I don’t know anyone except my grandson who has a computer in his own home. He is the only one that is in my family that I know has a computer and I hope that he would never fall behind in the computer world. The first time that I saw him with his new computer, I was really happy for him since he was the first one to have a computer in our family. I’m not that sure what today’s computers have or don’t have but I think that the futures computers will be more powerful and everything will be wireless. Things will be easier for the user so he won’t struggle. One would be able to talk to the computer and the computer will be able to reply back and stuff like that. Like if you have a question you can ask your computer. Also the screen will look 3D, you will be able to talk and it will type for you and print it too. Well all this is my imagination I really don’t know if perhaps we will go that far.

In my time there were no such things such as an E-mail. If we were to send mail we had to do it threw the mailbox with stamps, but they cost a lot, even 25 cents was a lot back in my days. In order to send mail in a cheaper way, we would find someone who was going to travel near the person and give it to them to give the mail to them. Also to write mail we needed paper but paper was also expensive, we had to use it with care. The mail that we would send would probably take days or weeks to get there but when you are using an E-mail it only takes a second and you don’t pay for paper nor stamps. When the computers just came out I wished that I could have worked with computers as my dream job but I needed that kind of an education and that kind of education cost even more. I always wished to work with them but it was different in my time, but teenagers now are different because they now have the chance to since there are schools were it’s based on computers.