Personal History of Research As far as the first memory I have concerning research, it begins as a young kid within the year’s seven to nine. The famous question “where do babies come from” was my first research project. As an ignorant child, birth was a sickening topic to think about and I would draw conclusions based on little fact. I thought it was well known that first born children came from the belly-buttons of their mothers. As I grew older and started listening to reason, it became clear to me that this can’t be the case. Why do I have a belly-button? I haven’t given birth, at least not that I know of. I knew I had a little investigation to accomplish. I was too embarrassed and proud to ask my parents. The only real access I had to information, at the time, was school. As the topic kept weighing on me, I eventually approached my third grade teacher. “Why do we have belly-buttons, Mrs. Dean?” I carefully asked. I knew if I asked, do babies come out through the belly-button, she might laugh in my face. As it was, she still had a little giggle before she replied. She then explained to me how the belly-button was at one time a cord that connected the mother and child. I listened intently and my face became a little red when she explained where babies actually came from, but never the less, I became more confident and my questions were put to rest.
In seventh grade, a final project for our history class was up and coming. Our task was to pick a natural geographic landmark and write a history and generic background paper about it. Out of all the volcanoes, islands, trenches, oceans, and lakes I picked Mt. Everest. We picked in alphabetical order and Blue was first up. I picked it honestly because it well talked about and sought after by my classmates. I didn’t really know much about Mt. Everest, except that it was the tallest mountain and maybe a little challenging to conquer. As I began to Google Mt. Everest and the Himalayan Mountains, I came across amazing stories and diaries of the ridiculous treks up the unconquerable mountain. For over the span of two weeks I would come home from school and immediately get on the computer to read more of the sacrifices and deaths that come with the hard task of trying to get to “the peak.” I was mostly interested to figure out what made these mountain climbers risk their precious life to climb a hill. They climb miles and miles up these treacherous paths, in well below zero degrees Fahrenheit, with companions that fall dead and wander into open space. I was amazed to find that over two-hundred corpses are frozen solid on the path up this mountain, and are other words unreachable for helicopters to obtain these sad adventurers. I checked out a couple books from the school library that followed a select few journeys up Mt. Everest. One of these adventures was the story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. These inspirational men were behind the very first successful ascent up the mountain. Starting in a group totaled over four-hundred people, only two actually made it. A famous picture was taken of Tenzing atop the highest point in the world. As I read and researched about Mr. Hillary and other less fortunate adventurers, my interest only increased. It wasn’t until two days before the final project was due that I realized I hadn’t even started my written piece! I ended up faking an illness and staying home from school for two days to give me enough time to finish the whole project. I learned a lot about a newfound passion in mountain climbing, and even more in time management.
As I became more involved in athletics in middle school,