"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." - Benjamin Franklin

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There are movies we watch that mean different things to us at different moments in our lives.  In watching them you come to realize something new and different - either about the movie or you, or both.  Most recently I re-watched the Karate Kid in its entirety.  The first few times I saw the movie I understood it to be about a coming-of-age young man learning how to stand up for himself.  This last time I watched it, because of where I am in my life, I "watched" from the perspective of Mr. Miyagi.

What was interesting about watching from this perspective is that we, the viewers, only know Mr. Miyagi as the karate master to Daniel ("Danielson") - we aren't privy to anything in his life.  As the movie progresses, we come to understand that Mr. Miyagi has suffered a great deal of pain and loss. It dawned on me that even though Mr. Miyagi suffered a personally, he never let his own personal history negatively  affect the passion and knowledge he extended to Daniel.  In every sense of the word, Mr. Miyagi was a mentor.

When I was about 15 years old and knew I wanted a career in architecture and design, I wrote to the only african-american female achitect I knew of at the time.

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