Read at least 3 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find. Post this list on your blog with some commentary about what you discovered.

I struggled a lot with this assignment. While the very broad and bigger picture of each individual description of home is, they vary largely. Trying to cohesively describe my thoughts and findings while comparing my classmates thoughts was difficult for me. I hope I managed to communicate it in a way that makes sense to you!

After reading my classmates blogs it is clear that most people find comfort and the feeling of home with the ones they love ( Linda Purcell). That means ‘home’ in a physical sense can alter as you grow and mature, as long as you have the ones you love. Similar to that, ‘home’ was said to be where you have a sense of community – outside your 4 walls and immediate family (Deepak Nijjer), it is in the community they spend their free time with. Another common response was home is where you feel that you ‘belong’. For example, one classmate (Victoria Woo), stated she has lived in many cities and countries, but she feels at home places with personal emotional attachment. I think the general consensus is home should equal comfort and stability.These three traits seem to be among the most common, not only in our class, but also for society. That being said, I do not think there is one common trait across the board. Home is something you chose.

I have experienced this on a larger scale in the UBC community. Being such an international school, the questions “where is home?” is a very complicated one. The most interesting part is a common phrase is “well I was born here” or “I went to school here” and is followed by “but I consider my home to be here”. I found an article that also described how parents giving a child space to discover themselves, also helps the child figure out what “home” is to them. This illustrates further how home is different for everyone and it takes time to figure out. I want to stress that home is not necessarily where you are born. Like Victoria stated in her statement, the physical feelings of belonging and emotional attachment is what makes home. An individual needs time to figure that out for them self.

A common theme I saw in my classmates responses was comfort. Everyone may find that comfort from a different area of their life, but “home” was always linked with a sense of security. That security could come from the physical attributes of home, the people who fill and surround your home or the place you found yourself. It all revolves around stability. Ultimately, I think what can come from this is, looking at the bigger picture. Ultimately, where you are from is less important than where you are going. That tells you more about someone. The choice of where to call home is very different than the place they were born into and call home.