Hello! My name is Alayna, and I’m a second year who has grown up as a settler in Canada all of my life. I am half Punjabi and half British (tragic duo. colonization won.). I’m not very good at describing myself, but I spend most of my time either with friends doing stupid stuff (stupid as in playing GeoGuessr) or going on little walks. I am also deeply into music of all kinds. I am pretty garbage at guitar, and just about as garbage on piano, but I try. I like to make people feel better about their own musical skills. I was a solid theatre kid in high school, and for better or worse I think that still shows. It doesn’t help that my roommates have me watching Glee. Another thing I’ve really found interesting is learning languages; I took French immersion as a kid (I would never speak French in front of someone who knows it fluently, though), two semesters of Punjabi (I don’t remember anything), and some Spanish. Someday I’d like to actually be fluent in any of them. Not sure that day will ever come, but a girl can dream.
Honestly, I’m going into this term with very few expectations for my classes, and about a thousand expectations for myself. Note, I did not say high expectations for myself. One of my New Years’ resolutions is just to walk on grass more because it’s better for my ankles. Tragic. Another resolution that I had, however, was to try and celebrate some Sikh Punjabi holidays, as I have never really been close with my Punjabi extended family, and it makes me sorta sad. So we’ll see how that reconnection goes.
Nonetheless, I’m excited for this course as the first lecture was already so stimulating and, not to sound like a nerd, but I love that all my courses this year have overlap in talking about decolonization and indigeneity. One of the things I found myself focusing on during the lecture was the topic of the norms we already uphold. What is really normal? I was reading a chapter of a book on anomaly and expectations for another course, and it came to mind: is it only normal because it fits our expectations? I think this also applies to our conversation about orality and literature, and how Western societies see themselves as societies of the book. If you can’t read, that doesn’t fit the norm, and it’s an anomaly, societally. This leads to negative opinions of the anomaly. How do rid ourselves of anomalous ideologies?
I haven’t the slightest clue. So I’m excited!
Alayna : )
Welcome to the course, Alayna. I love the sense of humour! (British?! 🙂 )
The questions of norms and normativity are certainly interesting. I’m not sure how much we’ll directly address them, but we’ll see… perhaps you can keep us on our toes?
Hi Alayna! Your collection of languages is so cool to me, I’ve been struggling with Spanish for upwards of 8 years now with no signs of fluency in sight. I, too, am a semi-victim of the Glee epidemic. It’s so cool that your other courses connect! I’d be interested to hear which ones you are taking. I think the question of what’s normal is also super interesting… when I was a kid I was obsessed with having a backpack with a closing flap instead of a zipper because I thought that was ‘normal’ from the picture books I read (???) so I am sympathetic to the argument that normality can be an arbitrary category. The application of positive and negative connotation based on societal norms also seems like it could be applicable to this course. Nice to meet you!
Hey Alayna, the attempt to try playing guitar and piano is great in itself. I tried playing guitar once and it did not go well at all. My cousin was able to play Burna Boy tracks on it and I couldn’t even tune it. And don’t stress about meeting the extended family, I had the same problem because I grew up in Canada all my life and it worked out fine when i met them on a trip. Anyways, good luck on the term!