Hello everyone! My name is Steve Kim. This is not my legal name, but still, everyone calls me by this name. I am a psychology major. I am from Seoul, South Korea. In other words, English and other Romance languages are second languages for me. It is nervous to read stories with a language I have never used for half of my lifetime, and yet also excited to expand my perspective towards the world. Hope it goes well.

There are a few things I expect to get away with from this course. The different styles used in modern and post-modern literature are one thing I want to learn. I personally have a deep interest in literature — or simply, I like reading in general. It would be great to learn different styles used in literature from the 20th and 21st Century.

The second thing I am expecting in this course is to learn the culture of the so-called “Romance World”. I used to study in South Korea until 9th grade and moved abroad to study afterwards. It was a pleasure to learn and find out the commonalities and differences in cultures and cultural areas. For example, I believe that “language” contains the crucial part of cultural images. I have been privileged to learn this for my whole academic journey, and now I am here to learn about the literature written in Romance languages. I think it is an opportunity to open my eyes not only to the literature per se but also to the culture of the completely different world I came from.

The last thing is that I want to challenge myself and grow my ability to read and analyse the story written in English. Again, I am an international student with using English as a second language. Although I can read English book — which is no wonder and compulsory for me to study in English– it is always a struggle to read fiction as it requires to understanding fully on the culture. I was always behind the people who were studying the same thing and had to spend approximately triple times more than others.

However, on the other hand, this challenge makes me grow in many ways, and learn many different things more deeply as I am spending time for it. This is the reason why I want to put myself in the challenge. Indeed, I have to search a dictionary countless times to read one story which would take longer times. However, it is not a meaningless time. I can learn languages, cultures, and many valuable and interesting stories provided in this course.

It would be a hard journey, but I am ready to enjoy it.