These are the common threads I noticed when reading others’ blogs:

Family:

In all the blog stories that I read, I found that they all mentioned “family”. Whether they mentioned blood related families or chosen families (friendship), the stories referred to family as people that they share life challenges with. I believe that people are social animals. We always needed someone to be there for us and to share joy and happiness in life with. Without that, life would be meaningless, which is why my blog story also included family as the most important sense of home. 

Relations with people:

I also noticed that the blogs I read mentioned relating to people. This is kind of similar to family but, it’s more about the relationship we have with people and what that interaction brings us that makes a home. We need to share our life with someone and there are lots of blog stories that posted family photos when they were kids. I believe that it is really important to them. Even though we are in university many of us still think of our childhood as a warm and memorable place.

Experience in university:

There are many stories that I read that included their experience in UBC. In my own blog story, I also wrote about friends that I made in UBC that have become family. University is an important step in life and it is the last station in life before going into the real world and facing all the challenges. It is about getting prepared for the real world and to learn as much as we can. Moreover, it is to build relations and connections with people because this is like a second home. We spend time and energy at university and hope to get a better future.

From these three common things I noticed, I think it is clear that it is a common assumption that we feel a sense of home based on how we relate to others and interact with them. Under this is the valuing of what our community thinks, and forming an identity for ourselves through being a part of a community and through relating to others. This includes exploring ourselves by sharing life challenges, joy, ideas and relationships with other people. I was surprise that home as a physical place was not mentioned as much as I expected. Ultimately, the sense of home that is created by our relationships helps us to carve identities by creating safe spaces for us to begin to understand who we are.