Bryony-Rose
Hi there! I am a fourth-year English literature Major student at the University of British Columbia at the Kelowna Campus. When I entered university I thought I had figured out that I definitely wanted to get into the education program and become a high school English teacher, but my goal has been slightly altered. My interest and fascination with the American Sign Language and the Deaf community and culture has pushed me towards becoming an Interpreter. After finishing my English degree I plan to move to Vancouver to do this. I have grown up with my mother being a nurse, so at a young age I was introduced to a few Deaf people that captured my heart and attention. I knew from a young age I wanted to teach others, and I thought it was English I wanted to teach, but now I know I want to teach American Sign Language. I want to interpret the language to those that cannot understand it and be able to pass on stories of the Deaf people and their community so that more Hearing people have the chance to hear and learn from them.
Location is a great influence on stories because a story must happen somewhere. For myself personally, having moved from England, I have learnt how greatly stories differ from different continents. I am interested in discovering how different cultures- their unique beliefs, values and traditions – through their stories alter with the change of location, and how the location in detail affects their literature and whether it can be a negative change, positive change or both. I would say I am interested in learning about other cultures due to my great interest in the culture of the Deaf community, a community which is commonly overlooked by Hearing people, something similar to Aboriginal culture in modern society.
Francisco Araneta
Hello everyone! My name is Franco and I am currently a 5th year student majoring in Political Science and English Literature. I am currently taking this course from all the way from the Philippines, so despite me being in a completely different part of the world, this course still helps me feel somewhat connected to my second home of Canada.
Currently our group’s area of interest focuses on how narratives can be influenced by the location and space they are in. More specifically I want to investigate how our cultural and ethnic conceptions of home that were instilled upon us at a very young age, influence the way we perceive the places that we currently are living in. How does this perception affect the way see and therefore tell stories about the places we live? I believe that this particular topic is highly important especially in this day and age due to the forces of globalization that as of late have become more apparent in our everyday lives, forcing people to constantly reassess what home means personally to them.
Image source: Picture of the earth with a roof over it. Digital image. Earth Charter Initiative. Earth Charter Initiative, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.
Jenny Bachynski
Hello to my peers of English 470! My name is Jenny and I am just at the tail-end of my degree- majoring in English and minoring in History. I started my journey of post-education almost 10 years ago at the University of Alberta. There I was studying Art, but after a year I decided to move to Vancouver and pursue an education in Design. After I graduated, I worked in different facets of the design industry and eventually decided I wanted to change paths and work with children/teenagers through teaching. I started attending UBC a couple years ago and now I am finishing up my last semester through distance education, as I am home with my son and expecting another baby in the spring!
I was really struck by the idea of regionalism and placing a claim on land as a way to define “home”. When I read through our classmates’ blog posting on home- which were all so lovely and personal- I realized that everyone has such a different interpretation of what this means, yet so many of us struggled with similar concepts. Our yearning for security and community is something that I think is programmed into humanity, and engaging in the idea that this has been taken away from a large population of Indigenous people is something worth studying, understanding and reconciling. The theme of home and location became very heavy in my mind after starting this course, and then reading Green Grass, Running Water confirmed my desire to explore this topic more. I would like to narrow my focus towards how important our native traditions affect our storytelling forms and how changing location can transform these habits. Growing up in Alberta, I felt that I had very little connection to the deep history of Canadian colonization and it’s modern day repercussions. When I moved to Vancouver, my Husband started working in an industry that allowed for him to become connected to people in the Downtown Eastside. We were fortunate enough to develop friendships with many people struggling with the injustices that have been passed down through Canadian history. I hope that our research will be accessible and impactful for everyone is the class!
Jenny Lu
Hello all! I am a third-year student in the combined English language and literature major stream, with a minor in Commerce. I am a third generation Canadian, though I went to an American high school. I personally am interested in concept of an in-between space, and I especially liked the sense of entrapment that the characters in GGRW faced. I hope to research more about how the relations of location and space can help define different cultures in future Canadian literature prospects.