Hello there, English 470! Happy Monday and Happy October to you! Can you believe that we’re already a month into this term? It seems as though September went by so quickly. Anyways, here is my follow-up post to our assignment where we had to list what home means to us. I had a lot of fun reading your stories this week. Here are my observations, which I will be posting alongside some commentary. I, then, plan on following up my observations with an overall commentary on the assignment and my findings.
SIMILARITIES
Evolution – Many of our stories revolved on the relocation of our sense of home, but it was Colleen Fish that brought the world ‘evolution’ to my attention. She begins her blog post by saying that “the reason why ‘home’ is so difficult to find is because home is something that evolves as you experience life” (Fish). I think this is an excellent way of looking at our sense of home as it is ever-changing as we rotate our location.
Comfort/Safety – Comfort and safety were words that were used often within our blog posts. I cannot agree with this more, as my story ended on me finally getting comfortable in my new house.
Family/Friends/Support System/Love – Out of all the blog posts that I read, I believe that this was among the three most mentioned aspects of the sense of home. The three most mentioned were: evolution, comfort/safety, and love. I believe this is because family is so closely connected with the home, so you feel most at home with those you consider to be your family.
The Attachment of Memories/Stories to a Physical Space – Memories and story were, of course, big themes in this assignment. The assignment was to write a story and, as I will discuss in my additional commentary, it is a crucial part of why a location becomes a home. Lucas Hui discussed the importance of story in his sense of home, while Michael Pendreigh shared memories with us in his story.
Independence/Evolution of Identity – Finally, while not many mentioned the independence that contributed to my sense of home, Patrick Woo did discuss something similar. In his post, he says “I came to recognise it is not only my father’s home but mine as it helps us figure out who we are” (Woo). I am not sure if he was getting at the same thing as I was, but I think that this indicates that identity and the evolution of an identity can also be part of the process of making a home.
DIFFERENCES
Sense of Belonging – A few of the blogs that I inspected, such as Colleen Fish’s blog, brought up a sense of belonging and its connection to a sense of home. I will discuss this further in the additional commentary section of this post.
Stability – While most of Jenny Bachynski’s story aligned with what I wrote in my story, I thought it was interesting how her early sense of home was tied into the stability of her childhood home. As I moved so much in my childhood, I never felt this, but I enjoyed how she got the sense of stability and how that related to feelings of comfort and home across through her story.
Escape – In Chloe Lee’s blog, she said that “home has been a place of solitary peace for me, where I can escape from the world.” As my sense of home revolves heavily around the people in my life, I had not considered this aspect. However, I do agree that my home is where I find my peace and relax from the pressures of the world outside my home.
Language – As I have only ever lived in a country where my native language is the official language of the country I live in, I have never had to experience what Francisco Araneta has felt. Though, I am bilingual and I have a slight taste of what it feels like to be a fish out of water when it comes to language. I found this to be a very interesting blog post as I had never considered my language to be connected to my sense of home before.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY
I would like to begin this commentary with mentioning how much we all seem to want to give into cliches! I am not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, but I found it interesting how many of us utilized the phrase “home is where the heart is” or “there’s no place like home.” Even when I was writing my short story on home, I felt an urge to use these phrases as well. Perhaps there is some sort of truth to these sayings.
I also found that, as a group, we had more in common than we had in difference when describing our sense of home. Many of the stories were based around memories or stories that occurred in the location we proclaimed home and it was these stories that made that location a home to us, not to sound redundant. There was also many references as to home being the place where we were surrounded by the ones we love and the ones that love us, whether it be family, friends, or others we are close to.
The idea that home is not a physical space until we make it a physical space was something I also came across quite often, though not in those exact words. Many of the stories began with talking about how home was not a physical space, but it took on these qualities by being the location where the stories occurred. Looking through all of these blogs, I feel as though it is our stories and memories that make our homes.
In terms of differences, I did not find many between all of us. Even in the differences, I found them to be quite small and maybe only different in how we termed them. For instance, I went over the sense of belonging in the differences section of this post. While I did not go over this in my story, I do think that this ties in with home being where your loved ones are because your family accepts you. I also found that Francisco Araneta’s take on linking language to your sense of home also works into the idea of belonging somewhere. It is difficult to feel belonging when you are isolated by a language barrier.
In conclusion, I thought that this was a very interesting assignment. I learned a great deal of things about what I consider to by home for myself, and also learned about what other people consider to me home. While all of our stories were unique and individual, we all shared some similarities in our sense of home. Our theme of storytelling also continued into this week when I found that it was the story of home that transformed our house into our homes.
Works Cited
Araneta, Francisco. “Assignment 2:2, Alienated at Home, at Ease Overseas.” Telling Stories of My Own, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/franciscoaraneta/2016/09/28/assignment-22-alienated-at-home-at-ease-overseas. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.
Bachynski, Jenny. “Shifting: Assignment 2:2.” Canadian Studies: Exploring Genres through Canadian Literature, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/470acanstudies/2016/09/28/shifting. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.
Fish, Colleen. “What home is….for me. – Assignment 2.2.” English 470 – Canadian Studies, 30 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/colleenfish/2016/09/30/what-home-is-for-me-assignment-2-2. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.
Hui, Lucas. “Blog Post 2.2 – “Home” Is Where the Heart Is.” Engl 470A: Seeking new stories to write my own, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/lucashui/2016/09/28/blog-post-2-1-home. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.
Lee, Chloe. “2.2 Home.” Chloe’s Blog for English 470, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/470chloe/2016/09/28/2-2-home. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.
Pendreigh, Michael. “2:2 The Sense of a Home.” Michael’s Foray into Home on Stolen Ground: Canadian Literature Discussed, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/michaelpendreigh470/2016/09/28/22-the-sense-of-a-home. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.
Woo, Patrick. “Canada Is My Home And Not–Assignment 2:2.” We are in the Same Boat: Discovering the Homeland of Canadian Literary Genres in its Historical Context, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/patrickwoo/2016/09/28/canada-is-my-home-and-not-assignment-22. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.