Hi everyone!
My name is Jasmeen Tiwana. I am a third-year student here at UBC majoring in psychology. I took this class as a fun elective. It was so intriguing to see romance studies as a topic for a course. Some fun facts about me are that I went to high school in Delta, BC and I am currently 20 years old. I am just one year from graduating and it seems time has flown by so fast. When I first came to UBC I was quite scared and nervous but over time I have come to love it here. Some of my favourite hobbies are playing soccer, doing makeup, shopping, organizing, hanging out with friends, and going to the gym. Soccer is my favorite sport although I do not enjoy watching it as much as actually playing soccer. Reading was something I did not always enjoy growing up but over time I have started to read much more whether it is through research articles, novels, etc. I have always enjoyed watching movies and shows more for some reason as I find them much more interesting and capturing. However, it is a goal of mine to practice reading and hopefully learn to enjoy it. When watching the lecture video and exploring what this course really is about I was really excited that we would be focusing on “expanding our horizons through this exploration of new texts and new readings ” As Jon Beasley-Murray said.  I was excited as the readings in the course are not texts I would usually reach for but have always wanted to read. Furthermore when Jon Beasley-Murray asked us to reflect on what we thought the romance world was I thought of the Roman languages French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian however as seen later this is not true as it does not belong anywhere. Moreover in the conversation between Jon Beasley-Murray and his brother, I found it so amazing that he was able to communicate via broken Italian and use that linguistic proximity to even understand Romanian. I find this so exciting. My expectations for this course are simply to improve my reading skills and practice reading through exploring new texts. I am happy to know we are reading texts with a balance in terms of gender, geography, period, and language. Furthermore, as we move through this course I am excited to expand my horizons through readings and engaging in discussions with my classmates!

• Introduction