Hi Everyone!
I’m Jonathan, a 3rd-year Combined Business and Computer Science Student from Texas! I think if I was an animal, I would be a bear. I like to do things that take me away from the harsh reality of the world, like playing video games, listening to music, or watching movies. Most recently I had the chance to watch Golden Globes winner Emma Stone’s Poor Things which I thought was a graphic yet beautiful story of one learning what it means to be human and see the world. As someone who likes to give everything a rating, I’d say the movie was a solid 4/5, but don’t come at me for that. I look forward to reading a plethora of literature this semester and also reading everyone’s thoughts on these works.
Coming into this course I knew that it would challenge me as a student but also even beyond as a human being. As a child I remember loving to read books of almost all genres, going as far as even using the dim light of the car to squeeze in more time to read during commutes from school or other activities. I soon lost that love as my parents began to force non-fiction books onto me, banning me from fiction entirely. That along with the introduction of mandatory books for school classes drained any previous notion of reading for me, but I’m ready to revitalize that passion once more, hopefully through the gauntlet of books in this course. I hope that my experience from this course and the interactions I have with other students will allow me to learn a new aspect of reading that will allow me to appreciate it as a crucial part of human life.
I thought it was interesting that this course asks very open-ended questions regarding literature and the books we’re reading rather than requiring students to learn about a certain literary element or style, or forcing us to pull a certain point from the material. This open-ended, “no right answers” style is very appealing to me a highlights the fact that literature can be understood differently based on whoever is reading it. The personal search for patterns between each of these works is intriguing and I’m excited to read others’ thoughts on these books. I also appreciate the diversity of these Romance books that, as stated, are not tied to a distinct geographical region but rather are “mutants” or “offspring” of Latin.
A question to those who read this blog post: If you found out that half the world also found your favourite book to be their favourite, would you change your favourite book? why or why not?