Hi everyone! My name is May, and I am a second year arts student here at UBC. I have not declared a major yet, but I do intend on majoring in international studies. I was born in Beijing, China, but I moved here to Vancouver when I was around three years old and have grown up here since then. I did go back to Beijing when I was in third grade and attended a local elementary school for two years. My parents wanted me to develop proficient reading and writing skills in mandarin as I barely knew how to read or write in mandarin prior to moving back to China. I moved back here in Vancouver in fifth grade and stayed here ever since. 

I really enjoyed reading books as a child during elementary school. I particularly loved reading about fantasy stories, especially those that talked about fairies. However, I stopped reading in my spare time at one point before highschool. Now, I rarely read books in general, and only do so if reading something was required for a course. I did want to pick up this hobby that I had before, but never took the action to pick up a book. This course provides the opportunity that motivates me to engage with reading through the various selections of books available. My goal is to be able to voluntarily read books and to genuinely enjoy reading even after the end of this course. 

I first encountered the idea of “romance” as a genre of music in the romantic era when I was studying for my RCM music history test. At first, I thought this genre of music would have something to do with the concept of “love”. However, I soon learned that the romantic genre of music is a form of extremely expressive music that originated in Europe. This is also the only understanding I had in general about the concept of “romance” prior to taking this course. I had no idea how this same concept is understood and unfolded in literature. After watching the lecture video, I realized that romance studies is not just about studying romance languages. I look forward to learning about and developing a more thorough understanding of what romance studies is!