{"id":1,"date":"2016-05-13T06:54:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T06:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/?p=1"},"modified":"2016-05-14T10:45:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T17:45:40","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/2016\/05\/13\/hello-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_9669\"<\/p>\n

A warm welcome and hello to you all! My name is Navi, and I am a fourth year Economics major with a minor in English Language serving as an option if I do ever decide to get into education (with high hopes to make an attempt to transform how its taught using the creative and technological resources that are presently available). If I am being honest with all of you, I had zero idea on how to approach this introductory blog post. I wanted to make an impression, but to do so in roughly three hundred words is not easy. I often feel incredibly limited every time a conversation takes off with discussing majors and career projections, or lack thereof. Even this only says so much and I have an odd anxiety that I have ruined a perfectly viable opportunity to deliver a solidified representation of myself, or I might have and it is completely inaccurate of what I was going for. So here\u2019s hoping over the course of this semester I get to expand my perspective, voice and personal insights with all of you and in return may be enlightened with yours as well!<\/p>\n

As described in the Course Syllabus, English 470 provides a scholarly study of Canadian literature in a historical context but is deeply interested in the power of stories \u2013 specifically regarding the stories we tell ourselves about being in Canada. I had two initial insights after reading the overview of this course. Firstly, I recalled the many introductory conversations I had with students from around the globe during my exchange at the University of Edinburgh. We did not have much to go off on, so naturally we would trade stereotypes and stories from personal knowledge regarding each other\u2019s respective nations. Naturally, niceness and maple syrup topped all Canadian topics. I happily took on the idea of being a nice and approachable person \u2013 because my entire country obviously was. I knew their assumptions were far too narrow, inaccurate but also did nothing of it because the deep-rooted history wasn\u2019t\u00a0nearly as fitting to their beliefs.<\/p>\n

Secondly, I thought of one of my favorite TED talks<\/a> delivered by novelist Chimamanda Adichie, who discusses the danger of a single story. She warns that we risk a very critical and cultural misunderstanding when we forget that everyone\u2019s lives and identities are composed of many overlapping stories. \u201cThe single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.\u201d Tying into my own personal distress of making impressions, it is odd how lasting they are. She goes on to discuss the importance of stories and how they matter. They have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. \u201cStories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

I look forward to using literature as a tool to uncover truths and build my own understanding of the place I call home. The philosopher Alain de Botton states that literature is our greatest source for simulating reality<\/a>. \u00a0I agree with his statement and am a firm believer that literature saves you time as it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that would take us years, decades, or even millenniums to try to experience directly. Over the course of this semester I hope to find the honesty in books that we cannot normally find in every day conversation.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

“The Danger of a Single Story.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:<\/i>. TED Conferences, LLC, n.d. Web. 14 May 2016.<\/p>\n

“What Is Literature For?” The Book of Life What Is Literature For Comments<\/i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2016.<\/p>\n

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A warm welcome and hello to you all! My name is Navi, and I am a fourth year Economics major with a minor in English Language serving as an option if I do ever decide to get into education (with high hopes to make an attempt to transform how its taught using the creative and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/navigosal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}