Well hello there ^^

Hi everyone! My name is Kimberly, but I made the url of my website ‘Wingyun’ because that’s my Cantonese name. I’m currently a fifth year student (this is my final semester) at UBC, studying Applied Animal Biology so I can (hopefully) become a veterinarian. I’ve lived in Vancouver my entire life, and studying at UBC always felt natural to me because it was close, convenient, and also where the majority of my friends and family studied (or are currently studying).

I decided to take this as one of my last courses, because I wanted to make sure that I had a Literature class just in case any schools needed it as a requirement, although I’ve already taken a few writing courses in the past – just not Literature specific. I perused through a couple reviews and thought this class sounded interesting, since my thoughts were a little similar to what we discussed on Monday. I always found ‘Literature’ a little daunting, with fanciful (“refined”) writing, and some of the classics tended to be a little long for my taste, easily boring me. However, I hope to overcome this barrier and find some pieces of literature that I will enjoy through this course! And even if I don’t necessarily enjoy the literature, I believe it will provoke meaningful thought, so that I can figure out why exactly I didn’t enjoy it, and identify what I do and don’t like in literature and writing. I do find that the pressure for this course has decreased due to the agency we have over the workload and grade, as everything is upfront and clear from the very beginning. Along with this course, I’m only taking one asynchronous online class, so I believe I will have a lot of time available for reading the books and watching the lectures and conversation videos, allowing me to get the most out of this class. Currently, I’m excited for when we move to the smaller classroom after this week. Since this is more of a discussion focused course, I believe it will be more productive if everyone is sitting closer together, both for faciliating discussion and so we can hear each other better.

To answer the lecture question (“Where is the Romance World?”), my immediate answer was just as Professor Jon predicted: around Europe, since languages like French, Spanish, and more are often dictated as the ‘Romance Languages’. I think buying a ticket to the ‘Romance World’ is a fun idea, and it makes me think about how ‘romance’ can also be described as a ‘fantasy’, or even the root word of ‘romanticization’ – something that doesn’t necessarily exist, because it has been glamorized to an extensive degree. The concept of deterritorialization is particularly interesting to me, because it’s like saying that the romance world, and romance studies, can find a home anywhere. Romance doesn’t belong exclusively to a certain area, and is not restricted by any borders or boundaries, and that is the beauty of romance!