Week One: Introduction to me!

Hello! 

My name is Lisa Fylypchuk and I am a first year student in the Faculty of Arts. I am in this faculty because I really enjoy classes like politics and philosophy, much more than subjects like science and business. If everything goes well (meaning if I can get the grades), in the future, I hope to major in political science. The plan after that has yet to be determined but I still have time to figure it out since I'm only in first year. 

I was born and raised in Calgary Alberta, just one province over from BC. I chose this university for the quality of education and I am really excited to be studying here. I've only been here one semester so far but I feel I've already learned a lot, not necessarily just in school but also about living independently away from home for the first time. 

I initially considered romance studies solely because I was looking for a class to fulfill my literature requirement, but after reading the course description (and even more so after that first class yesterday), I quickly realized how enjoyable this class was going to be. I love to read but I know how easy it is for leisure reading to go out the window when life gets busy, so I am excited to be enrolled in a class that will challenge me to read as much as I can. I hope that the variety of books that I will be reading in this class allows me to learn something new by introducing me to new ideas. As I was watching the lecture video, I was most intrigued by the discussion on how learning one romance language opens up the door to the other ones. Because I can already speak French, I have noticed that I am able to understand certain words in Italian and Spanish. I think that the link that exists between this family of languages is fascinating and I am very excited to learn more on this topic as the semester continues. 

I hope that this class ends up being as inspiring as I presently believe it's going to be, and I am very much looking forward to getting started with the assigned readings. To conclude, while I hope that this class will challenge my thinking, I also hope that I will be able to have fun in this course and come out on the other side with brighter ideas and a more open mind. 

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 12, 2022 at 9:16 PM

    Hi Lisa, I am also a first year student from Calgary! Are you enjoying Vancouver so far? That is really how you are able to recognize words between different languages it is interesting to see how words adapt from one another. I hope you enjoy this class and all of the readings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanielleJanuary 12, 2022 at 11:24 PM

    Hi Lisa, it's nice to meet you! I hope that you are enjoying Vancouver. I also like how we get to choose the books that we read and I like that the class mainly focuses on this and not assignments as it allows us the time to read.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SimonlswJanuary 17, 2022 at 10:20 PM

    Hi Lisa, cool introduction! I'm also a first year student with interest in politics, and I'm from Manitoba, the prairies too! I hope you successfully find the major that suits you the most in the fields of politics and philosophy, and good luck on this course!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week Ten: Roberto Bolano, Amulet

This week, the book was Amulet by Roberto Bolano. In terms of story structure, sentence structure, vocabulary and content, it wasn't too difficult to understand or follow. That said though, it was still my least favourite book of this semester. It wasn't necessarily boring, but I also wasn't incredibly captivated by the storyline or super invested in any of the characters, even the main protagonist. The book wasn't long but I did end up taking way too long to get through the whole text.  Even though I didn't really enjoy the story, I did recognize the fact that our narrator Auxilio seems to have led quite an interesting life. Or maybe it wasn't even her life that was so interesting but the stories of other people's lives that she added up and made into a collection which she then presented as the summary of her own that was interesting. I feel as though the main thing she did with herself was act as a secondary character in everybody else's life. I don&#
Read more

Week Three: Louis Aragon, Paris Peasant

This book was quite a mind-bending trip. Fun to read, but also made no sense. I liked it.  The main feeling that I got from the narrator was a sense of nostalgia, a sense of time passing way too fast for his liking. As he took us on a tour of the various, curious little shops and stores around the neighborhood, I felt a desperation to hold onto each little moment that he was showing us in perfect preservation for as long as I could. The way he described each place in such immense, careful detail made me feel sad knowing that they were soon to be demolished and replaced. The word ephemeral kept coming to mind throughout my reading of this book. I thought about how the older I get, the faster time seems to fly by. When I was a small kid, I wanted nothing more than to grow up and get to what I thought was going to be the beginning of my life. What I didn't know then was that when I finally grew up, I would want nothing more than to go back and experience the little mundane moments of
Read more

Week Four: Maria Luisa Bombal, The Shrouded Woman

This book was a quick read. Overall,  it was concise and captivating. A few of the most prominent themes that stood out from this text are as follows: love, the value of women in terms of love, and the expectations that are placed on people based on the gender roles of society.  Almost every single description or mention of any women in this text was somehow related to their physical appearance. It heavily focused on the idea that the value of a woman rests primarily on how beautiful they are according to the standards of society and in particular, the standards of the men in society. The men weighed their potential partners as candidates for becoming their wives and the mothers of their children based first and foremost on their attractiveness. There were a ton of details centered around skin, the colour and shape of their eyes, their hair, their grace and their bodies. I came away from this text with the feeling that while I didn't learn enough about the profound, substantial cha
Read more