Blogs

Hi everyone! My name is Michael, and I was born in and lived my whole life around the greater Toronto area. I’m in first-year science and want to major in physics; the dream is to do research in theoretical physics one day. I wanted to take this class mainly because the reading list seemed really […]

Hello everyone, I’m Brianna and I’m from Toronto. I’m a second-year student hoping to major in political science and hope to go to law school in the future. I have always favorited subjects that are literarily centered. I think that … Continue reading →

Hello all! My name is Tirzah, and I am a second-year student here at UBC. Originally I am from Calgary, but I’ve been lucky enough to live on campus here in Vancouver for the last two years. I study music and have been playing the flute for almost 12 years now. In addition to music, … Continue reading Introduction →

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. 

My name is Mai (Pronounced May). I am a third year psychology student and I live downtown. I moved to Canada at the end of 2019 so right before the pandemic hit. The first year of the pandemic was definitely strange for me. I was in a new country completely on my own and not even allowed to go outside or socialize! Actually, getting to do school online may have saved me from losing my mind! Vancouver is such an incredible city. I am often in awe at the beauty and accessibility to nature. I love being close to mountains and water and here I get to be close to both! I am still definitely adjusting to the cold, does it ever get easier?

  Before I moved to Vancouver, I lived and worked in Vietnam for 3 years before I decided that my passion lay somewhere outside of the career I had chosen and decided that I needed a career shift so here I am! I grew up in Cairo and so my first language is Arabic but I have always been fascinated by the English language. I certainly prefer, and always have, reading novels in English. Yes, the Arabic language is incredibly rich so I can’t exactly explain this. I also really enjoy reading books from different parts of the world and comparing perspectives, lifestyles and being inside the minds of characters. Russian literature and specifically Dostoyevsky has had an impact on me figuring out what I want to do and what I am passionate about – the human mind or as he refers to it, the human experience. No matter how many times I read a Dostoyevsky book, I am always blown away by the complexity of his characters and how real their thoughts and experiences feel to me. So I have a deep love and appreciation for literature and I don’t read nearly as much as I would like so I’m excited for all the books I will be exploring in this course this semester. I am excited to compare and draw parallels not based on where geographically the books are from as they are not tied to a specific territory. I never knew that! I guess when I signed up for the course, I didn’t really know what to expect. I did register for it to meet the lit requirement but I’m glad I did. I am very interested in how the course is structured too.