Introduction

Hi everyone, My name is Sofia Almerling, and this is my second year at UBC as a Bachelor of Arts student. I am interested in Art History as my major. I come from Vancouver and live in North Vancouver; therefore, I commute to UBC by taking the bus three times a week there and back. I enjoy commuting as I read over study notes and listen to my favourite songs. Sometimes, I watch my favourite TV show if the bus ride is long.

One of my hobbies is singing. I post singing videos on Instagram where I sing covers of songs, and there is one video where I have posted an original song called "Give Yourself a Break." This song is about being easy on yourself through the hard times, giving yourself a break and finding self-love. 

Growing up, I never felt the allure to touch a book; however, as I got older, I became interested in poetry (this was popular in high school) "The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. I have read this short book twice now. Fast forwarding to this summer, I started to add reading into my morning routine, and I would start with ten minutes a day. I started with Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and as summer went by, I soon completed the book. I am reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott three pages a day and halfway done!

I have completed RMST 201 and am excited to complete RMST 202. I enjoyed the short stories on courtly love in 201 and am excited for the wide range of different genres of books and to learn about romance studies and modernism to the present in 202. I watched the lecture, and the Jon Beasley-Murray question stood out most: "Where is the Romance World?" I thought of the question, and Jon Beasley-Murray said my answer was "wherever any romance language was spoken." However, I needed to be corrected. The correct answer is that there is no romance world, which was surprising. I thought it would be tied to a territory/country such as Italy or France, but as Jon Beasley-Murray said, it is deterritorialized. 

I enjoyed listening to the conversation between Jon Beasley-Murray and his brother, Tim Beasley-Murray, on Romance studies, languages, and families. I found it interesting that Tim said he could speak broken Italian or some Polish to another speaker of a romantic language, and they could find a way to understand each other. About families, I also found it interesting that families and romance families are different and that you have to, as Tim said, "We have to reconstruct the language that gave birth to what was originally behind it" -Tim Beasley-Murray (22:09). That comment was very noticeable to me. 

I am excited to engage in class, meet new classmates, and get reading! 

Sofia Almerling