Skip to main content

Introduction to me!

 Hi, I’m Alyssa Almerling. I am a second-year student majoring in Sociology and minoring in Family Studies. I grew up just outside of UBC and was raised in North Vancouver. I am thrilled to be back on campus and in my childhood neighbourhood again! I have always loved reading different types of literature, and I want to be exposed to many forms of writing style. I hope that with this blog, I can share with you my thoughts and questions about the romance world and language and open your eyes to the modern and post-modern world!

The format of this class has inspired me to read as many books as I can. My goal is to make connections throughout the term and find overarching themes and styles from different texts. The Romance Study world is deceiving because it isn't about romance or all the lovey-dovey things that we associate with the word romance. The romance world does not belong to anyone, which I find super fascinating. Anyone can immerse themselves in this literature, and it focuses more on the aspect of romance languages like French and Latin. I am super excited about this course, and I hope that my thoughts and questions can spark a love for literature in you that I have inside me.


Comments

  1. Hi Alyssa! I really enjoyed reading your post. I took Family Studies last semester and I really liked it! I am thinking of minoring in it as well. I find the way the romance world is really open-ended and has no concrete place or definition to be super fascinating as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Alyssa! I'm taking a sociology class atm and I agree that it's so interesting! I definitely get what you mean by the class format being super inspiring and motivating to read as much as we can :) and thanks for your lovely comment on my post! <3

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Alyssa, my goal is to also read as many books as possible and expose myself to many different types of literature! I am also excited to explore books with roots in Latin and other romance languages like French!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi, Alyssa, I'm minoring in Sociology as well. I don't particularly have the love for the literature you have yet to be honest but I'm definitely excited to like you to interact with writings that I'm unfamiliar with! This class might spark up the hidden love for literature within me I didn't even know about.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Good Place to Pass- The Old Gringo, Carlos Fuentes

The Old Gringo was a book that caught my eye at the beginning of choosing our texts because it was somewhat a romance. I did not expect this book to be all about love, but more themes of war and violence in the story. The Old Gringo was an engaging text about a man known as "Old Gringo" who came to Mexico to die. At the beginning of the novel, there was repetition with the words, the old gringo has come to Mexico to die. I believe that this repetition forces the reader to know what the gringo's intentions were at the start, to see later that at the end, he has somewhat found a purpose to live. The Old Gringo travels to Mexico, meets Arroyo, and asks him to join his army. After proving himself, Arroyo lets him join, and he meets a lady called Harriet. He quickly falls for her, despite not wanting to but lets himself anyways. Harriet feels like she must protect the old man, so she joins the army to assist onside. The Old Gringo gets into a fight with Arroyo, and Arroyo betr

My take on Proust's Swann's Way

 I enjoyed reading the first part of Proust's book. The intricate detail in every scenery and memory was breathtaking and truly brought me to experience those feelings. He described many feelings I have felt before and ones I never knew how to put into words. One that stuck with me was the feeling and the difference between sleeping in summer to sleeping in your bed in winter. The particular things we long for and how each feeling is connected to physical material. This could be as simple as the corner of the pillow or the window open. My favourite part of the text was the first couple of opening lines, where Proust describes falling asleep and being so tired that his candle was still lit. He described the feeling of your eyes closing so quickly that you don't have time to even think about it and say to yourself that you are falling asleep. I struggle with horrible insomnia, and specific material things help me sleep and comfort me. When Proust described all these feelings abou

Never Growing Up and the Influence of Peers- Agostino

 Agostino is a kid who never really grows up. In the beginning, I thought that Agostino was around the ages of 10-11 years old. I could picture this from how he envisioned his mother, so blessed by her presence and in awe of her beauty. He loved her like a child. He also was treated like a young child by his mother too, and the way he complained about her attention towards him and his jealousy made me think he was much younger than he actually was. Later in the book, we learn that he is 13 years old when he tells the man and his son on the boat ride. This book shows how much others' influence has on you. In the beginning, Agostino was a young, innocent, well-behaved boy who enjoyed his mother's company. After encountering the young boatman who "stole" his mother away from him, feelings of hatred, disgust, and jealousy arose within him. He could not fathom the idea of having to share his mother, especially let this man enjoy and indulge in her beauty that was only admi