Thompson Library

My Favorite place on campus has to be Thompson Library. Built almost a hundred years ago this library has served as a quiet place for students to use as they please. It acts like a gate to the oval which is the center of campus. Everyone knows where the oval is and how to get there.
   specifically my favorite room of Thompson is the Cohen Family Reading room. It has a great feel too it. The windows are big and open. Which allow for a great view of the oval and a lot of light is let in. This room is particularly interesting because the old classical Greek feel is complimented by a new modern design. This is shown by the the arm chairs and tables. I spend a lot more time than I should looking at the headless winged statue in this room. It's unusual to find such a great piece of art sitting in a study room. This would be uncommon to anyplace besides O.S.U.
   But what I really like about this place more than the architecture or the history behind it is that I feel like I can actually be productive here. Everyone else is being quiet and studying so I don't really have to worry about any distractions. I spend a lot of time here in between classes, and after class. I live pretty close too so its never a far walk. It's almost my home away from home.

Please add me!

Hi everyone this is April! I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to post things here, but I just wanted everyone to know that I used my own gmail account to set up the blog instead of my osu email address. My gmail address is aprilchan.april@gmail.com, so please add me into your list of readers! That will open up my options for blogs to comment on and I'd really appreciate it :)

-April Chan

About place and identity

The concept of place and identity always has a complex and sentimental feelings to me. Basically speaking, when we live in a certain place for long enough and therefore start to get familiar with the surrounding situations, we will gradually generate a kind of inenarrable emotional feelings towards this place. This feeling is especially strong and obvious when we leave the place. For instance, when we travel to other cities or countries, although the new environment is appealing and exciting, we always hold a sense of unfamiliarity deeply in the heart, in other words, this place just do not feel like “home”. Another example would be: traditional Chinese still believe in a perception that “fallen leaves return to the roots”, which means that where you born, where you die. This further indicates people’s territorial complex towards their native place. In one word, the longer we live in a place, the more the place grows on us and gradually becomes who we are- our identity, this is my understanding of the rhetoric of place and identity.

I have been in America for almost ten months, but until recently do I begin to realize a fact that my determination of leaving China and spending my college life in a different country means a total farewell to my previous life with my parents, after four years of college I am going to a graduate school, after graduation I have to find a job, get married and therefore stick to my own family, I will never have the chance to live with my parents like the old days. I am a grown-up now. In the past ten months, I always have the difficulty finding a sense of belonging here, so when I do something, I do it with a sense of responsibility and mission but not with passion because I constantly believe that I am not belong to here, and that I will eventually go back to where I come from one day. But after the above-mentioned idea suddenly occurred to me, I start to rethink about my perfunctory life: since studying abroad is my own choice and I still hold an explicit target about my future, I have to change and start living passionately and actively, if I cannot “take fate by the throat”, I will completely lose control of my own life ˙˙˙˙˙˙

From my personal experience, I further understand the relationship between place and identity. Just like the famous saying states: “there is no place like home”.

Place and Identity

"If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire."  

-Vera Pavlov

 Vera Pavlov is one of my favorite poets. Her work is vague, but there is always a clear message. Reading her work is like solving a puzzle. which is great because every literary piece should make the reader more intelligent.
   This poem holds special meaning to me, I found it while I was out of school the last two quarters. Fall quarter my financial aid was messed up, so I got dropped for non payment after two weeks. During that ten week period I worked full time at U.D.F, (United Dairy Farmers) which is a convenience store that tries to pass as an ice cream parlor. The identity that I had, and enjoyed, as a full time college student trying to make some money over the summer had ended. Now, all of a sudden I found myself wrapped up in this one lousy job to support myself until I could get back into school.
   That's when I found this poem. I desired my identity as a student again. After reading this I found inspiration to continue with my job knowing it was only temporary. With that knowledge I pressed on, and eventually found myself back in class.
   So with out even ever hearing the phrase "Place and Identity" I was very aware of how they had changed for me. The lesson that I learned from my break is that: identity and place are malleable. Everyone should strive to achieve an identity and place they're happy with. It might just be one of the secrets to success in life.

             -Michael

Welcome to our ENG 110 blog!

Welcome to English 110! As we prepare to begin our first-year writing course, think about the places that have helped shape your identity. Perhaps it’s a city, school, apartment building, tree house, lake, mountain range, restaurant, cabin or your grandma’s house. How do temporary locations – an open desert highway, a hospital bed, a dorm room – influence behavior and the way we see ourselves? In this class we’ll look at the interplay of place and identity for pop-culture characters such as the guys in The Hangover. We’ll also examine this theme in excerpts of graphic novels like Fun Home, books such as Don Pollock's Knockemstiff and essays including Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.