Monday, January 5, 2026

Introducing Myself

 Hi, everyone! 

Welcome to my little world here, and I will try my best to explore our RMST, literature and cultures of the romance world.   :D

I am Jiachen Cao. And all my friends and classmates call me Miyaki, which is easier to remember. I am a 4th-year student at UBC, and my major is psychology. I do think psychology and our course RMST could benefit me together, because psychology can help me to know more about human's mind, and behaviors. Especially culture psychology, I studied a lot of things about human interaction and communication. What I think about literature is that it actually is one of the ways that people communicate. It is even more amazing because people nowadays can read books that people in the past wrote. So in a greater dimension and time, literature let more people to interact!

A fun fact about me is I AM SOOOOOOO OBSESSED WITH CAKES AND ICECREAM!! Also, I have a hamster. His name is Drake. He actually passed away few months ago. However, for me, if I always remember him and love him, he just physically passed away but always live in mom's world! Nice to meet all of you!



My expectation for this semester is actually improving my reading ability because I am so bad at reading. Choosing RMST this course is actually a great challenge for me. Even when my mom saw I chose literature course at first, she asked me do I want to switch to something else. One reason is that English is not my first language and I only stayed in English-speaking environment for 3 and a half year. The other reason is that I found myself really not patient enough to sit somewhere for few hours just to read some literature works. And I really want to change this situation! 

Our first RMST lecture is actually interesting! I love to see all other classmates' different ideas, which are amazing! Especially, when we discussed that literature does not always have a message, which changed my simple way of thinking about literature! 

Well, in my opinion, anything we write down, or display is to deliver information. And literature as a way to share, deliver that information should be the same as saying giving a message. I wonder if this could be a reason to say all literature have a message since it is something that you share to others and others get information from it. This is my question.






13 comments:

  1. Nice to meet you! I have a hamster that physically passed away too! His name is Pumpkin and he lives in my backyard now.

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    1. Hi, Miranda. Nice to meet you too!! That is so nice to hear that Pumpkin stays peacefully just in your backyard. Feels like he is always beside you and being protected. That is so nice.

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  2. Hi there! I enjoyed the first lecture and hearing everyone's thoughts as well. I really liked reading your post and am looking forward to class together!

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    1. Hi Emily, I am glad to hear that you also liked the first lecture!

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  3. Hi Miyaki, and welcome to the course! Our household has gone through two hamsters and a gerbil over the years...

    I'm so glad you're up for the challenge of this course! I think you will soon feel much more comfortable.

    And yes, literature may well in part be about delivering information or a "message." But I'm trying to suggest it's also about much more... about making us feel in particular ways.

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    1. Hi, thank you so much for the encouragement! That is very sweet. Also, thank you for answering my question!

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  4. Nice to meet you Miyaki!! Your blog design is so nice 😭💗 You have to teach me!! I think it’s great that you’re challenging yourself to read more with this class, reading is a wonderful way to learn more about the world :P

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    1. Aww. Nice to meet you Nana! And thank you! :>

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  5. Cakes and ice cream is the best!!!!! Have you ever had a warmed up cookie (chocolate chip or snickerdoodle) with ice cream? It's one of my all time favourites! Anyway nice to meet you, looking forward to our RMST class!! Cool to see a fellow Psychology major! :D

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    1. Also I'm not sure how to make it non-anonymous but I'm Neil!

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    2. Hiii Neil, yea I did try warmed cookie with ice cream before, it was sooo good lol

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  6. Hi Miyaki! I like how you connected psychology with literature as different ways people communicate. Your question about whether all literature has a “message” is really interesting, and I’m excited to see how we explore that more in class together.

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    1. Jiachen Cao (Miyaki)January 30, 2026 at 11:38 AM

      Nice to meet you Sophia!

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