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A forum for Blog Community #1 of CSCL 1001 (Introduction to Cultural Studies: Rhetoric, Power, Desire; University of Minnesota, Fall 2011) -- and interested guests.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

I need a vacation...Why? Because I'm a romantic!

Think back to grade school when your teacher asked you where your favorite place was. Some students would say their room was their favorite, some would say a particular chair in their house was best. Some liked the library, others the mall. From such a young age, we were being asked to tap into our ‘romantic’ side, choose where our brains let us run away from the moment and wander a bit. Romantics are mental wanderers. We all wander in intellectual space from time to time… so does that make us all romantics?

I’m guessing that you ‘non-romantics’ out there are rolling your eyes. Romance is the stuff that makes teenage girls giddy, is the stuff that makes people in fluffy post-colonial attire frolic through the woods, is the stuff that drives artists to cut of their ears and ….Romantics don’t function normally in society.

I may have to agree that in its more extreme form romanticism can be a bit…overdone. But look at this image:


Isn’t it beautiful? I can imagine myself walking down that wooden dock to the gazebo and watching the still water. I can see myself there, in the silence of the photo.

This is actually an ad for an ALL EXCLUSIVE TRIP TO CANCUN! And yes, it functions completely to its purpose: I want to go to Cancun. This travel agency (like many other businesses) understands full well that most of us are romantics. They offer us that ‘romantic getaway’ and we jump. Why? Because we want that space to wander mentally, to be self indulgent and just listen to that inner voice telling us to let loose.

1 comment:

  1. I really liked the image. I think that an image such as that can make everyone feel comfortable, or a sense of at peace with the world. I think that many people have an image similar to that in their mind when they think of the oceans beauty. I remember one of my favorite places when I was young was my grandma's timeshare in florida and this sort of reminds me of that.

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