This seminar on literary travel quotes felt very much like a philosophical dialogue about the meaning of travel. As a participant, I recognized my shortcomings and gained many new insights from the discussion.

In terms of my performance, initially I relied too much on my daily experiences and didn’t closely connect my viewpoints with the quotes we discussed. For example, when discussing “Which is harder and more important, preserving a journey or starting a journey?”, I shared my own perspective but forgot to quote that saying: “Taking the first step is the hardest part of the journey,” making my argument less solid. However,  I gradually learned to support my ideas with quotes. For example, when I responding to the question, “If we will all die eventually, then why we explore the world?”, I use the proverb, “We come into the world to observe, learn, and love,” making my answer more persuasive. But overall, I still lacked the interpretation of the author’s attitude behind the text. This is why I get a score of 6 in criterion A, and didn’t receive a higher score.

The leaders did an excellent job! The 6 questions they prepared were all very insightful! (The discussion covered both the forms and essence of travel). These questions successfully make the topic into a philosophical exploration of “what is travel.” They also took care of students who rarely spoke, and demonstrated strong leadership. I know it’s not easy for the leaders to get high marks in criterion A, but it was clearly that they had  put a lots of effort for this seminar!

This seminar gave me a new understanding of “travel.” This discussion made me realize that travel is more like the courage to face the unknown, a way to explore different things with your finite lifetime. We talked about  if we could live forever, we might not have the motivation to travel, to start.  Some say we travel to remember something, to leave a trace, and to be remembered by the world. In my opinion, travel doesn’t necessarily need a destination; it can be with no purpose . An inner exploration, try to step out of your comfort zone, are all part of travel. For future seminars, I need to do thorough text analysis beforehand, combining famous quotes, viewpoints, and my own thoughts to make my answers more valuable.

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