My name is Victoria Petersen, and I was born in the city of Barranquilla, situated in the country

of Colombia in South America. It is the same city where Shakira and Sofia Vergara were born,
but I do not look like them. We have the same accent though (just a little humor to break the ice).
I am a sixty year old woman who decided to come back to school last year, so that I can continue
evolving intellectually and as a human being. I have three children, five grandchildren, and four
dogs who are the most important members of my little family.
I love to take long walks with my dogs very early in the morning, meditation, reading, and every
creative activity that I come across of.
I am looking forward to this class to learn as much as I can about all the subjects we will be
learning this semester.

I believe that the purpose of art, music, and literature is to express yourself, to feel the special
reactions and emotions that we experience when we witness any of these expressions created by
somebody else, to enrich our cultural knowledge and understanding of other cultures and life
before us. At the beginning, it was a way to communicate with others, to leave the history of
what the world was about during the different eras, and because when we started experiencing
these expressions of the arts we became more perceptive and sensitive human beings. Any
masterwork we view in the visual arts, any opera, ballet, or performance we attend expands our
horizons to understand how the way human beings behave. It just makes us more aware of our
life purpose. A reciprocal relationship between art and audience allows that each of us experience
different perceptions based on our own emotions.

The different works of literature that represent my country are the books written by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez where he describes the beliefs and the myths of the people from the small towns
in the past, and how the lack of better education, and excess of religious influences shaped our
stories.
I feel that his books showed me exactly what I wanted my values to be. I have always been
convinced that I needed to educate myself, question what did not make sense to me, so that I
could make my own conclusions without the influence of the factors that affected the values and
beliefs of most of the people.
Religious matters are described in detail in many of his books when he writes about the influence
of Catholicism on our country due to the fact that until just twenty five years ago when during
his years as president, Hernan Gaviria signed the separation of state and religion.
We still have a strong influence of religious matters today, but not like before. Now we can find a
diversity of religions, and not only Catholicism like before.
I concluded after reading Garcia Marquez books, and also by questioning everything that was of
religious matter that just being a religious person does not make you a good person, but the
knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, and the mindfulness to remember it everyday.