This is what you first see the moment you enter my house. To you, it's just an ordinary entrance to an ordinary house, but to me it's the one thing that pops in my head when I think of this country. This is the house that I have lived in since I first moved here from Lebanon. It holds a special place in my heart. To me, this entrance signifies opportunity, growth, and a new life. It also has some negative thoughts associated with it. When I first entered this home thoughts of anxiety, fear, and home-sickness rushed through my head. Roland Barthes mentions in his essay titled Camera Lucida: “A photograph's punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).". What I consider the punctum of this photo is not a specific thing that draws my attention. It is the amount of memories that flood my mind when I view this image. I see this view every time I enter my home, whether it be after school or after a long road trip. Yet, I fail to realize the emotions that are attached to it. If not for this observation, I never would have sat down and actually thought about what this view means to me, and how it affected me as a person. It is through this entrance that I learned how to live a new life, abide by new rules, and talk in a whole new different language. The fact that I would have never even thought about this photo if not for this assignment leaves me shocked. We are always in such a rush in our day to day lives that we fail to realize the impact of the small things in life. We are always chasing big goals and dreams. As a result of that, we fail to pause for a moment and reflect on the things that brought us to where we are. I pass through this hallway every morning on my way to college, and through it I share my experiences with the world. I don’t think that this hallway in particular is the thing that is affecting how I behave. I think what is beyond this entrance is what affects how I think and the person I am. My family lies beyond this entrance, and I think that they are the biggest contributor when it comes to how I think and feel. The way I was raised has the most impact on my behavior, not the simple places that I pass through everyday. The way I think and act is shaped through the people I interact with and the experiences I’ve had up until now. 

Going a bit forward and to the right, you’ll stumble upon the dining room. When walking up to the table you’re bound to notice a furry little creature lying on the floor below the table. What you see here is my cat Leo, he’s been a central part of my life ever since I adopted him 2 years ago. I managed to snap a photo of him mid-yawn. My family thinks I’m his favorite person. Everytime I come back from school he comes down sprinting from the second floor to greet me. He immediately starts purring when I start petting him. When I was walking around my house looking around for things that struck me, I saw him lying down on the floor below the dining table. I sat there for a good moment and thought to myself, why is he sitting there in particular? He was sitting dead center in between two rows of chairs. He has access to the entire house with all the beds and couches he can dream of. Yet he decided to sit on the hardwood floor in between chairs, in a place where he’s at risk of being stepped on or hurt. I thought for a good second about weird cat behaviors that make me laugh. Ever since I adopted him I feel like my behavior towards animals has changed. I feel like I began looking at animals more compassionately, even bugs and pests. I also became more careful when I walked around the house. Whenever I see an animal in pain or distress, I envision my cat in its place. Roland Barthes claims in his essay titled Camera Lucida: “News photographs are very often unary (the unary photograph is not necessarily tranquil). In these images, no punctum: a certain shock-the literal can traumatize–but no disturbance; the photograph can "shout," not wound.”  But I think that this is not the case, this photo of my cat is a unary photograph. To the average viewer, this photo serves one purpose, to show the photographer’s cat. But to me, the photographer, this photo has many more meanings. This photo reminds me how my cat looked when I took the photo, but it also reminds me of the many memories I made with my cat. It reminds me of how my cat changed my personality and made me more compassionate. All this time that I had my cat, I never really realized how much it has impacted me. The experience of owning and caring for a pet literally changed the way I think and act. 

I mentioned previously, that what is behind the entrance of my home is what impacted me the most. Literally, just a few steps away from the entrance. My family and I live together in this house and every night we gather around in the living room to talk about our day and to catch up with each other. The late night chats that we’ve had in this room and the backyard helped mold the way I think and how I act. I have learned numerous lessons while sitting in one of these couches and chairs. In times of stress, I vent and talk about my problems to my family and listen for their input. As I grew up I began avoiding these nightly chats. I would rather sit in my room and work on homework. I became increasingly stressed and less happy. Nowadays, I mainly sit there on my phone and rarely engage in conversation with my family. I began looking at the “studium” in this photo. I started to view it as a living room, instead of a family room. When I started this observation into my daily life, I realized how peculiar this room is. What caught my attention was how everything was perfectly symmetrical in this room. I’ve been sitting in this room almost every night yet I didn’t realize how every couch has its symmetrical counterpart. We can see two dark gray recliners that are lined up and are almost mirror images of each other. Additionally, we have two gray couches that are parallel to each other. This kind of symmetry satisfies me and makes the room a lot more visually pleasing. Roland Barthes mentioned in his essay titled Camera Lucida: “many of them attracted me because they included this kind of duality which I had just become aware of.”. I decided to snap a photo of my living room because it also had this sense of duality. It flooded my mind with long lost memories as well as sparking a realization that the room is weirdly symmetrical. To me, this room acted as a sanction, as a means for me to destress and talk about my day. As I grew older, I became more reserved and didn’t vent as much. 

Just past the sliding glass door that lies behind one of the couches in the photo above, we can see two little chairs that are overlooking a small backyard. When I was walking around with eyes peeled looking for things that stuck out to me, I noticed that the reflection of the grass and the concrete floor overlaps with the heating vent on the floor on the other side of the glass door.I found this really mesmerizing as it created a sort of optical illusion. These chairs are synonymous with warm spring days and summer barbecue cookouts. Everytime the weather gets nice my family and I bring out the grill and decide to eat outside for the day. I look forward to sitting on these chairs as they signify that spring is coming to a close and summer is slowly creeping up. Which means that summer break is also nearing. I’ve made lots of core memories on these chairs as my family and I sit around all day laughing and joking with each other. When the weather starts cooling down at night we sit around and start having deep conversations and reflect on our lives. I came to the US from Beirut, a crowded city where people mainly live in tall apartment buildings with little to no greenery. This backyard holds a lot of significance in my heart as it is the first time I had access to a little patch of grass that I so yearned for in the concrete jungle that was my old home city.