From these readings, I come to the conclusion that place is not defined by one's actual surroundings, but by the associations one makes with those surroundings.  In other words, as Norman Crowe puts it, place is "important for [us] as a bulwark against chaos" (145B).  Crowe is telling the reader that one's sense of place is a form of escapism; one goes to his/her place to help relieve the stress of everyday life.  This is certainly true of me.  My "places" range from common to personal.  My common places include my home in Austin, my home in Houston, my car, my neighborhood, etc.  Uncommon places include the stretches of 71 and I-10 that connect Austin and Houston, and my Dad's office.  I define the first examples as common because I feel like those give most people a positive sense of place.  The other two are not as common among all people.

The first section of the reading gives particular insight into the way that one identifies with one's place.  Through the process of semiotics, we learn associate our places with certain ideas, often effortlessly.  We form our sense of place by "reading and interpreting nontraditional objects like you would a short story or poem" (137).  This explains why places such as "home" have a special meaning to people.  Since we are constantly interpreting signs, when we arrive at a place such as our home, we are subconsciously bombarded with associations with every object in our home.  These associations, whether good or bad, strike one or many emotions in us, and we use these emotions to form a sense of being somewhere.

An idea that I think is interesting to consider is this: if you were blind-folded and driven to a place, and then lowered into that place by crane, would you still have a sense of that place?  For many places, I think that one would have no sense of that place.  If it is outdoors and one visits that place often, one might be able to locate his/herself through smell or sound.  However, at least by the students in our class, vision is the primary sense through which we form associations of place.  Therefore, I wonder what the sense of place is for someone who is blind.  While it is impossible to experience both situations (seeing and unseeing), it would be interesting to know if a place is linked with nostalgia in blind people as like it is with people who can see.  For me, however, sense of place is an association of objects I take in with the experiences they have given me.