We met at a Latin meeting hosted by the Oxford Ancient Languages Society at University College.
I signed up for Latin partly out of curiosity, partly out of guilt. I’d always wanted to study it, but growing up in Vietnam, Latin wasn’t something schools offered. Two years into my undergraduate degree in Linguistics and Philosophy, I still hadn’t learned it. At Keble, where I was spending the year as a visiting student from an American university, Latin felt like the perfect bridge: a way to read Cicero in the original, finally, and to make sense of the syntax and semantics that shaped so many Indo-European languages.
That was where I first saw her. She always walked a few paces ahead of me on the way to class, purposeful and brisk, clearly not there for sightseeing. I later learned that she was from Trinity College and a visiting student from a Chinese university in Germany, working on her second Master’s degree in Finance. Compared to my wide-eyed fascination with ancient languages, she brought a different energy to the seminar room: precise, pragmatic, and efficient.
We had little in common, except for one hour each week, reciting Latin verbs side by side.
After a few lessons, we grew closer to one another as we needed study partners. I would cover her notes when she was absent, and she did the same for me, which we joked about as a kind of academic ‘friends with benefits’.
In the penultimate week of the term, she invited me to a Trinity College formal, followed by drinks at the bar, and we ended up having apple cider at the King’s Arms.
By the third glass, I felt tipsy enough to let our guard down and talk. I shared all about the anxiety of moving around the globe and crazy American stories. She revealed how stressful it was to study in Germany without speaking much German. The conversation drifted, past Oxford, over the Atlantic to America, across Europe to Germany, France, and Spain, winding through memories from China and Vietnam, until we circled back again to our colleges and recounted every rumour and gossip, as well as complaints, about our tutorials that happened in the Hilary term.
I can’t recall everything we shared, but we spoke from 9 p.m. until the stroke of midnight, until my facial muscles felt fatigued and the midnight starvation kicked in, and we headed out for kebab.
“You know what is so crazy?” She asked. Her eyes were bright, and a grin bloomed on her face.
Before I could proceed with an answer, she ran a few steps in front of me, turned around, and tilted her head toward the sky.“We are at Oxford!”
I pause. Yes, we are at Oxford. Something so simple, yet sometimes, I forget. Tutorials and my hectic schedule often distract me from this significant fact. In primary school, I had read so many stories about Oxford, and now, somehow, I had made it here, the city of books, dreams, and curiosity. I met someone I had never imagined I would meet, and had the best conversation under the most beautiful night sky.
It had been far too long since I last grew so close and felt so safe around someone. Yet, it was a girl I met abroad whom I genuinely connected with, communicating in a language foreign to us both and with a startlingly different background. And, if not for that fated encounter in Latin class, our paths would have never crossed.
We ended the meeting with a promise. A big promise. For her, she would complete her master’s in Germany and return to Oxford to pursue her interest in History as a DPhil student. For me, I would return to the US, finish my undergraduate degree, and then come back as a Master’s student.
Perhaps we’d meet again at a classics meeting, and we’d have cream tea at The Vault to celebrate. Perhaps, there’d be formals, street walks with wine in hand, quiet “study with me” sessions in a Bodleian corner. Perhaps, we’d speak fluent Latin someday. Perhaps, I’d even get her to try Greek.
Perhaps.
As we wished each other goodnight, exchanged one final hug, parted ways, and walked in opposite directions at Westgate, I considered something she might have contemplated as well: We might never meet each other again.
Oxford brought us together, but everything else would keep us apart.
As I walked along St Michael’s Street, I gazed up at the stars, and a quiet sense of insignificance settled over me.
The world is so small that two people from different backgrounds and different stages of life can meet in a city far from their homes. Yet, the world is vast enough that she and I may never meet again.
We live as if we’d never live again, and treat fleeting moments as if they might be our last. This, after all, is what makes life worth living.
But that is what makes life worth living. We live as if we’d never live again, and treat fleeting moments as if they might be our last.
