If you’re an Arabist, or have any knowledge of the Arabic language, you’ll already know one thing about it: it is hard. It boasts 10 different verb forms, a “dual” function, fun things called broken plurals, “specification”, how clauses, case endings, wacky sentence structures and many more nuggets of annoyance for the intrepid learner.

Taken as a whole however, the Arabic language is home to some of the greatest literature in the world: tribal Arabian poetry dating back to pre-Islam, scientific and medicinal journals that far outpaced the Western World for centuries, architectural designs from all over the middle east and, of course, God’s holy word revealed in Arabic.

 Not only is the language itself a treasure trove of intellectual thought and culture, refined and almost unchanged after 1400 years, the Middle East has long been considered the birthplace of world religion, and more recently, the epicentre of a cultural revolution or two.

 Even more impressive, and slightly more tangibly, it is also extremely cool to write (a great addition to the party trick repertoire) and fantastically fun to speak. With all this in mind, embarking on a year abroad over here is likely to be quite an undertaking, even if it is to the safest and – arguably – tamest country in the region: Jordan.

 Known for its rich cultural history – Alexander the Great passed through, leaving ruins that still remain some 3000 years later, not to mention one of the 7 wonders of the world, Petra – and religious importance – the sites of the Burning Bush and Jesus’ Christening are both very near the capital, – Jordan has a lot going for it! But rather than quote from Lonely Planet, I’m going to tell a few stories – in installments, hamdulillah – about my time there so far. 

I’m not a good dancer. At all. I generally find that I can either coordinate my legs or my arms but that coordinating all four limbs together is too much for me to handle. In spite of this, on a whim, I signed up for belly dancing (or “al-raqs al-sharqy” in Arabic) in Amman, not really knowing much about what it entailed beyond wiggling your belly. I certainly didn’t realise that it would be such a powerful way to feel free from the harassment.

As it turned out, the first thing I learned was that your belly isn’t so crucial. It’s all about the shoulders and the hips. The second thing I learned was that it’s incredibly sexual, to the extent that, by comparison, most of the dancing you see in UK clubs looks practically Victorian in its level of prudishness. I left my dignity behind on the first day when, with somewhere around fifteen faces staring at me expectantly, I had to basically thrust the air and shimmy with my bum.

The sexuality of the dance defines the class, in a way. The class is all girls, mostly Jordanian nationals, and the class consists of little blushes and awkward giggles until one of us manages to pull off the move with an acceptable level of sass. For that second, the girl basically becomes Beyonce and there is a little round of applause in acknowledgement of the sexiness of the moment.

The interesting thing is the context in which we dance like this. Who are we dancing for? Before the lesson starts we cover all the windows with material so that no man can see. At least half of the women in the class wear headscarves; once the windows are covered they can remove the scarves and we can all start dancing.

There is something peculiarly liberating about this – dancing in such a sexual way knowing that men are not allowed to watch. The liberation comes not from the fact that men cannot watch, but from the fact that we’re still dancing like this even though men cannot watch. We’re dancing sexily just for us, for ourselves. The issue of what a man might think is a million miles from our minds. It feels like a celebration of female sexuality for itself.

In Amman, I live in an apartment above a family with three daughters. Sometimes they invite me over to dance with them in front of Arab Idol. When the girls’ father comes home, they quickly rush over to him and pull him into the other room because he’s not supposed to see me dance. If a man unrelated to them came into the room, he would not be able to see any of us dance. Again, there’s a peculiar liberation in this because it begs the question: who am I dancing for? And the answer is definitely not men.

I describe this as “peculiar”, though, because I believe that rules separating “male” and “female” in such a binary sense and implying that there is something potentially wrong with dancing together or in front of one another are not at all liberating for anyone of any gender. Had someone told me in advance that my dance lessons would be so hidden from men, I would probably have retorted that I would like to be able to dance in front of whomever I choose to dance in front of.

In some kind of paradox, I’m finding liberation within a convention of gender roles and restrictions that ultimately I don’t agree with. I don’t entirely understand how it’s possible to feel so free and so confined all at once. I just know that, when I’ve had a tough day of street harassment, dancing with a group of girls knowing that men are not allowed to watch feels like I’m reclaiming the body and the sexuality that those harassers tried to claim for themselves.

“Well hello! Gosh… I think it’s been a whole year since we last saw you!” Up and down the country this is perhaps the opening line of many a Christmas, as well as being the standard greeting of extended family. It is a common saying that Christmas is the time to celebrate family. It is also a common saying that you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. So potentially, you might be in for a rough ride this Christmas. But, rest assured, there are methods you can adopt to ensure your household has more jingle than rock this Christmas.

Even the NHS is aware of family friction. In its Live Well section online, the NHS tells the reader of ‘Keep Calm this Christmas’ that the way to avoid the rehashing of old family feuds is to sit down and discuss them, to work through the long standing family problems. Christmas should be a time of moving on and strengthening family ties.

On average, there are no fewer than five family arguments in a household on Christmas Day. Research carried out by Travelodge, which surveyed 2,000 British households, found that the first family blow out tends to occur at 10.13am. Travelodge were prompted to investigate the typical British Christmas because they had noticed a curious increase in Travelodge bookings by people on behalf of relatives for the festive period. Britons were booking their ‘day-only’ houseguests into nearby accommodation. People were clearly anxious to check in relatives for one reason or another, and Travelodge got their answer, it was to take some fizz out of the already overflowing family household.

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According to the research, it is difficult to draw a definitive explanation for the first family row. Taking place just before 1pm, the second average argument, however, coincided more tellingly with the average national completion of the present opening ceremony. Reportedly 38 per cent of children moan that the presents they opened are somehow “wrong”. Failure to provide a “correct” gift is construed as showing thoughtlessness. 

The other cause of many Christmas arguments is generally anti-social behaviour, or more precisely, of anti-actual-people social behaviour. This action is achieved through the use of mobile phones and social media. To combat this, take a reality check. The notifications really aren’t coming flooding in. Instagram is abuzz with Christmas pictures, so why not make your own memories rather than oggling at those of people you have never met.

The next argument to take place is more temporally varied, flaring up over the course of dinner between 1 and 3pm. Often they are caused by the fact that Dad has slightly overindulged in day-drinking and Mum is unduly stressed over the dinner.

Of course, another factor is that a lot can change in a year. So when extended family are suddenly thrown together again, having not seen each other for 365 days, there may have been a potential change to diet. No doubt you feel sympathy with Mum when Auntie so-and-so casts her eyes at the roasted chestnuts in horror, pulling her beloved darling away from the table saying, “You do remember that my X is allergic to nuts don’t you? I hope you haven’t put them in anything else. I did tell you about this at the bottom of the Christmas card we sent you.”

It might be a good idea to pull Mum away from the chestnuts too at this point so that she doesn’t retort that the card’s contents were illegible on account of the fact it was the size of a postage stamp. More drastically, it might even be at this precise moment your other cousin or sibling, feeling somewhat starved of attention with all the other children around, decides to respond to a deep calling to vegetarianism.

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The other arguments to take place arise from general post dinner banter, which over the course of a couple of hours has probably adopted a vaguely political flavour. As the day progresses and alcohol runs a bit low, resorting to the eggnog might seem like a good idea, but be warned, it has been known to add fuel to family feuds and so, as with all things, drink in moderation. 

Going back to the NHS’ advice, if addressing feuds sounds too idyllic and like it might cause more problems than it will solve, there is always the British business-as-usual attitude. Just tie a big tinsel bow on the elephant in the room, position it firmly behind the Christmas tree, and no one will be any the wiser. Of course, pretending everything is all hunky dory when it’s just not is not always a good idea. Just give everyone a little space and don’t force people to do things together. 

Clearly, festive feuds are part and parcel, or rather part and present, of Christmas day. That’s what makes the memories and really reminds that you can’t pick your family.

“Do not sleep with the candidates,” wails the Home Bursar. “When you take them to their rooms, prop open the door and get out of there as soon as you can.

“People do silly things when they’re nervous. Do not be alone with them. Always travel in pairs.”

This is not, in fact, a snippet from the sex ed class in Mean Girls. Actually, it’s an excerpt from the post-bop, hungover excitement that was the admissions volunteers’ briefing. And I’m happy to be able to report at this juncture that – to my knowledge – we made it through admissions without actually sleeping with any of the candidates (though I guess his concerns are legitimate; I can’t help but wonder if, given the nervous, bordering-on-desperate tone in the Home Bursar’s voice, he’s actually speaking from past experiences. But I digress).

In my final year, I’m one of the oldest to be ‘doing admissions’, and possibly the only person in my year to be doing it for the first time. But being a finalist (which, I am reliably informed “in college family terms, is akin to being a grandparent”), I kind of feel vindicated in being a massive cynic, and going off on a minor rant about what I believe is my new pet hate: cocky interviewees.

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Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that all candidates should be quiet-as-mice, humdrum little boys and girls. But just picture this:

Mr Smug strides purposefully out of his interview, his arms swinging by his sides confidently. The next interviewee is sat, awaiting her turn. Let’s call her Ms Anxious. My assurances that the tutors are “actually really nice” have, seemingly, fallen upon deaf ears in this case: Ms Anxious’ hands are nervously pressed together in her lap. Perhaps she is reflecting on the personal statement she is about to discuss. She might even be praying.

The door has now swung shut behind Mr Smug – behind the door, tutors are conferring on their impressions of him. But Mr Smug knows – thinks he knows – how he has done. He pauses in his strides alongside Ms Anxious, he turns, and with a smug grin on his smug face, smugly whispers: 

“I aced it.” 

As he marches away, Ms Anxious’ jaw drops slowly in disbelief. We exchange looks that say the same thing: “conceited bastard”.

Being an admissions helper, saying the right thing really is half the battle (the other half is, incidentally, sitting in the Lodge, sipping tea, waiting for the appearance of a distressed candidate whom you can mother. But, again, I digress).

What you say genuinely has a noticeable impact upon how distressed interviewees are. Naturally, some are going to be more nervous than others, but, as I discovered to my detriment, as a general rule, when anxious candidates come to you with tales of what happened in their particular interview, it is perhaps best not to fall back on your own experiences. In the first place, to them, you’re living the dream. You’ve pulled it off, you’re at Oxford, and whatever personal interview experiences you share, they’re going to read into it that by comparison you’ve done something right that they’ve done wrong.

In the second place, in the heat of the moment, you might just say something incredibly stupid, as happened in my case, when I was asked by a student if tutors ever hint at how well a candidate has done during an interview. My (instinctive, but nevertheless foolish) answer was: “Well, my tutor said ‘I’ll be seeing you again’ at the end of my interview”. I couldn’t really have done much worse if I had laughed in her face and told her that the tutors thought she was an idiot.

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In fact, my advice to anyone working in admissions is this: If you really must fall back upon referencing your own experiences, tell them that your interview was a disaster, and you’re fairly certain that your tutors got your names mixed up and were mildly surprised to find Mr/Ms Dim turn up on the college’s doorstep in Freshers’ Week.

So when Mr Smug comes along and decides to share the oh-so-wonderful experience of his ‘aced’ interview with the next anxious candidate, everything you’ve just said to them just goes out of the window. Buddy, it’s not clever, it’s not smart. You’re just making someone else more anxious, and that’s just mean. And at least I felt bad about my gaffe: I later came across Mr Smug in the JCR, boasting to his fellow interviewees about how confident he was, and I have it on good authority that there was a repeat performance of the above after his second interview.

I often wonder how tutors make their decisions. Talking to just a sample of the interviewees from my own subject, they seem knowledgeable, talkative, and just, well, nice. In fact I’d go so far to say that, for me, actually experiencing the interviews process as an Oxonian from the inside, it seems a lot more mysterious the second time around. Sure, I wasn’t in the interviews themselves, but what it’s taught me is that there really isn’t an Oxford ‘type’.

I guess you have to trust in tutors’ judgement somewhat, because, well, they picked us, didn’t they? And presumably we think that we kind of (at least sort of) deserve to be here?

But as for Mr Smug? I really hope he doesn’t get in.