In conflict, children are undoubtedly the priority. The welfare of children affected by the Syrian conflict has been the focus of much international attention. Losing a whole generation to poverty and dislocation would be a humanitarian tragedy. Despite the UK’s recent decision to grant asylum to 1,000 Syrian refugees and the considerable work of charities and UN organisations, the facts speak for themselves. In November, the Oxford Research Group published figures revealing that 764 children had been summarily executed and that 389 had been killed by sniper fire. There had been 112 reported cases of child torture, with some victims under the age of five. 11,400 children had been killed since the conflict began.

All we can do is provide aid and hope that diplomacy and dialogue will yield a positive outcome. Given the recent events in Geneva, it would appear that any peaceful transition of power or conclusion to this dreadful conflict is unlikely.  Even if a deal is negotiated, the future remains bleak. If Assad remains in power, the chaos and destruction will continue. If he is finally deposed, the Syrian National Council will take control of a divided country, ravaged by poverty, famine and disease. None of this is to say that a potential successor would have the answers to Syria’s problems, as has been witnessed in other North African and Middle Eastern countries following a revolution.

To take Libya and Egypt as examples, the situation inherited from a tyrannical reign is far from simple. Egypt finds itself in the midst of its own labyrinth, desperately seeking a way out of the chaos that followed Morsi’s removal from power. The country is undermining itself, shifting from tyranny to failure to General Sisi, whose army continues to wield its authority amid chaos over constitutional reform. Libya has hardly been mentioned in the British Press since Gaddafi was killed, as if the country made the miraculous and seamless transition to a functioning democracy overnight. The reality is somewhat different; lawlessness rules the state as militia groups, many of which did not exist before Gaddafi’s capture and death, force their agenda on the government. A new saying has emerged among the Libyan people: “Before we only had one Gaddafi, but now we have hundreds.”

While outsiders incessantly analyse and discuss the geopolitical implications of a civil war that threatens to spill over into neighbouring Lebanon, the perspective on the ground provides a closer insight into how people have been affected, in particular the seemingly overlooked older generation who are disproportionately at risk. Data obtained from the Za’atari refugee camp illustrates that only 2% of the refugees are aged 60 or over but they account for 7% of the Syrian population. This suggests that many have been internally displaced or have decided to remain in their own homes. These people are particularly vulnerable during the winter, when heavy rains and sub-zero temperatures aggravate their daily struggle. Life for a refugee in Jordan is unquestionably safer. However, a Syrian farmer in his sixties, one of my English students at the Jesuit Refugee School on the outskirts of Amman, told me that there are psychological consequences to relocation, if not physical ones.

Faiz Ahmed Abdul Rahim could hardly string together a group of words let alone form an entire sentence in his first class. Despite his linguistic inexperience, he had, nonetheless, prepared a paragraph of immaculate English about his hopes and aspirations back in his hometown of Mahaja, a small town in the Daraa region. He spoke with distinguished pride about his farm, the various trees growing on it, and his dream that one day, his two sons will take the reins from their father. His eyes lit up as he mentioned the olive groves and lemon trees he has seen flourish in years gone by. He hasn’t returned for more than a year, but has already requested that I visit him in two months’ time, when he believes the conflict will be over. I read a tweet posted three weeks ago that stated: “Daraa: Mahaja: Fierce tanks shelling the northern area of the town from Majbal checkpoint”. Perhaps my visit will have to wait.

Faiz’s farm is his anchor, his compass and his home. Without it, one feels that he has been robbed of what is most precious to him. The refugee school is another farm, albeit a temporary one, in which he can cultivate his ability to learn new English words and phrases. While it gives him purpose and something to be a part of, it is clear that this is only a temporary solution. He needs to return to Mahaja to have some chance of leading a fulfilling life in his senior years. While children shouldn’t be robbed of a childhood, the older generation should be able to live out their years at home and in peace.

Reading Cheriel Neo’s article, ‘We need to rethink the treatment of international students’ made me extremely uncomfortable – I am an international student and I found the blame she lays at the feet of Oxford University and the UK both unfair and troubling. Ms Neo sees hostility in the most commonplace of British administrative acts and business decisions, and while it is true that foreign students can feel alienated at Oxford, it is not for the reasons she has chosen to focus on.

The main thrust of her argument seems to be that foreign students feel alienated because of differential administrative treatment of foreigners; having their fingerprints taken at the airport, being saddled with higher tuition fees, and being left out of financial safety nets. I am not entirely sure how Ms Neo expects to be treated as a foreigner in another country. Does she imagine that these practices are phenomena particular to the UK? If so, I would advise against visiting any country other than her own – attempting to enter Israel, for example, may give her a particularly nasty shock; any foreigner passing through Ben Gurion Airport receives a bar code stuck to their passport and luggage denoting their respective ‘threat level’.

Two of her points, I read with especial incredulity. First, the likening of fingerprinting at the airport to ‘…an act that said…tabs must be kept on you because you do not belong here’ is not only slightly histrionic, it is also very ironic. Ms Neo mentions she is a Singaporean – I, too, am a Singaporean citizen, and have been repeatedly fingerprinted at Changi Airport in my own country. I’m not sure if Ms Neo feels similarly unwanted when she undergoes the same process back home, but I don’t think this is a particularly helpful example of the British being unwelcome. Second, Ms Neo states: ‘Yet Oxford is privileged, in the global market for education, to have a near monopoly on the highest standards of learning in my subject; the price I pay for my time here is not that which I am happy to pay, but that which I have to pay.’ Essentially, she is unhappy that a global market leader in education sets its price high, and that she has to pay it because she wants the best. There are a number of very good universities in Singapore at a far more affordable price; to complain about having to pay for the very best at Oxford is unfair and suggests a sense of entitlement.

At the same time, I find Ms Neo’s focus on these arguments strange because I don’t think they go to the heart of why some foreign students do feel alienated. Financial concerns like high fees or being left out of social security nets are legitimate, but there’s a difference between the financial status of one’s family or parents, and the individual purchasing power of a student, who is more concerned, I would imagine, with how to afford the next meal or night out. I’m not saying that young people don’t care about wider financial implications, or that they shouldn’t care, but I think the real root of alienated internationals lies elsewhere. It is uncontroversial that students can be negatively affected by financial stress, but to assert that foreign students feel alienated because they have to pay higher fees than their local peers seems peculiar.

The main reason why I think some foreign students feel left out is for social reasons – a far more immediate problem, than the abstract question of which category of student you are, and so how heavy the financial burden on your sponsors is. Ms Neo grazes over this issue in a vague way throughout her article, but never really engages with it. I acknowledge that it is difficult for foreign students to break into certain social circles at Oxford – in part because of the London private school mafia, in part because cultural differences are inevitably difficult to break down. It can be very dispiriting attempting to make friends with people who have no interest in speaking to you, because they are already in well-established cliques. At the same time, I’ve found in my time in Oxford a wealth of individuals  who are very interested in becoming friends, who have gone out of their way to show me human warmth, and who respond to my overtures eagerly – you just need to put some effort into looking.

A lot of foreign students only have themselves to blame. They often alienate themselves, by refusing to partake in British social activities like attending bops or going to the pub, which are great opportunities for shared experiences and making friends. I can call to mind, with shame, several instances of my fellow Singaporeans expressing puzzlement or even disgust that I hung out with British people, or as they called it, ‘white people’. This is an attitude I absolutely abhor but is something I see with depressing frequency.

Could the university do more to help foreign students? Current structures, at my college, Somerville, are pretty good. There’s an internationals officer and I remember with fondness the international students’ dinner before my first Michaelmas, where I met a lot of people who I remain close to me today. Maybe even more could be done. But friendships, unfortunately, have to be organic – it’s impossible to force people together, and attempting to micromanage them can just make it worse. As visitors to another country, it really is up to us to take the first step.

It’s the tempting question Facebook asks us every day. “What’s on your mind?” The more philosophical among us may take a quiet moment to contemplate just what exactly is on their mind, or what the mind really is, or whether or not we truly can rack the depths of our subconscious and pull out an answer like a rabbit from a hat. But for the more most of us, the answer is quite simple.

We want to show off. A Facebook status or a tweet is one of the easiest methods for self-aggrandisement. Or, at least, this is what it has become. We submit our daily practices and experiences into a lottery of outbidding one another for the most exciting story to tell. Whether it be via a carefully mapped-out lexical boast or an expertly photoshopped selfie, we fight for the throne of the newsfeed. The pressing question is: why do we do it?

If you think about it, there’s something incredibly tragic about turning the minute-by-minute experiences of one’s life into an attempt for approval, quantified by a number of ‘likes’ or ‘favourites’ each one receives. We all (whether we can admit it or not) love the sense of satisfaction in knowing that somebody somewhere has read something which we created and found it so riveting that they were compelled to click the “like” button. But is this suitable justification for feeling publishing every thought which comes into our minds.

Inevitably, social networking sites do not advocate privacy. But surely there are some things which we must keep to ourselves. Do we really care that Trevor from basketball practice is “chilling with [his] bro”? Or that our best friend’s girlfriend “need[s] a hug”? It’s not that we don’t want to know what people are up to (we are all naturally – and somewhat dangerously – inquisitive about each other’s lives), it’s just that we really don’t care if they’re doing something so menial as listening to some old school Shaggy on Spotify. Social networking has become an outlet for airing one’s dirty laundry in public, and then expecting people to marvel at the filth on their bed sheets.

Perhaps a status is some kind of preservation technique… so that one can scroll down the page in years to come and reminisce about that pizza that they had on 22 February 2012. But isn’t that what our, erm, memories are for? Admittedly, sometimes it’s nice to look back at photos or times shared with friends or family, but what’s wrong with a good old-fashioned photo album? We treat our ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ as if they are our disciples, hanging off our every word – waiting to be filled in on the latest gossip from their unquestionable leader.

Statuses certainly suit this generation, which likes to stand on the roof and shout at the top of its voice. Most interestingly, the phenomenon of the status raises deeper questions about whether happiness can truly be experienced unless it is shared. And whether there is something inherently selfish about being happy.

All we can say is that there is a cathartic aspect to publicising one’s feelings, to restricting them to one hundred and forty characters. This is not an attack on Facebook or Twitter or any other social networking platform. God knows, we all love them. It’s just an attempt to ascertain why we avid modernists feel so comfortable with them that we can trust them, and all their users, with our deepest – or not so deep – thoughts and observations. I don’t know, perhaps I’m being too old-fashioned or pedantic. But if you have the overwhelming urge to document everything that comes into your head, get a diary – she’ll listen.