I’ve never been a linguist. No amount of toil or prolonged manic Duolingo frenzy has ever or will ever change this. Nor will beginner podcasts, exchange trips, Quizlet revision lists, pen pals, foreign television, conversations with bilingual friends, or manifestation. Yes, I really have tried every possible option. I don’t mean to say that I was ever a bad student (God forbid), just that it never stuck. No matter how intensely I may have wanted it, it simply wasn’t destined to be.

It wasn’t until recently that I devoted any time at all to thinking about why this could be or what this could mean. Language is, first and foremost, a means of communication. Being bilingual would undoubtedly have been a practical skill. Beyond this, the notion that bilingualism is a marker of identity solidified my (already ardent) intent to master a second language. I knew it to be a special badge that gestured towards belonging to something bigger than you, like the key to a secret society where the agenda was always to exchange inside jokes and mock the oblivious excluded commoners. And it was generally accepted that the English were the most painfully uncool, tacky, and obnoxious club out there, second only to the Americans. Jokes aside, if what I was really after was a sense of belonging, why was I not satisfied with my English?

I was brought up by an English mother and a Thai father. That I never learnt a word of my father’s first language and am to this day unable to communicate with my grandmother fluently has always been a sore spot. If I only share a language with half of my extended family, then it follows that my identity is not linguistically grounded. But then, I never watched the same television series (I’m thinking specifically here of ‘Strictly’), or grew up eating the foods that my mother’s family enjoyed so I always felt that I lacked the cultural milestones that otherwise would have given us a lot in common. In the end, neither language nor cultural associations connected me to my family.

I belong to an expat family; expatriates that live outside of their home country. Twenty years ago, my parents (desperate to escape the confines of the United Kingdom) packed us up to leave and never looked back. Over the course of my schooling years I juggled three different languages as well as any primary school student can be expected to juggle (read, not very well): French in Mauritius, Japanese in Tokyo and Mandarin in Hong Kong. The common phrase I managed to retain across these languages is ‘Sorry, I speak English’ (very telling, I know). Other bits and pieces I’ve picked up along the way relate to specific -and not very useful – memories and experiences. I remember the incoherent and curse-word ridden French phrases scrawled across the school bathroom doors in Mauritius, how to explain how I want my hair done in Japanese (I was one of those who insisted on side bangs when I was in year 4), and how to ask the bus driver to stop in Cantonese, all of which doesn’t leave me much to work with today, and definitely doesn’t qualify me as being bilingual.

In the wake of moving around a lot as a child, and later as a teen, learning a language always seemed like an activity confined to the classroom, and one which I would inevitably abandon a few years in when my parents packed up to move us across the world again. It became an awkward cycle of doing well enough to pass whatever exams were coming up before starting the next. Later, gawky teen summers spent in the UK made it clear I didn’t fit in quite as seamlessly as I’d hoped; conversations usually involved nodding along and pretending I knew who the Go Compare guy was, or butchering pronunciations of British cities and streets (how is anyone going to get Marylebone right on the first try?) But when I went back home, I needed help from friends to translate the menus and I could never escape being profiled as a ‘gweilo’ (Cantonese slang literally translating to “white ghost” or “white devil” used to describe foreigners).

I looked back on the many years I spent on the defensive when people asked where I was from. I felt the need to accompany my answer with a justification as to why I couldn’t speak the native language. It’s hard to convince someone that my ‘home’ was the same place in which I couldn’t communicate with the majority of the population. Many clumsy explanations later, it began to feel like I had no tangible connection to my homes, past and present. I recognised more and more the implications of the subtextual coding of language as identity and where this left me: I was in a delicate state of limbo between not being British enough in the UK and being too British abroad, and I was condemned to this cultural no-

man’s-land. 

It’s funny because the notion of ‘home’ seems so deeply private. It appeared antithetical for me to have been so desperate to cling to a culture of people Ididn’t know, and to have been so conscious of how to justify myself to those people. ‘Home’ is meant to encapsulate where you fit into the wider world. I’ve come to realise that it is not as intimate or straightforward in reality as people might think. It bears notions of belonging, family, community, and background, and when these can’t be neatly reconciled, it’s bound to be confusing. I’m sure this is a sentiment shared by many, perhaps by fellow expat babies, children of a diaspora, mixed kids, and probably more.

Amidst these reflections I do not dispute for a second my immensely lucky and happy upbringing. Growing up an expat afforded me humbling exposure to the world, to which I owe not just the unique experience of having my playground span continents, but also my

present sense of self. Today I am acutely aware of both the privileges and disorientations packaged up in expatriate culture. I suppose being an expat itself symbolises a weird intermediate state of community, like how once you get through security in the airport you’re technically in international waters already; you’re not quite one or the other but somewhere in the middle. To continue this awkward metaphor, I just had to find comfort and stability in this boat in the middle of the sea, turning this rudderless boat into a home, if you will (this is working better than you can imagine because we actually did live on a boat in Hong Kong). Now, the feeling of shame in admitting my monolingual limitations has almost dissipated.However, I will admit that every so often when it comes up in conversation I still feel a creeping urge to redownload Duolingo…

Jessica Mason guides us through the dark, blue days of January…

Last Monday was ‘Blue Monday’. It was the first day of the first week of term: Monday the 16th of January. Blue Monday is supposedly the saddest day of the year because all the celebrations are over and the darkness of January begins to settle in. It can feel like there is nothing to look forward to, and the sun is nowhere to be seen. What a way to kickstart the term… 

For me, January has always felt very desolate. Everything seems still; everything is frozen in its sad blue-grey tones; nature dies. And this January, it was like a part of me died too. ‘Blue Week’ seems a more pertinent term than ‘Blue Monday’. My planner was teeming with tasks: sort out lecture timetable, plan essay, write essay, reply to that email from that tutor, read this, and that, go to that seminar, meet this friend, sort this out, sort that out. It felt crowded. I am in a weird place in my life right now and it feels like everything is holding its breath. Although I’m constantly running around from place to place with a tote bag so full of books that it’s slowly bending my spine, it feels like I’m waiting. I am waiting for something to change. Amongst the cold greys and whites of winter there is a distinct emptiness. ‘Blue Monday’ was first calculated by measuring the number of flights that people were booking to foreign countries. When our surroundings leave us dispirited, we try to escape to paradise. It’s an attempt to fill our future with saturated colours and sunlight. I think Blue Monday is so blue because we feel like we’re missing something. January leaves us trudging around doing the same old things, but it’s like we’re living in that awful wan blue filter that they used in the Twilight movies. 

It feels really hard sometimes to just go about our days when we’re not coaxed through them by sunshine that dwindles only after 9pm, or bright colours that actively make us want to go outside. I’ve reached the point where my alarm goes off in the morning and I just stare at my wall in a state of complete exasperation because my bed is cosy and warm and I know that I will be shivering as I half-shuffle, half-jog to the bathroom. 

But I think there is also value to be found in these harsher winter months. January is the time for new beginnings. This is the time where we can sit in the frozen silence and work out what we want for ourselves, before the sunshine and the bright colours return. Winter is a time to reflect and to grow. We can take a breath and really look at ourselves. I’ve been learning how to bring myself comfort, and how to be kind to my desperate little existence. 

One of my friends sat me down recently and told me that I needed to be gentle with myself. It often feels like Oxford expects a lot from us. The pressure can be crushing some days, but it’s important to just take yourself out of this isolated social sphere every now and then. For example, I like watching trashy tv shows, or going on walks down the canal. It makes me feel like a person, after playing at being a soulless academic machine all day. Last Thursday I was feeling really overwhelmed and when I got back to my room I dramatically flung myself onto my bed, and then eventually convinced myself to go to the kitchen and make some pesto pasta (I’m currently in my chef era). When I got to the kitchen three of my friends were there eating at the table, and they stuck around and waited for me to cook and eat so we could spend some time together. I think there is something so beautiful about the simplicity of those moments. We exchanged stories about our day and ate in each other’s quiet company. We were all so exhausted but when I got back to my room it felt like I had been inflated again. The simple act of speaking to friends helped bring me out of my sulk and made me feel lighter.

I have hope for better days of warmth and sunny colours. I know I will feel whole again one day. But for now, it’s important to be gentle with myself; watch trash tv, go on walks, and have dinner with my friends. These things are my sunlight in these harsh blue months.

Huda Daghem tracks the highs and lows of Oxford, and celebrates the joy we find in friendship…

It’s the end of term. The last essay has been submitted. Your final 9am tutorial has just ended on zoom because your tutor has Covid and apparently that’s still a valid excuse. You still have lectures to go to, but who cares when you’ve had your final teaching session. The only thing on your mind from 10am onwards is going out, finding the perfect stranger, unknown with no mutual friends and just enough charisma in the dark light of the club to get off with before you pack up the clothes, books, and annoyingly breakable potted plants from your Oxford room to head back to the middle of butt fuck Tory England. 

And yet. None of these dreams materialise. There is no perfect stranger. It’s just you and your friends trying your hardest to make the Cotton-Eye Joe remix and the ultimate-ick Central Cee track a decent vibe for your final night out. You think maybe Bridge should be under new management when the highlight of your night is the smoking area. And so even after resorting to Bridge, even though you should’ve known better because Bridge is … Bridge, you don’t get a break. You spend your last morning in Oxford wandering around Westgate, with £5 left in your bank account, smashing a Christmas ornament worth three times your net worth. What both the toddler and the dog present in the establishment restrained themselves from doing, you managed to achieve. 

At this point, you truly thought this was your definitive *shit* end to term; but you underestimated the power of patronising words spilling from the mouth of a  fifty year old white academic who has no experience of the world outside this bubble. Try as you might to forget their existence, report readings (collections to some of you) come every term. For some reason, as of yet undiscovered-despite persistent investigation -, tutors get a kick out of recreating high school parent evenings, in a much more soul crushing manner. Back then at least you were top of the class. Oh to be a big fish in a small pond … 

‘Get your act together’. Fair. You have no rebuttal. How could you when they begin to list off every one of your recent, and not so recent, academic failures, from failed collections to late submissions? 

‘Are you taking this seriously?’ No. Of course I’m not. I didn’t cry myself to sleep after finding out my collection mark on my way home from my only night out of term, I just had some dust in my eye. Why would I take the last  two and a half years of my life, that constitute the last of my parents’ savings and the start of a lifetime of debt, seriously? 

 Therein lies the paradox of Oxford. They know you too well, and yet not well enough. There is no more qualified group of people on the planet to judge your academic ability and find you lacking. And yet they have no comprehension of the being you are beyond these boundaries. They have no understanding of mental health. They have no understanding of the fact that you may have family events to celebrate, or relationships that require time, effort, and grieving periods. 

So when the chips are down, and the institution that you begged, pleaded and prayed day and night to accept you is the source of your despair, how do you keep your head above the water? 

Answer: Grab onto your friends; they make the best floaties. 

This even works for Bridge – here it came in the bathroom. Overcrowded, an assault to the nose and a little terrifying (that’s why women go to the bathroom in groups guys), you find yourself in the middle stall thinking of what songs will make an appearance on what is sure to be a horrifying dj set for the night. But lo and behold, you look down only to find that the condom you shoved in your pocket on your way out the door is suddenly redundant. We’ve fallen to the communists. The crimson tide is moving in. And any other out of date euphemism you can think of. Never before have you experienced a bigger pussy pause to your plans. But women are amazing. Truly and without sarcasm. The tampon machine may be broken but in less than 5 minutes your friends have cornered every person in that bathroom to ask for aid, for any resources they  can offer. The group chat has been popping off – your pleas for help have been heard from the RnB to the cheese floor – and in comes your friend, straight from the mosh pit, with a cotton pad suddenly stuffed under the stall of your cubicle. So you may be a sexy stranger down, and you spend the night in mild (read major) discomfort, but what the hell – you got an adrenaline rush, a trauma bonding experience, and a story you can exploit for a piece in the student newspaper. 

You can take one trip  to Cowley. A £2.50 bus ride, free entry and £4 cocktails for those of you that are inclined; Baba is the cheapest form of therapy out there. Now one might think this seems like some form of denial, maybe if one were prone to hyperbole it would even seem the start of the descent into alcoholism. But fear not. It is definitely not the latter.

In fact it’s not the former either. Maybe for the night you seek to exorcise the memory of the cold stone room wherein you were told graduation was a pipe dream. Maybe you’re even attempting another go for the one night stand. But you know what you have to face in the morning. The truth that the vac will be a drudging repetition of trips to the council library, or downstairs to the dining room, which you’ve commandeered and covered in books on banking and feminism in equal measure (trust, the irony is not lost on me). You’re not trying to forget that. You’re trying to live this one night with the people that make these other events worth it. Making sure the memory of this night and these people are just as strong as those of you crying in the library at 2:38am. Remembering that your friend was with you in Westgate at the great Ornament Incident of 2022 and eventually (imminently) this memory will make you both laugh rather than cry. 

You’re not suddenly going to be cured overnight. This isn’t headline news – mental health isn’t something that can be solved with a single doctor’s visit and a one time prescription from cornmarket boots.  You can’t overwrite the bad parts.The parts that are especially anxiety inducing and breakdown worthy. What you can do is accept them for what they are – shit. Shit but temporary. Some time soon you will be standing under the shadow of the Rad Cam begging your family to stop taking photos of you in your graduation gown – it’s embarrassing you still know people that go here. Outside of this bubble nobody cares about Marx’s Utopophobia or the rhetoric of lust in Troilus and Cressida. Once you leave, neither will you. What you will care about is the people and the experience, the bad and the good, and even the really horribly, terribly bad. Because even in those moments there is something good. And there are some people that will be your special friends even when you’re earning six figures in the city and have forgotten all about feminism and Marx.