I feel like I’m slowly getting ill. I’m not even the fresher — is freshers flu supposed to hit on me?

Anyway, we are approaching the end of the first week. This is my last year in Oxford, and there’s a 99.5% chance that this is also going to be my last year as a student, at least for a while. So today I just want to talk about some of my personal goals and aspirations for this year.

First of all, very importantly, is that I want to be more open minded and make more friends. As this is my second year in Oxford, I feel like my mindset is a little bit different from last year. In general, I think my mindset as a postgraduate student is quite different from me being an undergrad a few years ago — mainly being that I feel like I’m less extroverted, I feel like I’m very content with being myself, and I don’t have this desperation for making a lot of friends. That’s how I started my last year. Also, it was kind of like I just moved to this new town, I don’t know anyone. I was feeling a bit segregated. Like how I put it is that I feel like I was depressed for like two terms, until the end of the second term and the start of Trinity, when I started to embrace the weather — it was getting warmer, I finished my exams, and my mood was a little bit better at that point as well.

I started to embrace my nature of being social and extroverted. I think I’m an ENFJ, even though I’m quite balanced in all categories. I realize that deep down I still enjoy social life and making personal connections with other people. So this year I’m trying to be open minded, I’m trying to say yes to more things, and I think it’s also the confidence that I have over time — I know what I’m doing, I know this place, I feel more settled and grounded, and that kind of maybe radiates a different energy inside and outside. But yeah, in short, I want to be more social, I want to make more friends, but also keep some space and time for myself and be content with my own company.

I had dinner with one of my friends last night, and she graduated from Oxford a few months ago for her undergrad, so she was in Oxford for three years. I was asking her if she has any advice or takeaway for my last year in Oxford, and she mentioned: you need to figure out what Oxford means to you — whether it’s the people, the academic, the party, the drinking, whatever it means to you the most should be the one that you try to maximize out of this coming year. And I think that’s very inspiring. I want to be like her, living Oxford, feeling like an Oxford student, feeling like an Oxonian. For me, I think there’s something in the air in Oxford that’s just quite different from any other cities in the world — maybe it’s the prestige, maybe it’s the elitism, maybe it’s also the diversity, the culture, the history, all the good things. So I just want to soak myself up in this Oxford environment that I will probably never get back to or experience again.

The second thing for me is that I actually want to pay more attention and spend more time on the subject that I actually study. I do economics, but now at the postgrad level, I realize that I’m actually quite average in this subject. Like I’m not that smart — I don’t have this natural instinct on a lot of maths, for example, econ problems. I think I’m smart in the aspect that I can pass a lot of exams with minimum time. I like to cut corners — that’s not the best way to put it, but it’s honestly how I feel. Like I know how to be efficient and productive, spend less amount of time and still pass it and get a decent result. You can say that’s a talent, and I think it is — it’s given me a lot of advantage in being good academically over the years. From school I always did well, and so did I in undergrad, and that’s how I got here.

But realizing that this is my last year being a student, at least for a while — perhaps I’ll go back to do a second masters, but definitely not in the next few years — I want to pay more attention to the stuff that I’m reading and learning about, and to construct my very own understanding of economics and to use it as a lens to see this world. Last year I didn’t have a choice — we had compulsory courses, micro, metrics, I understand they’re very important for the subject but they’re not the things that I care about the most. I realize that I might be a humanities girl deep down in my heart. I like all things sociology, social culture, history. And this year I’ve got more options to take the courses that I’m actually interested in — I’m now taking economic history, I’ve had lectures already, and I think it’s a good start.

The third thing is that I want to travel more. Last year the choir that I was singing at didn’t allow a lot of flexibility — I was singing a lot during the week, and to be honest I was just kind of intimidated by my conductor, as he appears to be very strict about all these things, so I didn’t dare to leave during term time. But this could be my last year in the UK, in Europe, and if I leave next year I wouldn’t be able to travel to Europe so easily, just grab a two-hour flight and get to Spain, get to France. Now I sing in a different choir which seems to be more flexible with the time, and I want to travel more and just enjoy the proximity to Europe while I still can.

And I guess the final thing is to pick up the language that I’ve always wanted to learn. When I was small, I always thought that I’m someone who’s gifted in language skills — I speak English quite well, and adding Cantonese, I can speak three different languages. But in fact I’ve always wanted to learn more. My ultimate goal is to speak German, Spanish, and French fluently as well. I’ve actually started French multiple times but I failed every time — I just don’t practice enough. I don’t know if I’m not that talented in language, or if French is just too hard, or if I’m just lazy. I think it’s probably the last one.

This year though, I genuinely want to be able to speak French, even if not that well. I signed up for the French courses at the Language Centre in Oxford — I signed up for Fast Track 1, so I’m not starting from the beginner stage again. I think I have the foundation, and hopefully by the end of the year I can actually speak French. I don’t care if it’s perfect, I just want to be able to communicate what I think.

And yeah, those are the four things that I want to achieve within this coming year. I also just want to document more about my life and about my thinking, my thoughts, my experience. Yeah, peace.