friday innit
updates from england + bonus content
Hello friends, thought it was about time for another update. Happy 2024!
England (and specifically Oxford) is kind of silly
“Culture shock” is a bad way to describe the feeling I’ve had moving here. When you move to a place where the culture is similar, the language is the same, but the social behavior is completely different, it’s more like waking up in a parallel universe where everything is backward. Everything is slightly funny to me, like when you’re in a very serious situation but can’t help but laugh. At this point, I can’t count the instances when I’ve heard an absurd accent that I couldn’t help but imitate. After 6 months in Scotland I thought I had the UK down, but driving 20 mins in any direction here gets you a new (and equally incomprehensible) accent, unique social conventions and football allegiances.
Time flies here. Academically, it’s a sprint. 8 weeks on, 6 weeks off. Socially, it’s a decathalon—everyone’s from a different background and there’s no shortage of classy social and sporting events, fancy dinners, or old ornate buildings to explore. The 6 weeks of “break” (more like self-study) following an academic term are mostly for recovery. That said, I am starting to feel more at home here. The college system has retained its summer camp feel, except with more essays. There’s something cool about having dinner with classicists or particle physicists while working on something completely unrelated. It is refreshing to leave comfortable circles in the US for a shift in perspective and dinner conversation topic.
Oxford is known for many things, like formal dinners (think Harry Potter, long tables), a debate at the Oxford Union, or punting on the Cherwell. Outside of formals, I’m here to myth bust and say that I rarely wear a suit if ever, have been to the union once (it’s expensive), and haven’t punted yet (it’s cold). As an American expat, life is pretty good here, but I recognize how much of a bubble it is. Perhaps it’s ambitious to try and summarize the new-to-the-UK experience in a few short paragraphs, but based on my tenure so far, here are a few things I’ve picked up on:
Slang
People use words I understand (as a native speaker of English) but they do NOT mean the same things. Don’t ask me to name them, just know I’ve recalibrated a bit. Some particularly jarring ones for my american ears are gaff (house), pissed/legless (drunk), bog (toilet), flog (sell), and yonks (a while), among many others + acronyms and idioms.
Driving on the left (wrong) side of the road
Have to look right-left-right, not left-right-left? Enough said.
Pub culture is alive and well
There was a time in my life when I could drink regularly. Now every time I drink a beer, my body and I go to war. It’s not pretty. I’ve noticed that many people go straight to the pub after work, either to get a pint with coworkers, friends or to watch football or rugby. If you’ve ever seen Ted Lasso, it’s kind of like that. Everyone has a team. I was shocked, however, to find out that the UK ranks 23rd, and 3 spots below the US, in the global beer consumption per capita rankings. I don’t partake very often, but when I do, big fan of pub quiz. Last term I put one on for about 60 people and made it accessible to anyone. Pubs here love to have oddly specific British pop culture trivia.
Work (study) culture
Academics are a grind at Oxford.. in a different way than what I’ve seen in the US, Europe, or even up in Edinburgh. Undergrads have a stream of assignments and “tutorials” where they meet 1:1 with a professor (tutor) to go over and revise their work. Some have lengthy weekly essays, while others have problem sets. Very similar to America in that respect, except for the tutorials, 8-week terms and the fact that most of the work they do, outside exams and final papers, is not graded. With graduate students, on the other hand, it heavily depends on the program. Some MSc or MPhil students have weekly lectures, tutorials, problem sets, etc., while others have pretty much no (required) work until they are examined summatively at the end of the third term. My program has a summative exam at the end of the first year, three papers and a thesis due the second year (total of ~50-60k words).
Primarily because terms are only 8 weeks long, people grind here. I’ve seen “work hard play hard” embodied by startup or finance bros, but in 9-5s and academia, I always thought people who said “work hard play hard” were using it ironically. Not here. Many examples of folks shacking up in the library or their flat all day every day, going to the pub and the occasional meal. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I have spurts of productivity only after taking lots of breaks. Reading dense theoretical philosophy of language or coding all day every day can be a bit mind-numbing if you ask me.
English-isms
Worcester College is surprisingly diverse, so I’m not only surrounded by posh RP accents. I’ve picked up on a few stereotypes and after conferring with a Dutch guy and Australian gal, I’m convinced that some have merit.
The English are VERY reserved but in a different way than Scandinavians. It’s not common that people will go out of their way to be your friend, so you may have to do the heavy lifting before their dark humo(u)r comes out. Similarly, you have to keep on them about plans. If you want your mate to come to dinner, you have to invite them, get a yes, and confirm with them a few times it’s happening. And they may still show up fashionably late (perhaps this is just an Oxford thing).
The weather is rough, but the people make it worth it. It’s only been a few months since the last update, but it feels like a lifetime (and I have lots of updates).
The good, the bad and the ugly
Mid-October to mid-Feb has flown by. Nothing atrocious to report, and in the spirit of this not getting too long, here’s the lowdown:
How’s school?
It’s heating up! Writing a “short” 3000-word essay each week is humbling. Doing a lot of reading and coding (and learning). Enjoying syntax, semantics/pragmatics, formal grammar and language processing, still refining my research interests. You can find me on my faculty site and on the oxNLP homepage 😤.
I co-instructed a lecture series with my department for a bunch of year 10s up in Warrington on linguistic determinism a few weeks ago. TAing in undergrad was one of my favorite experiences, so hoping to do more of this. My cohort of linguists are mostly non-technical, and Oxford loves to charge lots of money for intro Python courses, so maybe I’ll start there.
Health + fitness
The doom and gloom of winter hit me hard. Unfortunately, rugby fives gave me a mild concussion last term and a sprained hand a few weeks ago (see pic above). At the least, it was a creative way to injure myself. I promise I enjoy it, but I might have to retire. TBD. On the bright side, I brought pickleball over from the US and started a club. Less contact, more social, win-win.
Winding down GroundCTRL
Trying to run an agency while being here full-time was ambitious. Being an owner-operator is spending loads of time on client back and forth + internal things, like finance, ops, email deliverability, etc. I’ll still do some contract or IC work but I’ve decided I want to be all-in or all-out when running a business. I learned a lot from incorporation and operating, but becoming IRS compliant as an S corp with employees in California and Texas and understanding all the tax implications became a pain while I’m across the pond. I have thoughts about service businesses in general (and qualifying clients haha), but the biggest takeaway is that failure isn’t binary. Crash and burn failures happen, but more commonly companies will slowly burn out. Fail fast and move on.
Other random things
Planning to start a for-fun research project using nlp and social data science in finance and policy. Cool teams spread across England and Norway.
PSA for Orange County locals — Mercado Gonzales opened in November in Costa Mesa. It’s worth the hype, and tops the list of must-go.
If you’ve made it this far, I commend you. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoyed. Reply to this email + let me know what you’re up to!
Until next time,
Zach 🫡