Day School 2- Conversation Day

On Saturday, I went to what I now call “Uni Christmas.” It was my second Day School of my university career! I absolutely love these events now, and I find it so strange when I think back to how shy, nervous,  and reluctant to go I was last year!

I could hardly contain my excitement in the week leading up to it! For a whole week, I kept having to explain to my mum and my staff why I was giggling, excessively grinning, or even bouncing around! I’m sure my regular readers will not be surprised that the majority of my excitement was provoked by the opportunity to speak German all day. Still, there were a few other contributors to this wild excitement- First of all it would be the anniversary of me meeting my best friend Chloe who came into my life at the Day School last year and also the anniversary of my gift being discovered by the university which subsequently led to many different opportunities. The second factor of my excitement was that my tutor Kim would be there, and I planned to surprise her with a well-deserved thank-you gift! Much like a child on Christmas Eve, my excitement affected my sleep! Although I had gone to bed at half 10 the night before the Day School, I was still very much wide awake when I got an email at 5:20AM!

I am pretty famous for putting together nice colourful outfits, but an extra level of thought went into my outfit on Saturday. Last year, I was wearing my favourite shirt- a loose dark green tee with the words EAT SLEEP DEUTSCH REPEAT on it- when I met Chloe, and she rather shamelessly bought the same one after meeting me, and this year we had decided to twin! I styled my shirt with a purple tartan skirt from my favourite brand, Snag, because purple is my favourite colour. This was paired with dark green tights also from Snag to reflect the green of my top, iridescent Doc Martin shoes because I had worn them last year when I was studying in Germany and a cute little lilac college jacket from Monsoon for 3 reasons, 1: unicorns are my favourite animal, 2: I needed something purple to go with my skirt and 3: I had put Kim’s present in a gift bag with a purple unicorn on it and thought that it would be cute to coordinate with it. However, the most interesting thing I wore was the unicat pin that Isobel gave me last year. I have worn this pìn to every significant event since m award ceremony in February last year, but this time, I was wearing it for a different reason. Until now, the pin has helped me with my shyness and has given me the confidence to talk to people. Yet, recently, I have noticed that I have sort of transformed! I’m no longer the shy, quiet girl who can’t look people in the eyes but a super-confident worshipped young linguist who can light up a room! Isobel has played a significant role in my linguistic journey, so I wore the pin out of respect as my little way of saying thank you!

I had woken up with very tangled hair after my night of jumping around my bed and as a result, brushing my long curly hair took almost double the amount of time that my mum had built into the morning schedule! Because of this, I couldn’t have any breakfast before I left! Despite originally running late, I arrived at the university an hour early so I had plenty of time to sit and eat the chocolately breakfast biscuits that I had grabbed on my way out the door! Over the past 8 or so months that we have been working together, Kim has interrupted many breakfasts with emails so it was not a surprise when the dark curls of the woman appeared in front of me when I had my mouth full! Super excited and trying my best not to get chocolate everywhere, I signalled to my mum to get the present out of the backpack! All I had told Kim about this was that I needed to have a quick word with her so she was so delighted and surprised that she almost cried! After she had gone upstairs and while mum was away trying to suss out where the lift was, Sylvia appeared from behind and gave me her usual passionate hug! This hug was so squishy that my scrunchy was knocked out! She then introduced me to her Swiss colleague Berbel, who knew exactly who I was and is apparently a big fan of The Non Verbal Linguist…. A few weeks ago, I was required to take part in an online intensìve weekend as part of my degree so although I recognized her name from that, she didn’t have her camera on so I was so confused before Sylvia explained who this woman was!!

I then turned towards the window so that I could see who was coming. I work as a student buddy for the level of German below me and until now I had strong doubts that anyone was actually reading my forum posts. So it was such a lovely rewarding surprise when all these people were saying “Hallo Äli” because they recognized me from the pictures that I had been posting on the buddy forum! It wasn’t too long before I saw a familiar sight coming up the drive! MY CHLOE!!!!!!! I hadn’t seen my beret-wearing bestie since December and thus as I was watching her draw nearer and nearer I started to go completely crazy like Animal from the Muppets!! That first hug after so long was like having that first cup of tea on a winter morning, indescribably lovely!!

My tutor for the day, another lady called Silvia came after a while to show me to the room that I would partly be working in that day. I chose my seat, front and centre! This was a stark contrast to the seat that I had tried to choose last year right at the back, which I feel is a good physical representation of my growth in confidence! However, the first session was in the main room where all the levels could learn together. Unsurprisingly, I chose to sit next to my Chloe, although still pretty much front and centre! As all the tutors were introducing themselves, I thought back to the previous year. All of these people at the front were total strangers, but because I made such an amazing impression at the event last year, I had great relationships with the majority of the line! Firstly, Kim was interested in me from the first German sentence that I had uttered at the last Day School and was now my beloved tutor with whom I had bonded with over our many similarities. A few people over stood Lilian, the really smiley Austrian who was ironically dressed in Ukrainian colours! Last year she had seemed so lovely! She is the kind of person who smiles with the eyes as well as the mouth and when I had my intensive weekend, I was lucky enough to be put in her group! Because of her good first impression that she had made at the Day School last year, upon discovering that I was working with her for the intensive weekend which I had previously been extremely anxious about, I felt much calmer and I was therefore able to participate in the weekend much more than I had expected and we have stayed in touch since then! On the other end of the line stood Sylvia. Although she was originally just in the background at last year’s Day School, since discovering my gift she has been really supportive of me and just generally looked after me at uni!  As I reflected, I glanced over at Chloe and felt the strangest feeling! These 4 women – Chloe and the 3 ladies standing in the line – comprised most of my uni support network! I then remembered that last year, I almost didn’t go to the Day School! “Wow, I would be a completely different person!” I thought as I realised, I only had these women because I went last year and started to wonder what my life would look like now if my mum and Isobel hadn’t talked me into doing so!

My daydream was cut short by the beginning of the first task. We had to line up in alphabetical order. Although my English-speaking name is spelt E-I-L-I-D-H, German speakers tend to struggle with the pronunciation of this traditional Scottish spelling, so when in a German-speaking environment, I spell it Ä-L-I as this creates the same sound! This technicality put me right at the start of the line! So I just sat there looking pretty while everyone else fumbled around trying to remember the alphabet! After everyone had managed to achieve this, our last exercise for the morning, before we all went into our separate groups was a very special activity for me because it was during this activity last year that me and Chloe first met! Speed dating! For this activity, me and Chloe were allowed to stay together and be one unit. Because Lilian knows that I love purple, she adopted this adorable system of picking people in purple to come and work with us! This activity really took me back to talking to Chloe for the first time and so I started giving her a loving back rub while we were working!

Then it was time to go into our separate rooms. I am now in the more advanced end of the OU German program and Chloe is still in the earlier stages of her German journey which meant that we got separated as we were assigned to different rooms! I didn’t really mind the split because even though I love my uni big sister to the moon and back, I felt like time apart was healthy as it allowed us to be the awesome individuals we are! I didn’t know anyone in the group and I had never worked with Silvia or Berbel before! The lack of familiar faces would have, in previous years, been very daunting for me and I probably would have been too shy to say anything! However thanks to my newly found confidence, I spoke to my colleagues with nothing so much as a bat of an eyelid and wasn’t even distracted by Sylvia darting in and out of the room! I just carried on speaking with my group no matter what! At a couple of points, my sass even came out! The majority of the session was group work but, towards the end, Silvia and Berbel talked to the whole room about podcasts. I listened to Berbel speak. This was the first time I had heard (or more likely, paid attention to) Swiss German being spoken. It is beautiful! It has a slight tune to it like Italian but the words are still very much German! Best of both worlds!!

After lunch, I got to have a 1 to 1 with the lovely Kim! It seemed that she wasn’t even down for 1-1s this year but made an exception for me! I had prepared a talk about Pink Monkey, the precious cuddly monkey that I have had since  I was a baby! Although it did take us a bit of time to get started because we got chatting about unrelated topics such as the struggles of curly hair and I lost the photo of Pink Monkey that I was going to use, when we eventually got started, it felt really nice giving another presentation to Kim because it was while doing the same last year I realized what a great team we would make! This was a beautiful full-circle moment that I wanted to freeze! However, before we knew it, a whole hour had passed and Kim had to go! I felt quite emotional when our session was over! I have already done all the work for my module and sadly, she doesn’t work on the next level of German. So although I technically have her as a tutor until the  end of May and although I will hopefully see her at next year’s Conversation Day, this sort of felt like an end!

Sylvia then came into the room for a much-needed catch-up! Although I didn’t physically feel tired, the lack of sleep was starting to affect my German! At one point I was trying to ask if I could work with Lilian next year and even after deleting and retyping the German word for “next” three times, I still couldn’t write it properly! This was so frustrating and also a bit embarrassing because of my reputation for being a great Germanist! However, thankfully, Sylvia knows me well enough now that she could actually understand this stuttering chaos of a question without needing to finish and said that she would ask for me! Readers, This is proof that even very competent linguists sometimes make mistakes so if you are on your own language-learning journey please keep that in mind!

After a while, Berbel entered the room and sat down at the table where me and Sylvia were. She quickly began telling me how I was an impressive student I was! I have always believed that I am only the woman I am because of the people around me, so I quickly explained that my success at the OU was really thanks to Sylvia’s support… I think something must have been in the air on Saturday because just as Kim had been emotional in the morning and I had teared up half an hour before, now was apparently Sylvia’s turn! Upon hearing my comment her eyes filled with tears!  Next year I am definitely bringing tissues!

Students began slowly meandering back into the room ready for the last part of the Day School. I tentatively watched the door for Chloe! Eventually my beautiful sister appeared! After she had sat herself down next to me, she filled me in on how she had befriended Berbel! My gosh, that girl could make friends with a wall! We spent the last session with 80% of our attention on the lesson and 20% on each other! It had been a whole year since we had met! I can’t actually believe how much we have done in the past year! It almost feels like I have known her for my whole life!

After Sylvia had given me another squishy hug and a small kiss on the forehead to bid me auf Wiedersehen, it was time to go! Ás I left, I began to ponder the logistics of spending a January weekend in London. Unfortunately, next year will be my last year studying my beloved German. Although there are also Spanish Conversation Days I plan to go to, I don’t expect to have the same experience at a Spanish Conversation Day as I have at a German one because German is my favourite language. Although Spanish is also a beautiful language, it doesn’t hold the same personal connection as German. Because of this, I would really like to attend next year’s London Conversation Day as well as the Edinburgh one so that I can make the most out of my last year of German studies! I don’t know how feasible this will be though because of many factors!

Due to budget cuts, Conversation Days are quite vulnerable to getting stopped! I have written this article to demonstrate how these events are not just great for speaking practice but also essential networking events! As students of a distance-learning uni, we don’t get the same opportunities to form the same friendships and relationships that students at traditional universities get. Face-to-face Conversation Days provide us with more opportunities to do that and my beautiful friendship with Chloe is hard evidence of that! Additionally, Kim and Lillian have been able to get to know my needs well due to Conversation Day which has given them the knowledge to be the best tutors to me as possible! I know that the university compiles information about the needs of students, however getting to spend a day with someone is far more valuable training than simply reading a file!

In conclusion, as a linguist, Conversation Day is almost just as an important date on the calendar as Eurovision! The anticipation and excitement of it has been a silver lining on the darkest days of this year! I have grown so much in confidence since last year and I can’t wait to see how I evolve from now to Conversation Day next year!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath 💜