Juan Pablo (JP):
I enrolled In a Bachelor of Marketing and Media in 2020, but COVID happened so I spent the first year doing my studies remotely from Peru in my home town of Lima. Some of my classes were on at three o'clock in the morning due to the time difference between Sydney and Lima. So my only student experience at Macquarie for the first year was a solitary one as it was 100 per cent online.
Singing the same tune: Residence buddies Juan Pablo (pictured left) and Fen Li (pictured right) share an interest in words and music. Image: Jesse Taylor
When the borders opened I took the chance to fly to Sydney straight away and I moved into the student accommodation on the edge of the Central Courtyard.
Fen and I met in the kitchen during one of the organised events that are held there to help people meet each other. When he found out I spoke Spanish he asked me a very odd question.
He wanted me to help him correctly pronounce the one Spanish phrase he knew. He had heard it on a taco ad! “Por qué no los dos”, which in English means "Why don’t we have both?" It was strange at the time but now I know Fen is a PhD scholar of linguistics, it makes a little bit more sense! Fen and I eventually went to the movies. Looking back, I think we went to see the Minions movie.
Being new to Australia of course I was lonely at times, especially because the time difference between Sydney and Lima makes it hard to call my friends and family back home.
On the first day I arrived without any pillows or blankets. Luckily my Australian room-mates took me across to Macquarie Centre and walked me around K Mart helping to find things I needed to buy to properly move in. They were the first people I met.
Fen is an extrovert, but I am definitely not. It was easy for him to approach me with a silly question and laugh about it. He was living here in the accommodation quite a while before me, so he already knew people and helped me widen my circle. Now my Macquarie friends are like a little family to me.
Fen Li:
Although I am originally from Shenzhen in China, I had been to school in the UK and was comfortable speaking English. But my written English wasn’t great so my first experience at Macquarie was doing a course to improve my writing.
In those classes I noticed people with the same native language sticking together. It inspired my current research in social linguistics. I’m interested in how people can remove the barriers to friendship which seem to exist between people who speak different languages or have different accents.
When I first moved to Australia I went to live in the student accommodation and there are regular events on so you can meet people. It can be very sociable if that's what you like to do. At that time there was an ad on TV for tacos which had a little girl speaking Spanish in it. Since I am a student of linguistics, it seemed perfectly natural when I was at one of those events to ask a Spanish speaker how to correctly say the phrase in the ad! Our friendship began from that day.
Juan Pablo - who everyone calls JP - and I are interested in similar subjects. We both did journalism units in our previous studies, and we have both gone on to further study. Now he is doing a Master's and I am doing a PhD.
Another thing that bonded us together is the fact that JP is a brilliant musician. He sings and plays guitar. When he plays, other students from the accommodation turn up with their guitars and we all end up singing and having a great time. It’s exactly the kind of college experience you see in movies, and one that you imagine you’ll have when you are a student living far from home.
