Time passes.
I am once again a student, my official title of English Language Assistant in the Academy of Strasbourg is no more. Alas, seven months have passed.
Friday was my last day of work and I celebrated with the other English teachers at both of my schools.
Time is rather abstract especially the idea of time passing. It was once said that if you want to understand the duration of nine months, ask someone who has just given birth after a full term. This text goes on to talk about other lengths of time and who understands them best.
I’d add to it, if you would like to understand the duration of seven months, talk to a language assistant in France. From October 1st (my birthday) until April 20th, I worked at two high schools in Mulhouse, France. One regular high school and one vocational high school.
I went through the period of confusion and unfamiliarity of relocating to a new place. The people I worked with progressed through the stages of excitement to work with someone new, to beginning to understand my habits as the end approached.
In the beginning, I was confused by things that I am now comfortable with. The transportation system confused me as I readjusted to life without a private vehicle. In fact, it took me five months to discover the shortest way between my two schools. (In my town the local transportation system is not linked to Google Maps).
After two and a half months of living together my housemate and I became friends.
After four months I was reminded that I don’t like living out of group environments. It took three months to figure out when to pay my rent. Five to figure out that I should buy a hat while learning how to knit. It took me six months to get fed up of the local pizza. Finally, it took me seven months to meet a group of people who were the friends I’ve wanted to meet since arriving. Alas, it was my last week in Strasbourg so our relationship is limited.
If I never had an understanding for what seven months feels like, now I do. Seven months is almost, the perfect amount of time for a strange experience. There is time for novelty, then time for familiarity, and then towards the very end, the place becomes one which feels like your place, and you are no longer an outsider but a local. This has been my experience.
Seven months feels neither long nor short.
For me, these seven months were an experiment in being present. I practiced focusing on each day and each hour instead of looking forward to things in the future. This was sometimes difficult as payday was definitely something to look forward to, as were trips around Europe. Yet still, I made an effort to live through the mundane with great appreciation.
Seven months is enough time to go through a bout of depression. It’s enough time to drastically improve your body image. It is enough time to realize some peculiar traits about myself in a strange way. Seven months is enough time for someone to destroy their relationship with you and for you to leave them alone then forgive them, certainly it helps when you’ve known them since the day that they were born. Seven months is enough time to watch your friend get comfortable at her new job. It is enough time to go through three hobbies: watercolour painting, harmonica playing and finger knitting.
Perhaps the largest take about from the last seven months as ‘les temps passé’ is concerned, is this:
When we say that we ‘are spending time’ doing something or the other we are using very simple words to convey a great message. Time is a limited, non-renewable resource. Unlike crude oil, we cannot estimate when it will end for each of us. Therefore, our time is a precious commodity and as it passes, we spend it. In the same way that we spend money, only that time is much more precious.
Over the past seven months, I worked only 12 hours per week, I also had six weeks of vacation. I had quite a lot of free time, a lot of which was spent being pensive. I pondered upon many, many things. I looked deep inside of my character and met with the being residing there. There was so much time for reflection that in the last seven months, I have come full circle. However, now I am on a more intimate level of understanding than I was at the beginning of the circle. Like the rings of an onion, I am moving closer to the heart.
Alas, if you want to understand seven months, ask a language assistant.
Avec amour, belles penses,
Rushell
Great Perhaps 