Adaptation

One of the many upsides of working in a school all the way across the world is the holiday time.  Schools compensate for the distance by giving you longer Christmas holidays—ones where you can travel home and deal with the jet lag.  And oh, the jet lag. 

This time around, I’ve got three weeks in Michigan.  As such, I find myself in a new coffee shop.  This time an independent branch in the downtown of my hometown, recently voted America’s 9^th most livable ‘city’ by Money Magazine.   Because I’m trying to keep my acerbic nature in check, I’ll choose not to comment on this.  What I will say is, that with three weeks here, I’m trying to make the most of the Midwest bubble.

 I’ve already been to the orchestra—The DSO put on a remarkable performance of ‘Home Alone.’  With the big screen down, and the score cut from the film, the orchestra and choir played the backing music to the film along with a cheery number or two at the end.  It was beautiful.

On Sunday, the Avila women head to see the Moscow Ballet’s version of the Nutcracker.  And the rest of the three weeks will be consumed with yoga classes (some wanky, some okay), dinner with various friends, a Red Wings game and a classy NYE party in Downtown Detroit.   As I’ve been told by various friends and acquaintances, Detroit is ‘up and coming’.   The up will probably take years but I hope it gets there eventually.

Naturally, this is a good time to reflect on the term.  And if I journey back to my October post about adaptation, I am happy to report that I feel, in fact, adapted to life in China.  I mean, it’s crazy and ridiculous and completely unpredictable: 14 weeks of Mandarin lessons and I can just about say my address and the date; I’ve bought a scooter from a friend who’s now left; I’m no longer surprised by the things that anyone does.  I think I’m desensitised from the weird.

And work is remarkably okay.  I had a long time to ponder this on the 13-hour flight home.  In comparison to how exhausted I would have been on any London flight back to the US, the only signs of exhaustion I could feel were physical.  The mental exhaustion I have experienced in the last six years of my old job was curiously absent.   And then I had a think: At no point in this year have I felt that I cannot breathe, that I am struggling to keep my head above water, that I missed the scrutiny and constant poke-poke-poking of the British state school system.  I hope I do not regret writing this.  But it turns out that I, in fact, have a degree of work-life balance.

What a revelation.

It’s prompted me to really consider my options upon return to London.  I like the busy but not stressed out to the point of rage, person I have become this term. 

With that in mind, from one bubble to another, Merry Christmas.