Moving On

There are 10 school days left and that means that a large number of staff are moving on to other schools around the world or returning to their homes. The bulletin board in the staff room is over flowing with for sale adverts and a row of shoes sits beneath barely worn and looking for new feet to enjoy them. People desperately try to achieve visiting and purchasing all of the things they wished they'd purchased during the course of their contract rather than in the last 2 months. Catching up and saying goodbye to all of your friends is important and it is almost ironic when you became friends with someone a few short months before they were due to leave.

The atmosphere is interesting from late January onwards as this is when staff will have made the decision as to whether or not they are staying or moving on. You still have months and months and months invested in your current place of work and yet you can have checked out mentally and are preparing for your new post.

I personally spent at least half of the year settling in to Suzhou, MYP curriculum and international schooling. I only knew a certain number of people at the start of the year. After Chinese New Year I met many more and made great friends with people I now have to say goodbye to. I then should make an effort in August with the new staff entering the school and who knows what my decision will be the following January.

Friends are important, but I wonder if you can make a true friend in just a 2 year contract. Are we making do? Have we changed our perceptions on friendship in order to make things work? Does this also mean that people who move around so much are more flexible, easier to get along with and more open? In my opinion it doesn't matter how long you are somewhere or the depth of the bonds you form it will always hurt to leave and you will always take something from the experience and leave something of yourself behind. My heart is in so many places and yet I do not know my own home.

If your life is transient or you are thinking of becoming so be prepared to meet a lot of people and say goodbye a lot.