Au Milieu (At the Midpoint)

Mild temperatures in December let us enjoy an afternoon at the beach.
Photo (c) 2015 by JenVeltsos 

As I look ahead to 2016, I realized that it has been two months since my last blog post. Journaling has never been one of my strengths, so I suppose the gap is not surprising. I cannot say that nothing has happened in the interim, but perhaps nothing of particular note for this blog. 

Boy1 went on a week-long sleep away field trip to an ecole de la mer, which I mentioned in my last post. Although he was very excited in anticipation of the trip, he admitted that he cried every day while he was gone. The isolation--away from his family and his native language--was too much for him to bear. We received three letters detailing his misery, although someone may have had mercy on us because the second and third arrived on the Monday after his return. Yet on the evening of his return, he admitted that he had a lot of new words in his head, "just waiting for when I need to use them." Both he and Boy2 have demonstrated more curiosity about the language and have attempted to speak French outside of school and the immediate family. This progress is exactly where we had hoped they would be at this point (six months in France, four months in school).

Hubby and I have been quietly toiling away on our writing, although he is oddly more productive than I am. I say oddly because I am the writer in the family, but he has taken on a lot of projects with overlapping deadlines, so I suspect he simply thrives on the busyness. I have finished a research article revision, gotten a kind reject with an invitation to revise and resubmit with some specific areas for focus. I am also halfway through the first draft of a second paper, this time on business communication pedagogy, and I hope to finish by the end of January. But I have fully taken to heart my mom's advice (though she does not remember giving it): I will regret missing out on the experience of living in France far more than I will regret not finishing a journal article. I have embraced the slow pace of village life, the long break for lunch with the Boys, and twice-daily visits with Belle Mere.

Still, January 1 is precisely the midpoint of our French adventure. Six months from today, we will be returning to our regularly scheduled lives in Minnesota with our French accents and fond memories (and a few items of French clothing, of course). This seems like a good time to reflect on the experience.

Autumn in the south of France.
Photo (c) 2015 by JenVeltsos

For one thing, Hubby and I agree that we made the right decision in taking a full year sabbatical rather than one semester. The university will pay full salary for a one-semester sabbatical and 80% salary for a full-year sabbatical, so I understand why some professors take only one semester. However, several of my colleagues warned me against it, saying that it takes at least two months to really settle into the time away from campus, and right when you do, you have to turn around and start prepping to teach again. To get the real physical, emotional, and intellectual recharge that the sabbatical is supposed to bring, they warned, we would need a full year.

I have absolutely found that to be true in our case. July and August were simply the usual summer vacation. Then the Boys went back to school in September, and while I was sitting at my desk every day, reading and even writing a bit, I do not feel like that was a very productive time for me. I discovered that I was still decompressing from a very stressful 2014-15 year. As proof, I was still compulsively checking my university email several times each day. In November, though, I found myself itching to start writing again and I finished the revision in about 15 days. (Trust me, that's warp speed for me.) This burst of creative energy continued until the end of the school term in mid-December, and I'm really looking forward to Monday when they go back to school and I can start writing again. I have two new courses to design and two research projects to begin, and for once I am excited about the prospect of all of this.

Our homemade Christmas tree with homemade decorations.
The presents are mostly real. Photo (c) 2015 by JenVeltsos

Choosing to live in France for a year has allowed us to examine our American lifestyle a little more than we normally do. The kids spend entirely too much time on their technology, of course, but that's an occupational hazard with guys who work with computers. But we are also living with less and we hardly notice the difference. We arrived in July 2014 with eight suitcases containing a year's worth of clothing, some basic kitchen supplies, and books and toys for the Boys. Belle Mere sent over her extras: plates, glasses, cutlery, cooking utensils, pots and pans, and the microwave that she never used. We went to IKEA to buy the rest of the things we would need to make our home cozy. But we knew from the beginning that every item we acquired would have to be disposed of in some way when we leave, so we found ourselves making the distinction between needs and wants much more clearly. (Hubby and I have, that is. The Boys still want every toy they see.) When we return to Mankato and begin unpacking the storage unit, I suspect we will have a fresh appreciation for the things we need and the things we love, and that pile will be much smaller than it was before we left.

Living here has also caused us to begin planning for the future. A few years ago, the three-term chair of the English department stepped down and immediately took a one-semester sabbatical for the fall semester. At the midpoint of his sabbatical, I asked how it was going and he responded, "I think of retirement every day." At the time, I was a third-year assistant professor. The idea of retirement seemed ludicrously far off to me to me then. It's only four years later, but Hubby and I talk about retirement almost every day. The relatively cost of living, socialized health care, and temperate climate here in the Cote d'Azur are an attractive combination for retirees. At 42 years old, I am at the midpoint of my working life. Retirement is only 23 years away, so the planner in me is already thinking of how we can pinch a few pennies here and there to increase our retirement income later. My dad would be so proud.

I generally do a good job of not living in the past, but I am a planner and an organizer at heart so I do spend a lot of time looking to the future. Here at the midpoint, my plan is this:

1. Finish the projects that I need to complete during the sabbatical. 
2. Prepare for re-entry to the U.S. in July.
3. Prepare mentally and practically to teach again in August. 
4. Start saving 2% of our salary each year. Sabbatical 2 coming up in only 10 years, so if we start in 2016, filling in the missing 20% of our salary will be much easier next time around.
5. Convince Hubby that the experience of living in France during retirement is worth the experience of being surrounded by French people.  

Maybe #5 is a bigger challenge than I thought...

December at the river with Hubby.
Photo (c) 2015 by Philippe Veltsos.