The time worrier: what a difference an hour makes

Dr Selma Karayalcin, English Teacher,  has a story published in the Sunday Mail on Sunday.  
Click here to see the original publication.

 

By Selma Karayalcın

The recent talk about EU members scrapping daylight savings time has made one woman very nervous. As a Turkish Cypriot teacher at the English School who lives in the north, she has exhausting memories of that six-month period in 2016/17 when the two sides of the island were an hour apart

‘The two most powerful warriors are patience and time,’ said Leo Tolstoy.

Kyrenia, Cyprus – February, 2017. 7:30 am: I race out of the house and get into my small and long-suffering Suzuki Swift which takes me to school. It could probably get there all by itself – 15 years is a long time.

8 am Gunaydın, I say to the Turkish Cypriot police at the checkpoint as I show them my passport.

7 am Kalimera, I say as I show the same passport to the Greek Cypriot police.

The period between October 2016 and March 2017 was a challenge for me and the other Turkish Cypriot teachers who live in northern Cyprus but work in the south. Turkey, in its wisdom, decreed that daylight savings time was unnecessary, which meant that while Europe turned their clocks back by one hour, northern Cyprus struggled to adapt to an absurd situation.

I had to juggle different time zones and adjust to two different times – twice a day! In only 50 yards, time sprang backwards. I’ve always been excited by space travel – but this is not what I had in mind.

Already feeling jetlagged before my first cup of coffee, I arrive at school. 7.10 am (or is it 8.10?)

A cup of coffee, a quick chat with colleagues, preparation for classes. DRRRIIINNNGGG! 7:35 am and the registration warning bell rings.

Oh! I am on cover. The teacher of 2 Green is absent. Lloyds, Room 50. I’m in the main staffroom. With building construction taking place smack in the middle of the school grounds, it’s about a seven-minute walk to Lloyds from the main building – depending on which shoes I’m wearing. Shoes for a cocktail party? A colleague laughs as I look down at them dubiously.

Do I have time to get a double espresso at the canteen on the way? Ever optimistic, I try my luck. I (somewhat) gracefully stumble over rocks, pebbles, and students on the assault course our school has become as I wend my tortuous way towards the canteen. It’s bursting with students. I push in – well, we teachers must have some privileges – I persevere on my way as fast as I can, balancing school bag and espresso but eventually spilling so much coffee that my double turns into a single. Finally, I reach Lloyds.

Cover done, into my double period now. Swallow the remaining espresso in one gulp, spring into life and action.

Before we know it, 100 minutes are over and it’s break time.

I carefully walk to the main staffroom and rush down my ‘breakfast’. No time to write that important e-mail: DRRRIIINNNGGG! Period three! And so the day continues. I’m exhausted by the weight of that missing hour.

1:30 pm: DRRRIIINNNGGG! Students stream out of their classes excitedly and run to buses or cars 1:40 pm: I reach the checkpoint and show my passport, lurching toward a different time zone in my head.
 

Suddenly, I’m in the future. It’s 2:40 pm! Where did that hour go? I was in the present but have been jolted into the future. Or was I in the past? The expression back to the future takes on a strange relevance. Am I physical proof of Einstein’s theory of relativity? ‘Aren’t you being a little over dramatic?’ asks a colleague.

‘Am I? I’m a space traveller. Between two spheres. I wake up at 7 am and arrive at school at … 7 am. I’m in two places at once, two time spheres simultaneously…’

Life is indeed an exciting adventure!

8 pm in Kyrenia, 7 pm in Larnaca: A teacher phones me to organise what time we will meet the following evening to go to the School Spring Concert together.

‘So, what time are we meeting?’

‘7 pm.’

‘7 pm our time?’

‘7 pm your time?’

‘You know, the time here.’

‘No! the time there.’

‘So, you mean 6 pm?’

‘No, 7 pm.’

‘But isn’t that going to be 8 pm – and then we’ll be late?’

None the wiser, I sit and mark papers for a while and then look at the clock – a very risky business, I’m finding out. I’m suddenly in Narnia – or am I locked in the wardrobe?

It’s 11 pm – but no, it’s … it’s 12 am. How can that be?

I’m suddenly overwhelmed by how tired I feel. Panicking, I wonder how I will get up for school.

One less hour of shuteye. Permanently exhausted, weighed down… constantly wondering what time it is… was… will be… One week ends, another begins – and before we know it, there are dozens and eventually hundreds of missing hours!

I must remember to ask a mathematician about this. Space and time… joined together in a continuum – but when they aren’t joined together, life turns into a space-time see-saw and… I want to get off! Is there any certainty left in the world?

Finally, on March 26 2017, daylight savings time in Cyprus meant that I could get a decent night’s sleep in real time at last.

The island united, united that is, in time – but alas, not in space.

Cyprus Mail (11th November 2018)
https://cyprus-mail.com/2018/11/11/the-time-worrier-what-a-difference-an-hour-makes/