I have noticed many people, especially Americans, measure their childhood by which Grade they were in. It frutrates me because the system my school system used growing up is way different, so I have to take a little moment or ten to re-calibrate. “I went to band camp in 8th grade.” Okay. Can you use the universally recognised standard of age for me please? Because I have to do some weird maths in my head right now.
Anyways, I tend to use age when it’s about me, and years when it’s an event, it just depends on the context.
Pretty much this. I’m always reverse engineering my age or calendar year. I know the year I was born, the year I graduated high school, the year I separated from the military, so those tend to anchor things.
If it happened while I was still in school, I tend to think in terms of what grade I was in, rather than either of the options you mentioned. Once I graduated, I started thinking in calendar years.
Depends. When I was in school, largely I think in terms of school years; if you asked me when I got into the fight with Hector, that was in Grade Nine. I broke my arm in senior kindergarten. But some events are calendar years; I went to Disney World in 1977.
Since high school ended I think in calendar years. If you asked when I moved to Toronto I’d say 2000; if you asked when I met my wife I’d say 2013. I know the time I took Susan on a date and ate the tiger shrimp and spent the night lying in pain on my living room floor because the shrimp were off was 1998. I would have to think for a moment before telling you how old I was when those things happened.
I said calendar years but I was born in the winter. The difference between age and calendar years isn’t applicable for most of the year. In year X I was Y years old is accurate enough for most things.
I also tend to not really be that aware of what my current age is. If you ask, I might pause as I recall it from memory. Sometimes I have to correct my first answer because I haven’t really updated my memory since my last birthday. I’ve honestly had to stop and do the math between the current year and my birth date at times as an adult. Age is a number. It has limited cases where I need it but not all that often.
For school and university years, it’s definitely “school years”. Southern Hemisphere, so the school year corresponds to the calendar year, but I definitely think in terms of “when I was in grade 10” rather than “2002”. Since then, mostly in calendar years - although since I started working in politics, I also think in terms of election cycles.
Neither, because I suck at that game. Outside of major events, like the birth years of my wife and children, I generally can’t tell you when particular event happened with more accuracy than “a few years ago” or “in high school”. For whatever reason, my brain doesn’t timestamp things in that manner.
I have dyscalculia and don’t think in years at all, because they are numbers. I think in eras.
I. I lived with my family as a child
II. My family moved to a different town and my world changed. Oh, I was ten! Easy number to remember.
III. I left home and moved every three or four months doing all sorts of stuff. That went on for a few years.
IV. I met my husband and we flailed around trying to find out what we were doing with our lives together. Also a few years.
V. We settled down in one place, built a house there, raised a child etc. Decades went by.
VI. (now) retired, we moved across the country.
I have to use a calculator to figure out how old I am. I did memorize my own birth date.