guilt trips

So the superintendent of schools calls me into his office today...its kind of like seeing the principal when you were in primary school....I mean all that was going thru my head was,"what have I done lately that would get me in trouble." Let's face it, no matter how you spin it, being called in to see the superintendent is never a good thing. And today was really no exception.

The deadline for my decision of whether or not to recontract is on February 4th. Although, I have been asked to stay on for another year, I think we all know that is just stupid. But in knowing that my relationship (whatever that may be) with the schools and the town will change as soon as I decline the offer, I have been holding off giving them an answer until the deadline (which is totally fair, that's why there is a deadline). But the superintendent doesn't quite see it that way...and I admit his reasoning is also fair...he needs to turn in the yearly budget and needs to know how much money to put aside for my program. I tell him, I'll give him my answer on Friday. He said, "great, but keep in mind that if you decide not to come back, it will be really difficult for the next person, as they may want to stay for a long time, and we won't be able to offer them more than a year....because our school system is changing." I said, "okay...I'll give you an answer on Friday." And he's like, "and you should know, that it would be best if you stay for another year...you will get more out of Japan." Okay.... And then he went on and on and on about why I should stay....(by the way, all of it being clearly for budgetary reasons on their part, and none of it because I was an awesome teacher or an outstanding citzen, or even a person they thought was great and wanted to keep me around....it was all about money) I finally looked at him and said, "I'll give you an answer on Friday, but you should know that this guilt trip isn't going to work on me....I've had far more powerful men try to guilt trip me before, and it won't work." His response to this was utter speechlessness...I mean literally, his mouth just hung open and he couldn't say a thing...he just stared ahead. I realized that maybe in this world, that was a rude response on my part...but truthfully, a girl's gotta be able to put her foot down when people are bugging....I mean really, in my past life, I never would have thought twice about telling someone no, or where to stick it....Maybe Japan has managed to soften me a bit.

When I got home the first thing I did was fill out the recontracting form with a big NO...I'll hand it in on Friday.