• About Lucky Hill
  • PCFC
  • She’s Got Jokes!
  • Vocabulary
  • ~Vignettes~

Lucky Hill

~ This Was My Bachata in Fukuoka

Lucky Hill

Tag Archives: Recontracting

Continue? 10, 9, 8…

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by scalesoflibra in Post JET

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Reappointing, Recontracting

It’s the time of year when JETs have to decide whether to extend their contracts or not. I think most ALTs will have or did have a workshop about how to go about making this decision, but given my unfortunately rough experience with this question, I figured I’d say some quick things about it.

The Deadline is The Deadline
I felt pressured and rushed to make a decision, and my papers were getting filed a full month ahead of the February deadline. I was dazed and confused!

Maybe it’s more convenient for contracting organizations to know in January how many people they’re going to send home and how many replacements to bring in, but if it were absolutely crucial to have those figures in January, the deadline for ALTs to submit their papers would be in January. As the deadline is February, if you need all that time to think, take it. Please don’t give in!

You’re Making A List and Checking It Twice
One helpful piece of advice I heard at an ALT workshop was to make a list of the pro’s and con’s of staying on JET and the pro’s and con’s of leaving, then assigning a “weight” of importance to each item on the list. However, I do disagree with the oft repeated idea that it’s wrong to assign a lot of weight to money. Only people who grew up in affluence can act like money doesn’t matter! Too rich for my blood on that one.

That said, I think that if money is a reason to stay, you should have a clear financial goal in mind and work toward it.  Personally, given the extremely low cost of living that I enjoyed in my particular situation, I was able to pay off a $17,000 medical debt in two years, then save to take my mother and I to Spain. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with “I need the money for x” or “I want the money for y” being reasons to stay in any job if that’s all the motivation it takes to get you through the day.

For the Record…
I don’t regret ending my time on JET, but I do regret HOW it was ended. There were issues at work that I wanted to discuss with the vice-principal, but as it boiled down to things like “I think ALTs are treated like performing monkeys and yes I can use chopsticks,” things which can be taken as accusations of willful racism, I couldn’t bring myself to broach the subject. It bothers me now that I didn’t screw up the courage to bring up the hard topics that actually might have made a positive difference in future ALTs’ lives and deepened Japanese people’s understanding of foreigners as human beings FIRST and foreigners second. If I could do it over, I would go to the teacher I trusted most with delicate topics and ask them for advice on bringing those things up with the vice principal, to see if a change would have been possible. Even if it hadn’t been possible, I would have at least left knowing that I tried.

Notice

As my time on JET has ended and I've said all I wanted to say about it, I will not be adding any new content to this blog. I leave it up for reference. However please keep in mind that the usefulness of this reference may drop as the years go by, because sometimes things change. Anyway, thanks for dropping by! ~September 2014

Top 5 Posts

  • Halloween & Day of the Dead Lesson - With Materials
  • Looking Back, Moving Forward
  • Support a Poet & Former JET
  • Of Samurai and Scholar Athletes
  • Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, July 2013

Looking For Something?

Archives

Look, A Calendar!

August 2022
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Oct    

Blogroll

  • Addicted to Traveling
  • Fukuoka JET
  • Loco in Yokohama
  • Pacificloons
  • The Lobster Dance
  • Warped Frost
  • WordPress.com
  • WordPress.org

Top 10 Posts

  • Halloween & Day of the Dead Lesson - With Materials
  • Looking Back, Moving Forward
  • Support a Poet & Former JET
  • Of Samurai and Scholar Athletes
  • Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, July 2013
  • Kind Strangers
  • Lessons in the School of Rock
  • Bachata en Fukuoka Updated Translation
  • The Tip of the Nose-berg
  • Continue? 10, 9, 8...

Categories

  • Concerts & Theater
  • First Months
  • Living in Fukuoka
  • Me Being Random
  • Other Things JETs Do
  • Post JET
  • Pre-departure
  • Rollin' outside Japan
  • Rollin' outside of Kyuushuu
  • Rolling 'round Kyuushuu
  • Stuff That Just Happens
  • Teaching
  • Tokyo Orientation
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Oh!

You scrolled all the way down here? お疲れさまでした〜! You deserve an umegaemochi. *Gives umegaemochi*

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Lucky Hill
    • Join 60 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lucky Hill
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar