Teacher Transfer Drama

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ~Carol Sobieski and Thomas Meehan, Annie

Let me take the time to rewind a bit. I'm rewinding it to the 19th of March. The 19th of March was a very important day here at school because that's when the teacher transfer calls took place.

Ok, so here in Japan, they move around teachers. The teachers don't ask to be transferred, but when they are told to do it, they must pack up and leave. Sometimes, the transfer is for a school close by and sometimes it can be like 3 hours away. If you are being transferred, then it can be anywhere in the prefecture.

Anyway, all week 2 English teachers thought they were being transferred. One of them was a young teacher who got married not too long ago and another is a teacher whose wife had a baby a few months ago. Both of them really didn't want to move. The teacher who got married was really sad the whole week. It was a bit painful to see her because you knew she was worried. The good thing was that neither one was transferred. Woohoo!!!

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to March 19, lunch time. During lunch, all the teacher's were in the office, eating their lunch silently and waiting for the phone calls. It's eerily quite and the tension is high. My bento was curry, which I love, and the food didn't even fall right because I was nervous that a couple of the English teachers that I really like were leaving.

This is how it works. The principal gets the calls and then he calls the Vice principal, who is in the teacher's office. Every　time the phone rings, everyone turns to the VP, waiting for a name to come out of his mouth. When it does, that teacher goes to find out where they are placed. Then, they come back (many teary eyed) telling us where they are being transferred to.

It's a really nerve-wrecking situation, especially for those teachers who didn't want to be transferred, but are being forced to.

Right after all of this, classes continue so we must put on our happy faces and keep our spirits (genkiness) up.

That was a pretty crazy situation to go through. At the end of it all, we found out that two English teachers are leaving. One cool young teacher is going, but she already knew she was leaving because she just became a full time teacher recently, so there was a good chance that they were going to place her somewhere else. She was happy with her placement because it was a school that she had worked at in the past.
The other English teacher wasn't actually transferred. She decided to quit after this school year.
This meant Farewell Drinking Party for the English Department. Woohoo!!! But Goodbye to 2 great teachers, nooooo!!!