To stay or not to stay, that is the question! There has been a lot of buzz about when we will need to make a final decision on whether or not we'd like to stay on for another year in Madrid. That day may finally be reality.
We have now received an e-mail saying that we have until February 28th to decide, but that's for the folks that have the more basic version of my job and a completely different application process. Is that date really for us? Who knows!
Next we got an e-mail from the man who was our contact person in the U.S. (Señor Stupidhead, as I like to call him) and he casually dropped the fact that he's in Madrid and would like to meet at noon on Sunday with all 12 of us. Funny, two people are in France, one is in England, and a few others have things planned for Sunday. Really, he flew around the world and he could only give us 3 days notice on a meeting? I don't buy it. Based on his e-mail, I think he's panicked and wants to meet us in the only spare hour that he has while in Madrid so we can discuss everything about the program including whether or not we'd like to stay. Dude!? Sorry, but I'm fairly confident my mind won't be made up by Sunday. Plus, whatever small space of time he's set aside for us better not be full of more lies! Bert pointed out that he seems to give us answers that we want to hear instead of actually answering our questions. The more I think about that statement, the more true I realize it is. As teachers, we've been well trained not to answer questions when we don't actually know the correct response. Instead, you should say something like "I'm not sure and I don't want to confuse you so I will look up the answer tonight and tell you tomorrow." Bonus: You can make it extra credit for them to find the answer at home! Booya! Yeah...this guy doesn't do that. He just kind of makes up answers even though he doesn't really know what he's talking about.
Honestly, after winter break I was convinced that I had to go home. In fact, I even thought about quitting and going back home before June. After a few days of trying to convince myself this was not responsible, I finally settled on trying to go home for spring break in hopes that that will fulfill my Seattle needs. This week, however, has been a totally different story. Someone from the office of "The Man" came to our school for the first time all year (why yes, it is mid-January and yes, this a brand new program that began back in September, thanks for asking). Apparently the way that the students are divided between classrooms could have been done differently than the crappy way our school was told. It was very nice to see anger flash in the eyes of many of the teachers in our department at this fact. I suddenly realized that they are frustrated with many of the same things as me! And, after writing my 3-paged summary of how the program is going so far, the head of my department has been much more open and friendly with me. Plus, the science teacher I work with stopped and asked the woman from the education headquarters (in front of everyone in the department) what she would have to do to ensure that I stay at the same school for next year. I have never heard her so outspoken and with such passion in her voice when she's speaking in English. It felt really good to realize just how badly she wants to continue working with me.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens...
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