Mayday, mayday!

And so it begins. The end of something. I'm not quite sure what to say. I've had a week to let it sink in, but somehow the shock doesn't seem to get old. This is some naive behaviour from someone with a temporary contract. I really, really thought that things would continue as before. That just as in the previous years the principal, the education office, someone would magic up a new contract for me. Because - all hassle of over-the-summer-payment from a couple of years ago put aside - that's how it always worked. How soon you forget! The times they are a-changing: there's a new principal, a new education office, new policies and no someone (i.e. someone pregnant) to rescue me this time round. And here we are, with - what? - seven more weeks of business as usual before that ugly, slimy monster unemployment will raise its seven heads. Seven weeks, and already everything feels different. The details will have to keep for another time. For now, just some random thoughts: I feel sad, confused, disappointed, angry, frustrated, tired, overwhelmed by the tasks ahead, unable to cope. I don't want to leave my students so suddenly (well, not all of them anyway). I don't want to have to organize applications in the middle of my exams, write CVs, scan adverts for substitute teachers in impossible remote towns, advertise myself in letters, wait, get my hopes up, get rejected, start over again. I don't want to face the financial implications of having to apply for the dole in case nothing comes up. I don't want to start those movies in my head of a range of worst-case-scenarios of having to give up my flat, move back home, of constantly not knowing what is going to happen next month ('cause that's how substitute jobs work). But most of all I don't want to leave my school right now. I was meant to have another year before having to say goodbye. And I don't want to leave in this haphazard, half-hearted, lukewarm way. Without a proper goodbye, because they will tell me that maybe, maybe someone might get ill and that they'd love to take me back in that case because they desperately need me for English. There will be a final-day-of-work, three weeks before the end of term (don't ask), and then possibly (be a good girl, fingers crossed) they'll be able to keep me on for three more weeks until the holidays. Or possibly not. But I will get no proper chance to say goodbye, and no Thank you. I will simply disappear, not be there the next morning. I know this will sound silly to you, but it seems somehow very important right now. Contrary to what you might have deducted from my years' worth of rants and anecdotes and contrary to what I will say tomorrow round lunchtime after a handful of lessons and two dozens mini-fights: I really, really like my job. And most of my students. And most of my colleagues. It's the end of the world as we know it.