For whom the bell tolls ...

I started freaking out a little because I don't have a contract for next year, and I'd like to at least feel roughly secure in my planning for next year.

So yesterday Nicole (one of my principals) and I call up the bigwigs at one of the twelve thousand levels of French hierarchy to ratchet up the pressure a bit. Instead of reassuring me that of course I'll have my job next year, don't you worry, I hear :

"Not only are old assistants not priority because we want to give new people a chance, this year has an unusually high number of applications, so we won't know whether or not we're taking any old assistants until after we have responses from the new people ... it will probably late in the summer, possibly even in September."

So much for reassuring words.

Now I'm looking at jobs in private schools and internships, and really anything else I can find. It kills me though, because I work in impoverished schools with kids that have very little going for them, and I want to stay ... but the Education Nationale can't get their act together.

Thank you, bureaucracy.

Now I just have to keep breathing, since the sudden stress of this announcement has sent me into stress overdrive.