So I jumped the gun slightly. Our BOE has the applications on hand for the three new ALTs in our area, but they’re waiting for the reply forms to come in before they contact the ALTs. That didn’t stop me from going through and noting pieces of info on each of them to pass on to interested ALTs, though, since the chances of someone backing out at this point are generally low, but of course I won’t actually do anything. Everyone’s really curious and excited.
I also called No. 1 Travel today to inquire into a one-way ticket from Osaka to Atlanta–and I teared up while doing so. I wasn’t expecting that, but at the same time, it wasn’t a complete surprise either.
I spent an hour drafting an e-mail in Word to send to my successor, and thinking about Ikeda and Miyoshi-shi and Japan and my job and life here in an objective way and in terms of what a new ALT would probably want to hear made it all more therapeutic, being able to objectify it and think more about helping the new person adjust, and taking the emphasis off me. It was only after that that I realized we were still waiting on the reply forms, but it was nice to get that out of the way.
But…yeah. I have a successor. And it’s not just some random entity–it’s a person with a face and a life and interests and hobbies. This is definitely starting to feel very real, and very surreal, all at once.