That is the question before me, as today I was officially asked to re-contract with Noheji Senior High for a third and final year. I don't know why JET does this, but they send out the job offers several months before the deadline to decide arrives. I guess this is to give you time to make your decision, but unfortunately this also gives schools several months in which they can harrass JET's to sign the thing early. I don't know why schools are so obsessed with getting JET's to sign their contract so long before it's actually due. Maybe kocho senseis have some kind of pool about who can get their JET to re-inlist earliest. Anyway, I was told today that I should hand in my form about 1 month before the deadline. Yeah, whatever. I handed it in a day or two before the deadline last year and nobody said anything. I'll tell you one thing though, if I had no choice but to sign it today I probably would. This is why...



Kate asked me to convert her region 2 PAL DVD of the BBC comedy "The Office" to a format she could watch on her Mac. I've since discovered that converting PAL DVD's to NTSC is next to impossible, but that's not what I want to talk about today. The Office is one of those faux-documentary style comedy shows much in the same vein as 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', 'The Larry Sander's Show', 'Trailer Park Boys', 'Arrested Development' etc.. If you've seen the movie 'Office Space' then you get the general idea of it. Much like all the other shows in this genre of TV comedy, the focus is on the exploits of an egomaniacle asshole who seems out of touch with those around him. I've seen enough of these shows now that the format is getting kind of stale, especially in Canada where there are a number of pretty bad shows that try to cash in on this formula. Still, I really enjoyed The Office, even though every moment of it brought back horrible, horrible memories of working for an egotistical and incompetent windbag and his weasel of a sidekick. This show further reinforced what I always believed which is that my old workplace is just typical of most companies, and for the sake of my health, happiness and sanity I'm best off avoiding life for as long as I possibly can. Bring me the contract, I'm ready to sign!