3rd year JET here and feeling more lost now than ever before about re-contracting. Simply put, I don’t want to re-contract. I’m ready to do something else in my life. But due to my current circumstances and financial situation, I feel that I really have no other choice at the current moment but to re-contract. (Which is exactly how things were for me last year too. Nothing has changed. )
My deadline to give an answer about re-contracting is next week. But I’m just not ready to give that answer yet. I’ve applied for some new opportunities back home for next fall, but I’m still waiting on some really important information about all that so I have nothing concrete yet. So my question is this, I guess.
If I re-contract but decide later next year to break contract, what are truely the consequences of that decision? Am I unable to ever work with JET and/or Japan in general again? Will I be completely unable to use my employer here of the past 3 years as a reference for other language teaching jobs? Would I owe anyone money or lose my pension earnings? What exactly are the *real* consequences of breaking contract?
I really, really don’t want to break contract. But I also don’t want to not re-contract and then suddenly not have anything to go back home to. I need the the security of resigning. But at this point, I’m just feeling really overwhelmed by the commitment of it too. I love Japan and I love my job, but I know that I’m ready to move on and do something else somewhere else.