@pgrass - it isn't that I care about his feelings so much as I'd like to avoid being labelled as, 'that prick who quit in six weeks and left me with a position to fill'. Also, and I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, are you seriously suggesting that I shouldn't care about my sister being in the hospital?

@sand_fan - yeah, I figure that's best, just man up and tell him. Hopefully he'll exercise some discretion and release me early from my notice period, though I doubt it.

My situation: I'm teaching at an international school, I'm enjoying the students and the culture. I've adjusted well to the workload and I'm still in my probation period. However, I just found out that my sister's been hospitalised after having her second stroke in a year, that the doctors are seriously concerned that she might have another one and die. My family kept this secret from me for a week because they're concerned about how I'd react but now that I've found out I've discovered that they're really struggling between helping take care of my sister's kids and just dealing with the whole situation.

I'm going home. That's not in question, even if it costs me any chance to work with this company in the future. My family needs help and I'd never forgive myself if I was overseas and something worse happened to my sister.

So, I need to resign. I'm willing to stay for the 30 days notice required in my contract (I don't have a whole lot of choice unless the principal releases me early). How do I tell him without creating too many bad feelings?