Still in the Visa Process

Well, I sent all my documents to the school in Korea on Friday and they called to say they recieved them on Sunday night (my time obviously) and had submitted them to immigration. It should take between 10 and 12 days for them to process the documents and get me a reference number. Then I send a form with $45 to the Korean Consulate with my passport and wait 2-3 days for them to process it. Then the visa shall be completed. I'm looking forward to the completion of the paperwork, but I still have so much to do before I leave. I still need to...

• have a garage sale to get rid of my stuff.
• sew items
• pack
• buy larger bag
• take Luna in for final health certificate
• Get all paperwork together
• buy toilettries and other incidentals for the plane.
• Get my hair highlighted again.
• Pay off all my bills
• donate items that don't sell in the garage sale
• Get my teeth worked on some more
• Go to the doctor to get some booster shots
• start taking my allergy medicine
• get another eye exam
• order renewels for contacts if necessary
• and take the Capstone next week (this will probably take a lot of time from next week)
• Whew, I suppose I'll just have to get it done.

I so need a unique title for this blog

I mean Korea, Korea, Korea gets the point across, but I'd really like to use some title with a bit more pizazz. Hmmm. Let me try some ideas out.

• Bundang and Loving It
• Prepare to be Korea'd
• In the Seoul of my Life
• Bundang Man
• My Korean ESL Teaching Blog Thing
• Teaching English in Bundang
• Texan in Bundang
• Texas Transplant
• Texas Teacher in Korea
• Korea in all its Glory
• Seeing the World, or at Least Korea
• My and My Dog in Bundang
• Living in Bundang
• Luna, Me, and Bundang
• Trekkie in Bundang, Korea
• Trekkie Seoul
• Bundang is Actually Outside of Seoul
• Stranger in Bundang
• Mormon in Korea
• LDS ESL Teacher in Korea
• Single in Bundang

Anyway people, tell me what you think, please.

Sue sent me apartment pics today...

The director of the school from which I accepted a job offer sent me pictures of the apartment this morning. I'm really happy because when I looked at the studio apartment, it doesn't seem too small. I can see myself and Luna living there and I can visualize decorating it. Now that I have this visualization, I can create the apartment on Sims 2, lol. Now the pics are from the teachers currently there, so my apartment will be different. I will be in an officetel if that makes sense to anyone. Anyway, I really hope they don't offer me an apartment on the first floor. Luna would go crazy with people walking by all the time and seriously annoy my neighbors. I don't think Luna will have a problem with housebreaking in Korea if I take her out in the morning, after work, and before bed.

Now I don't really feel too comfortable posting pics of other people's apartments on the web, so I'm not going to post the pics of the apartments until I get into one and can take pics, but it looks like just about any other officetel. Anyone got any ideas on how to spruce it up?

Family and the Transition

So what does my family say? Some of you may not worry about what your family thinks of your actions, but I love them and want them to think well of me. The first time I talked about this in 2004, my Dad was pretty anti. 'Armpit of the world' is what he called Korea. He still calls it that, but I can tell he's more ready to consider the idea because he didn't go on and on. I told them my decision and they asked me if I was sure and why and have pretty much left it at that. Oh, except they've researched it and asked me questions about the job I accepted to make sure I had the answers. My sisters have also been pretty supportive. When I told one of them about it, she mentioned her boss was Korean and that she would ask her about it. It is still weird how many people have done this. For example, I talked to the Big Brothers Big Sisters guy about my leaving and he mentioned one of the other coordinators has done it and even gave me that guy's extension. Still haven't called 'cause I was on a tour and more interested in conversating with the people around me.

Okay, so back to the family. I still haven't told the extended family and one reason could be the cousin who found out yesterday. He said I should look for a good man and settle down and not go gallivanting around the world. Hurumph, there are men in Korea. He doesn't seem to believe me on that. I'm hoping the rest of my relatives have moer positive reactions, but they cannot deter me. I know this is the right decision for me at this time in my life.

Leaving your old job...

I've never had to really quit a job before. With my other jobs its been a case of, we new you were leaving now and will miss you. With my current one, I will be giving notice and saying goodbye and being kinda bummed. Even though I've accepted that position in Bundang, I haven't given my notice yet because one of my coworkers finished last week and I decided to wait until the new semester starts before I give notice. It's still more than 30 days notice after all. I'll probably stop working around February 16th or something.

Well, now that I've made the decision to leave, things that never bothered me have begun to bother me. For example, I have a coworker who is a nice woman, but it seems like everything she says right now is getting on my nerves. We had an incident right before the break and were put into lockdown and there are 5 of us at the desk to manage things. I sat at the circ desk for about 30 minutes, but I'd promised an instructor I'd send her some articles the day before, so I needed to work on that. So I told this coworker(whose job it is to man the circ desk), that I needed to finish the email and couldn't stay at the desk and maintain the lockdown, so she needed to stay there instead of running about. She said fine. but then went off again and I ignored it and kept working on my email. Some students got out and she blames me (nothing happened here, it was a threat against another campus) and snarks now that some people were no help at all. Okay, so now I've got that off my chest.

Other stuff she does and other coworkers do that never bothered me before is seriously getting on my nerves now. I don't know how I'm going to last a month and hold my tougue. I suppose this is because I'm no longer emotionally invested in the whole thing. There's currently a conflict going on between my two bosses and both want to get me on their sides (pertains to weeding at the library) and I reckon I will be happy to be out of it when I leave.

Also, I foudn my diploma yesterday (dances in a circle), this should save at least a few weeks from the time table of getting the visa. Now I need the transcript (requested) and the criminal record check (also requested, but also needs to be apostillized). I wonder if I can request a specific flight from the recruiter. I really want a nonstop flight and there is one per day and the one on the 21th of February only has 33 seats left, but the recruiter won't buy the ticket until ?I submit all my documentation. I may be worrying for nothing though. :)

Hello, ya'll

I'm Sallie and preparing to go to the Bundang area outside of Seoul to teach English for a year at the PSA YSA(I think that's right and will update later) I should get into Seoul around February 25, 29008.

Now why have I created this blog?
Because I want to share my experiences. I have a feeling that in 10 years I'm going to laugh about this and I want to be able to remember the little details of this experience and have never been very good about writing in print journals, but do much better with blogging.

So what's happened so far?
I'm currently a librarian at a junior college and got the last week of December off(with pay :)). This allowed me to do a lot of thinking. You see, I finish my Masters in Library and Information Science in the first week of February and have to give a talk at church on the 10th of February. All this thinking has led me to conclude that the best option for me right now is to go to Korea to teach English for a year. I've wanted to do this since I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in English in 2004, but hesitated and decided to go to Worland, WY with Americorps VISTA isntead. I'd also considered going to Ireland to get a Masters in Archival Science, and I thought about going back to AFRC and living in Germany for a year and doing the whole housekeeper thing again.

Well, AFRC was good when I was 20, but I'm 26 now and needed a job that looked a little better on a resume then housekeeping. This means I decided teaching would sound good. So this was my mindset, boredom and the certainty that I can't stay where I'm at forever. I make $12,000 less now than I will when I get my degree. I think they are expecting me to quit now that I'm so close to finishing my degree, and have been telling me how happy they are I'm here and how much they look forward to me staying, but I can't stay for what they will pay. I need to pay off my loans, afford to live on my own, and put something into retirement.

So teaching English will be my break job before I look for a longer term job in libraries. Then I decided to pray about it to see if this is really what I need to do. So I got down on my hands and knees and prayed and felt nothing really at first, so I kept at it for several days and began to feel the spirit more and I'm now at peace with my decision. I know this is the right thing for me right now. Yay. :)

Beginning the Process

Well, the first thing I did was look at blogs. Now, I researched this pretty extensively back in 2004 and have recieved regular emails from Dave's ESL Cafe of jobs since then so I started with looking for more first hand info. After viewing some blogs, I went to the cafe and looked at the forums. While looking at the blogs, I also heard of Worknplay Global. they really do have a lot of job, but you do have to register before you see details of the jobs. Looking at all the jobs gave me an idea of what is normal for a beginning teacher right now. That is single furninshed accomadation and 2.1-2.1 Mil and less than 8 hours a day of work. With this in mind I started wondering where I would like to work.

Korea is so big, where should I go?
This is what I spent a lot of time thinking about. Although I never seriously considered any place outside of Seoul or Busan. Since I've never lived in a big city, I've gravitated toward Seoul to give me the big vity experience. I also want Seoul because the only LDS English speaking non-military ward is in Seoul, the Seodaemon region specifically. I wouldn't mind going to a military ward(totally single btw ;)) but since there is an English speaking ward, I may as well go there, and the military ward in Seoul should be disbanding soon since they are moving out of Seoul and giving the base to the Koreans.

I keep hearing about the pollution in Seoul as well and that gets me thinking of breathing it in everyday, so I started looking at more of the suburbs. This is also since I'm bringing my dog. I heard on the Facebook group that Bundang is a good region and searched the forums at eslcafe.com and they agreed. Bundang is a rich suburb with parks. Exactly what I'm looking for. This leads me to consider the dog issue.

Should I bring my dog?

Doesn't look too happy in this pic with my sister, does she?

This issue has bothered me a lot and asked about it at forums and Yahoo answers. I love my dog and worry about her when I've had to leave her with others and cannot imagine leaving her behind. :( I've heard both good and bad things about bringing dogs to Korea. It should be really easy with some prep work to being her here and back to the US without a quarantine. Although, I'm sure she will not be happy about the plane ride or the studio apartment.

So, I've heard about the eating dogs thing and the lost dog thing, meaning that most lost dogs stay lost. I will have to be really careful of Luna so this doesn't happen and introduce crating to her. She's never been crated before and I worry whether she will ever like it. I've bought a classic kennel from Petco for $70 bucks and have been feeding her meals in it. I think I'll just giver her the food for 3 weeks in the crate before even trying to close it. She really does not like the crate, but she does like peanut butter and so I've smeared it on the crate to get her tempted by it and it works. Before the peanut butter, she would not eat from the crate. I suppose if I'd waited a few days, she would have, but peanut butter worked and now she will certainly eat from it.

I also need to work on her training. She needs to learn heel and come before we enter a foreign country.

So now I knew where to look, but what about finding a job?
After I decided where I wanted to look for a job, I posted a resume at Worknplay and the eslcafe and was innundated with recruiters. I know some people will tell you not to go through a recruiter, but there were very few schools who post jobs. So I interviewed for 3 jobs, only one was in Bundang and the others were in Gangnam. Many people will also tell you to interview a lot, but the job in Bundang was exactly what I was looking for. I spoke with the director for 1 hour and she explained their discipline policies, how the classes work, vacation and leave, accomodation. She also emailed me the contact information for a couple of teachers there and I'm exchanged several emails with them and they seem really nice.

Where will I work?
I've considered for a day(I know not long, but I usually make snap decisions that may be wonderful or horrid(re: my first apartment)) and decided to accept the position in Bundang at a Hagwon(private school). It's a PSA YSA I think, maybe the acronyms are a bit different, or not. I've seen pictures of the school and the surrounding area. The director gave me the optioni of living further from campus, or living in a new apartment closer, but for the new apartment, they would deduct 50,000 won from my salary. I think I will tell them to get me the closer apartment because it will seriously save me on time and effort in a very foreign country.

The Visa Process
Those who have been reseraching this know that there are some new regs concerning the E-2 visa. I guess this is just a few more hoops to jump through. Okay, so yesterday I went to IBT solutions to get a criminal background check. It costs $25 and this is who does the official background checks for the state of Texas. It shouldn't take more than a week for that. I also need to have a medical checkup and that's scheduled for next week. The only problem with getting the visa for me is that I cannot find my diploma and had to send out for it. I need to get it in the next couple of weeks I think for the visa process. Bummer.

Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow about the process so far.