NOA: Daegu?

Teehee, so all this time I have been telling people that I am headed to Busan. Busan bound. Beautiful beach town & teaching. Yesterday I figured out that I am not going to Busan but going to Daegu in stead! The news of this switch however came as a big surprise when Jeff got his contract 3.5 hours before me. His stated that he was assigned to Daegu- all I could think was, where the hell am I? So I missed the DHL guy first time around and called him immediately. He told me that he could “probably swing by at 2:30.”

I waited around….

I waited around… unable to concentrate on anything else for more than 10 minutes because I would be looking out the window!!!

Finally, he showed up with a big smile and handed me the envelope. Inside was

1. NOA

2. 2 contracts

3. EPIK packet

4. Visa E-2 form

The beloved DHL package!

NOA: Daegu!

The contract. Half in Korean, half in English.

EPIK information. 5 page packet with lists and websites about getting ready.

So the waiting game is over for receiving real documents from EPIK! Yay! I am just so anxious to see how this all pans out. There was some confusion with my contract and the salary- but that will be cleared up at orientation. Thanks to Joyce for all of her efforts! Hooray! Up next…filling out the Visa E-2 application. This is confusing.

Now that we found out we are going to Daegu, I have been doing a lot of research on the area. It seems really vibrant and beautiful!

Daegu's night skyline.

I found a cute video, it just strolls through Daegu- a quick snap shot!

Patience

It all started in December. December is when I submitted my application to KorVia. Here I am 6 months later and I have;

1. Sumbitted my online application

2. Met with Joyce and Craig

3. Appostilled the shit out of everything

4. Got a letter from the Dean of Education

5. Interviewed

6. Got offered a job

7. Got an email saying that I had a job later… haha

8. Waiting for a contract

It is June 28, 2010. I am still waiting to hear from EPIK about my contract and details about my life haha. I am growing anxious about the year ahead. I have set high standards for myself and my ability to teach let alone teach English. This is coming from the girl who has spelling errors in her blog entries. As I am finishing up this final project that Lana and I are working together on I am feeling more confident about myself. We are compiling a set of 45 English energizers (fun and exciting ways to teach and get students moving and involved) and it is turning out really nice.

Everyday I am researching about other English teachers and their experiences and I have to say- not one experience is like the other. They have similarities of course, but each are so unique it is hard to make any inferences about my future. I kind of like not knowing at this point. I am a person who maps everything out and over thinks each move that the looseness of this experience is just what I need. I need to get out of myself, and feel uncomfortable. I have been comfortable for 24 years-

SO here is to not feeling totally comfortable, to creating a new sense of comfortability and way of life. Here is to a new country, new language and new students. Cheers to NEW.

My friend Christ is in Korea right now teaching, he got there last week. Within three days he had made a handful of friends and had several eye opening experiences. Maybe he will make a wordpress blog that I can follow haha.

Sin Firmar

Grr!!!!!!!!!

Right when I think that it’s all Jeff’s fault for holding up our Visa processing pro-cess. I get an email today.

“We got a message from EPIK that they were doing the visa processing and found that there is signature missing and they are requesting you to send with hand signature on documents as soon as possible..

To make sure the visa processing keep going, you need to send me scanned one first via e-mail and send rest of documents to Korea directly as soon as you can..”

I mean, it only takes like 5 freakin days to send something from Portland Oregon to South Korea!!! ahhh I think all of this work will pay off, and make it so that our trip and school years start off really smooth.

So after a long day of teaching 2nd graders I was running back and forth between the office and my classroom scanning and signing papers! My recruiter received them via e-mail but now I must send the hard copies tomorrow. Sounds easy, but I am sure I will run into some sort of complication. : ) Wish me luck!