[flist hearts] seasons are weird and I miss them

[kwritten]

Today I very officially told the people who need to know that I'm not staying in Thailand for a third year. This decision makes me inconsolably angry in ways that I can't hardly explain.

Comments

[ceciliaj]

I hate that you're sad about leaving the job (but you know, you could easily be employed in Korea by the start of the new semester), but I loooove that you've finally fallen for Bella -- she is fab.

Here are some things to look forward to in Korea:
1) if you are in the public school system, no American coworkers! That's right! I actually don't know if I can bear to work with native English speakers again -- I love having all my communications with coworkers be through gestures and feeding each other fruit and rice cakes.

2)teenage girls who are just as precious and teenage-girl like as your current students, I guarantee it. they are so effing cute, and also crazy and loud and dramatic and sweet and moody, it's perfect.

3) a language you can actually learn a little bit of -- don't get me wrong, I hardly have any korean, but just being able to read it is pretty fun (the alphabet is phonetic, as you probably know)

4) endless new, fun, colorful foods to delight in

5) a super-safe country in terms of street crime, violent crime, etc

Come on in, the weather's fine! I mean, the weather is rife with cross-cultural misunderstandings and occasional rodent infestations, but it's all worth it.

[kwritten]

I love my babies so much, every day is like a stab wound straight to the chest thinking that I won't see them this time next year.

To be fair, I've loved Bella for a while - but I'm finally reading her book(s) on her terms instead of going in with my hackles up. You know?

Korea:
I love having all my communications with coworkers be through gestures and feeding each other fruit and rice cakes. OMG YOU UNDERSTAND ME *SOBS FOREVER* My favorite coteacher and I rarely ever speak even though she's fluent. Lots of giggles and arm-patting.

I really do want to look into Korea. Who did you go through to find the job? I'll be back Stateside in late March - should I be talking to someone before then? or can I wait until I get home?

I'm coming! I'm coming!

[ceciliaj]

You don't need to rush to talk to anyone, but I would absolutely start researching. Teaching in Korea really rewards good preparation, I would say, especially because both western recruiters and Korean schools will tell you everything at the absolute last minute. By researching I mean reading message boards populated by current teachers (waygook, Dave's ESL cafe), to get a feel for the landscape, and also understanding your options -- public schools vs hagwons, etc.

The thing you'll want to start doing as soon as you get back to the U.S. is assembling your documents. For every job in Korea as far as I know, you need a full criminal background check from the FBI, notarized by a local authority, an apostilled copy of your diploma, two official undergraduate transcripts (one to send in with your job application, one to send in with your visa application), oh, and a lot of Korean passport-sized photos. It might seem weird to get the paperwork before you even know what job you want, but because they all require the same thing, it actually makes sense.

You will absolutely get a job here (people told me that, but I didn't believe them), and so you want to be as choosy as you can about which one it is. You have TEFL experience, which is a really good thing -- for most people here, Korea is their first stop on the TEFL train, although a few in my orientation had done maybe a summer program in Thailand, and one couple had done a year in China. Oh and actually one couple had taught in Prague for a year. You are at the top of the well-qualified spectrum, for sure, but Korea is a good deal in terms of hours and money (especially wrt cost of living), and so a lot of people are coming here.

Let me know if you have any questions! If you find, in your research, that you are interested in the public school system (9-5 hours, 12 month contract, you will probably get middle school again), then let me know, and I can give you more detailed information about that -- at which point I will encourage you to come to Jeollanamdo. (You should probably know going in that Seoul just eliminated pretty much all foreign teachers in the public schools, so if your heart's set on Seoul, you'll have to go the hagwon/private academy route...which can mean more money, but they are sketchier and there's less bureaucracy in place to help you if something goes wrong.)

[ceciliaj]

Oh and I assume this is irrelevant, but you will have to take a comprehensive drug test when you arrive in Korea, so I was super careful about being around secondhand pot smoke. I probably didn't need to be, based on what other people in my orientation were saying, but better safe than sorry.