Why hello there, journal! It's been awhile.
Like many of my friends from GAC and elsewhere who are abroad this year, I'm trying to keep a journal up and running. Mine must have missed the gunshot at the beginning of the race because this is my first blog from Korea. Oh well, better a month late than never. Let's just hope my blog doesn't turn into the fat kid running the mile in middle school...no one likes to see that, haha!
To kick things off and to try and kill my 4 hours of desk warming today, I thought I would post the long overdue "process of how I got here" post. It's pretty lengthy, so I'm breaking it up into two posts.
_______
So apparently time factors into how much I blog. I told myself I would blog once a week and, well, here we are one month later… It was this way when I was in Sweden as well and the exact opposite of when I was in Italy (I posted every day, like a maniac about details and pictures, which I found was therapeutic at times.). Now with a year abroad ahead of me, my blogging, at this moment, will either crash and burn or it will soar. Let’s hope for the latter since Facebook sometimes just don’t do my life in Korea justice.
I guess the best place to start would be to give a background leading up to my flight to Seoul, Korea.
Back in November 2012 I thought it would be a good idea to start looking for programs for teaching English abroad. Yeah, I wanted to teach Latin, preferably I would like to teach Latin, but the job market just wasn’t there for me nor was the opportunity, so I wrapped my head around the prospect of teaching my native language. Ever since going to Sweden, I’ve not feared living in a country when I don’t know left or right in the country’s language, it only makes me more eager to learn. So I started studying Korean on the side, *very* loosely. I was also finishing up my final year of college, so Korean had to take the backseat to languages like Latin, Greek, Chinese, and Swedish.
Anywho, after researching and talking with a lot of professors at GAC, I decided to throw in my cards for CIEE and teach abroad through their program. I had a few friends who really enjoyed studying abroad with CIEE, so I figured they were a credible recruiter.
Let’s just say, 20/20 hindsight…
After what seemed like a million pages of paperwork, I was accepted into the CIEE ranks and began waiting patiently for graduation so I could send them a copy of my diploma to seal the deal. A few weeks in February, I was notified that EPIK was sending out applications to CIEE and would like for people to try out too. For those who don’t know, EPIK (English Programs in Korea) is the government-run English recruiting program to bring Native Teachers to Korean public schools. CIEE places people in private schools. So to sign up and be accepted by both EPIK and CIEE makes you much more marketable to Korean schools across the board. So taking the leap, and the three day deadline, I typed up my first ever lesson plan for 4th grade English and had Alan proofread my essay over and over; what a trooper!
Then there was silence. For a good month or so, nothing happened. My life was literally suspended in “what if”s and I was a wreck. Many of my friends were settling into their “after Gustavus” plans and lives and here I sat, troubled and over-worked for an end that I had no idea about. It made for a pretty miserable last semester at GAC.
Slowly but surely, after many, MANY phone calls, tears, and frustration-filled evenings, I was sent an email that congratulated me for passing the application process of EPIK. Along with that came a date and a time for a Skype interview. I kept thinking to myself, “Okay, I can do this. I just have to make a good impression and know my stuff.”
The night of the interview came. Alan was off in Bismarck so the apartment was all to me and my proper dress code (I even put on nice socks, even though they would never know). I made it through the interview with good answers, smiles, and some laughs. I thought it had gone pretty well. Seems I was right because one month later, I was formally accepted into EPIK.
Then the gates of hell opened and thousands of documents and sudden deadlines came pouring out in a demonic miasma.
Okay…maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but all in all, that’s how it felt. I was signed up for my ESL teaching classes and took over 140 hours of online classes (not including the writing of lesson plans outside of class for assignments) and then elbowed my way into a ESL volunteer job in Mankato in May (Thank you again, Lincoln Center!!!) and completed my practicum with adult learners.
All of this on top of GAC stress, as is usual. I was working on my senior thesis, which, in the last week of school, went belly up. So all that reading and research I did over J-term, out the window. But that’s okay, I might come back to it someday.
FINALLY GRADUATION CAME AND IT WAS GLORIOUS BUT REALLY HOT OUTSIDE.
After graduation, the stress of being accepted to EPIK only increased as now the final paperwork was due and placement was nigh. I had to take a day-trip up to the capital building in MN because I needed to have my diploma apostilled, a little thing I found out the morning I was going to head back to ND. So that little hitch only made me make 4 panicked phone calls, cry for an hour, have Alan leave work to drive me to St. Paul, and spend $20 dollars. Okay, one less thing to worry about…
…it was only the tip of the iceberg.
Paperwork was stressful and each new document brought a million questions and always on a Friday (can’t call anyone the weekend). So waiting became the norm, along with pacing, and I still didn’t know where in Korea I would be teaching.
On one of my trips to Mankato to see Alan and to attend an anime convention, I received an email that stated my placement as if it was just another weekly update. Daegu. Where?
Quick, Robin! To the Batmobile!
Or in my case, Google.
After googling and reading as much as I could about the 4th largest city in Korea, I was feeling a little better about my placement. I had wanted Seoul, but it’s only 4 hours by the slowest train from Daegu to Seoul. So no hard feelings.
After placement came the visa process which was SO UNEARTHLY FRUSTRATING I DON’T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. UGH. After sending out for my visa and patiently waiting for my passport and other super official documents to come back, I, after many phone calls and personal visits to the post office, found out that my package had been successfully “lost.”
WHAT?
Yup, lost. Long story short, Erica (best friend forever~my sister-not-real-sister!) managed to make me feel better and in that moment, my phone rang and a very excited PO worker told me she was holding my package, 3 days after the package should have arrived (it was an over-nighted package so no “arrival between __-__ days”). We took her car to the sketchy back entrance of the PO and got the document, then went for a few drinks at the Blarney Stone, because even you would agree, I needed and deserved them.
Then a scary feeling settled in among all the joy: I was leaving for Korea in 15 days.
I’ll pick up Part 2 of the process in the next post.
Till then, stay cool, cats ^^
To kick things off and to try and kill my 4 hours of desk warming today, I thought I would post the long overdue "process of how I got here" post. It's pretty lengthy, so I'm breaking it up into two posts.
_______
So apparently time factors into how much I blog. I told myself I would blog once a week and, well, here we are one month later… It was this way when I was in Sweden as well and the exact opposite of when I was in Italy (I posted every day, like a maniac about details and pictures, which I found was therapeutic at times.). Now with a year abroad ahead of me, my blogging, at this moment, will either crash and burn or it will soar. Let’s hope for the latter since Facebook sometimes just don’t do my life in Korea justice.
I guess the best place to start would be to give a background leading up to my flight to Seoul, Korea.
Back in November 2012 I thought it would be a good idea to start looking for programs for teaching English abroad. Yeah, I wanted to teach Latin, preferably I would like to teach Latin, but the job market just wasn’t there for me nor was the opportunity, so I wrapped my head around the prospect of teaching my native language. Ever since going to Sweden, I’ve not feared living in a country when I don’t know left or right in the country’s language, it only makes me more eager to learn. So I started studying Korean on the side, *very* loosely. I was also finishing up my final year of college, so Korean had to take the backseat to languages like Latin, Greek, Chinese, and Swedish.
Anywho, after researching and talking with a lot of professors at GAC, I decided to throw in my cards for CIEE and teach abroad through their program. I had a few friends who really enjoyed studying abroad with CIEE, so I figured they were a credible recruiter.
Let’s just say, 20/20 hindsight…
After what seemed like a million pages of paperwork, I was accepted into the CIEE ranks and began waiting patiently for graduation so I could send them a copy of my diploma to seal the deal. A few weeks in February, I was notified that EPIK was sending out applications to CIEE and would like for people to try out too. For those who don’t know, EPIK (English Programs in Korea) is the government-run English recruiting program to bring Native Teachers to Korean public schools. CIEE places people in private schools. So to sign up and be accepted by both EPIK and CIEE makes you much more marketable to Korean schools across the board. So taking the leap, and the three day deadline, I typed up my first ever lesson plan for 4th grade English and had Alan proofread my essay over and over; what a trooper!
Then there was silence. For a good month or so, nothing happened. My life was literally suspended in “what if”s and I was a wreck. Many of my friends were settling into their “after Gustavus” plans and lives and here I sat, troubled and over-worked for an end that I had no idea about. It made for a pretty miserable last semester at GAC.
Slowly but surely, after many, MANY phone calls, tears, and frustration-filled evenings, I was sent an email that congratulated me for passing the application process of EPIK. Along with that came a date and a time for a Skype interview. I kept thinking to myself, “Okay, I can do this. I just have to make a good impression and know my stuff.”
The night of the interview came. Alan was off in Bismarck so the apartment was all to me and my proper dress code (I even put on nice socks, even though they would never know). I made it through the interview with good answers, smiles, and some laughs. I thought it had gone pretty well. Seems I was right because one month later, I was formally accepted into EPIK.
Then the gates of hell opened and thousands of documents and sudden deadlines came pouring out in a demonic miasma.
Okay…maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but all in all, that’s how it felt. I was signed up for my ESL teaching classes and took over 140 hours of online classes (not including the writing of lesson plans outside of class for assignments) and then elbowed my way into a ESL volunteer job in Mankato in May (Thank you again, Lincoln Center!!!) and completed my practicum with adult learners.
All of this on top of GAC stress, as is usual. I was working on my senior thesis, which, in the last week of school, went belly up. So all that reading and research I did over J-term, out the window. But that’s okay, I might come back to it someday.
FINALLY GRADUATION CAME AND IT WAS GLORIOUS BUT REALLY HOT OUTSIDE.
After graduation, the stress of being accepted to EPIK only increased as now the final paperwork was due and placement was nigh. I had to take a day-trip up to the capital building in MN because I needed to have my diploma apostilled, a little thing I found out the morning I was going to head back to ND. So that little hitch only made me make 4 panicked phone calls, cry for an hour, have Alan leave work to drive me to St. Paul, and spend $20 dollars. Okay, one less thing to worry about…
…it was only the tip of the iceberg.
Paperwork was stressful and each new document brought a million questions and always on a Friday (can’t call anyone the weekend). So waiting became the norm, along with pacing, and I still didn’t know where in Korea I would be teaching.
On one of my trips to Mankato to see Alan and to attend an anime convention, I received an email that stated my placement as if it was just another weekly update. Daegu. Where?
Quick, Robin! To the Batmobile!
Or in my case, Google.
After googling and reading as much as I could about the 4th largest city in Korea, I was feeling a little better about my placement. I had wanted Seoul, but it’s only 4 hours by the slowest train from Daegu to Seoul. So no hard feelings.
After placement came the visa process which was SO UNEARTHLY FRUSTRATING I DON’T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. UGH. After sending out for my visa and patiently waiting for my passport and other super official documents to come back, I, after many phone calls and personal visits to the post office, found out that my package had been successfully “lost.”
WHAT?
Yup, lost. Long story short, Erica (best friend forever~my sister-not-real-sister!) managed to make me feel better and in that moment, my phone rang and a very excited PO worker told me she was holding my package, 3 days after the package should have arrived (it was an over-nighted package so no “arrival between __-__ days”). We took her car to the sketchy back entrance of the PO and got the document, then went for a few drinks at the Blarney Stone, because even you would agree, I needed and deserved them.
Then a scary feeling settled in among all the joy: I was leaving for Korea in 15 days.
I’ll pick up Part 2 of the process in the next post.
Till then, stay cool, cats ^^