It's me! I made it safely to Korea. It's day 1 and I am excited to meet the other English teachers, see the nearby sights and start orientation. I am so glad that I found my recruiter, Alistair Wery, with Korean Horizons. You know I had more obstacles in my way than most of the other teachers here, including renting out my house, and continuing to pay major bills like car insurance and my student loans, and the fact that I had no real teaching experience with young students. I quickly learned how selective the process was to teach in Korea when I started applying to recruiters and the EPIK program. EPIK may have turned me down but I kept trying and realized that was not the only way to go. Jumping from being a graphic designer (glued to my computer screen and rarely communicating with people) to a real teacher still has not hit me. I know once the first day of class comes, I will feel it and want to run. The change will be one of the hardest and scariest, especially for my introverted personality. I was not nervous or scared about moving to another country on the other side of the world but I am about teaching!It was just a small idea that popped in my head after watching so many Korean TV dramas and realizing they have real trouble speaking English…understandable English. So I thought, if the big celebrity stars of South Korea can't speak English well, who can? So, yes, it all started with Korean TV dramas. At the time, you know that I was facing a layoff at my job, so I briefly looked into teaching English in Korea but it continued to stay in my mind. I continued to research about it more and more and found great websites that explained the whole process. Once I graduated from Full Sail University with my MFA, it was on! I decided to concentrate fully on trying to teach English in South Korea. In February, I gathered my documents to get my Bachelor's diploma and FBI Criminal Record Check apostilled. By March, I received the documents back apostilled and paid for my in-class and online TEFL classes. (Yet another class…) I completed the TEFL in-class course in April and met some great people that were also going to Korea. One, we'll call Mr.H and another we'll call Domi were people that I especially kept in contact with. Ironically, Mr.H was recruited for the same province as me and used the same recruiter (but we'll get into that later).
By May, I was applying and interviewing for teaching jobs in both South Korea and Taiwan. Taiwan was on my list because I also watch a lot of Taiwanese dramas and they have tropical weather. Although their English on the dramas were not nearly as bad as the actors in Korean dramas, I felt that by watching I was able to see various parts of how the country looked and their mannerisms. I eventually realized the benefits of working in South Korea greatly outweighed Taiwan and honed my focus back on South Korea. In May, I also started volunteering at Language ETC in Dupont Circle, DC. By the end of July, I completed my online TESOL course and volunteer teaching for the Spring 2013 semester. Then, I found Alistair through his job posting on Dave's ESL Cafe. He was super efficient which had me running around to gather all my materials to give to him. I had to get another apostilled FBI Criminal Record Check because the first one was about to expire and get my Master's notarized and apostilled. Other than that, it was a smooth relationship. Fast forward to September and here I am. I completed 5 years at NACDL and was sad to leave but glad that they were understanding and supportive. I found tenants (no matter how bad one may be) and I paid down as much debt as I could or paid them through to the end of the year. So now, let the experience begin!
I felt like there was not enough time in the world to do all the things I wanted to do before I left home. There were still people I wanted to see, places I wanted to go and things I wanted to do (like start a vlog!). All in all, it was great to round out the week with a beautiful dinner with family and friends. I am still waiting to see pictures that everyone took at the dinner because like a doofus I did not take any. So, I am still waiting…..
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