Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (Orientation)

September 26, 2013

It's me! As you know, I met up with Mr. H when my flight had a layover in San Francisco. We sat together on the plane to South Korea and kept each other busy on such a loooooong flight (12 hours). I even had to break out the UNO cards. Once we landed in Incheon and found our way to the arrival section, I looked around but no Alistair. Mr. H saw him first which was good because it would have taken me a while to find him considering he did not look exactly how I imagined. So, we sat down and met a couple of the other people waiting. Not too long later, Alistair took Mr. H and most of the other people back to the guesthouse. This process continued for 5 hours!….excuse me, but I just want to take a nap! I continued to wait and Alistair said that because of the way the guesthouse is situated, I was in a certain part that was different from the other people who got to leave before me. He wanted people in the same area to take the shuttle together. On top of that we were told that we would be sharing rooms and my roommate got there the day before (so I could pretty much expect someone who has already made themselves at home). The good thing is that I got to meet a lot of the other teachers at the airport. So finally, when it was my turn to go, we get there and guess what?! The guesthouse is just one large building lol! There were no separate sections or crazy order to it, so I was confused why I had to wait for so long because we were all in the same building. I stepped into the room and as I expected, my roommate had made herself real comfortable. She had already washed clothes and had them laid out on this large drying rack in front of the free bed. Wellll…

Then it was dinner time around an hour later but all I wanted to do was sleep. Funny though, that once the food was put in front of me I became hungry. I had a pork cutlet, which was good! I was not expecting to have Korean food so soon…I wanted to ween myself into it but here goes! After dinner, I actually talked to my roommate and she seemed pretty cool. She was from New Zealand (but Filipino). I forgot about that country existing because I never hear about it so I was like "ohhhh….yea, cool."

The next morning we had breakfast (at the same place), which I did not eat because they had an amended menu and it's going to take me a while to think of lunch/dinner food as breakfast! I went to the convenience store and grabbed a rice meat roll thingy. Then, it was on to the new hotel for the IMOE Orientation. Goodbye Guesthouse!

Guess what the new hotel was….A Ramada (surprise surprise) in Songdo! I did not think they would have a Ramada in Korea. Alistair said his goodbyes and we got our room assignments and met our new roommates. This time she was from somewhere I know…North Carolina!

 

For lunch, a bunch of us went searching around town for a good place to eat lunch. I had bulgogi for the first time which was good but in a kind of soup where I burnt my tongue. After that day everything started to taste the same and be unsatisfying (but that could have been the fact that most of it was soup). After settling in the room after lunch I took a nap (was knocked out) but dinner was supposed to be at a certain time. Just like me, I woke up at exactly the time dinner was supposed to start and my roommate was still sleeping too! We raced to put on "smart casual" clothes and go to dinner. My first day and I am already late to something! At dinner we met the other english teachers who came through the EPIK program.

 

The rest of orientation pretty much went: 1. breakfast, 2. long lecture, 3. lunch, 4. long lecture, 5. dinner, 6. long lecture. It was only different on the day we had the health check and the day we had the tour. The tour was the best day! My group had three tour guides and we went to Wolmido, which had an amusement park. Two of my guides, Lee Boram and Jeong Hyewon, I still keep in contact with through KakaoTalk (since I don't have phone service yet). They were all scared to get on the rides so I convinced Hyewon to face her fears and ride Disco Pang Pang! This ride made no sense and was like a large skillet that shakes people up. We had dinner after the tour with a host family, which was the best since I have been in Korea and soooo much food!

On a side note, Mr. H started to slowly disappear (make new friends) by the end of orientation. I thought I made a close friend, Miss Love, but by the end of orientation she also became cold and stand-offish.The last thing she said was, "We had fun last night. You should have came?" What? I don't remember being invited anywhere! Do I have some sort of friend repellant on?!

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (All About My Decision)

September 25, 2013

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!

The last week at home…..
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…..