Korea Somewhat Interrupted

Hi, guys. I am UNBELIEVABLY tired, because it's been a very hectic day despite my no longer having a job. Let's go over what happened, also because I am a bit too rattled to go to sleep at the moment.

This morning, a friend took me to Choongdae, the local university, so that we could book our individual flights. I had a samgeokkimbap for breakfast. I booked my flight to Japan for a very good price of around $350. Then he and I went to get omerice for brunch.

Then, I went back to the animal hospital to get the rabies certification for my cat Eugene. Even though I wanted to take him on the flight with me, there are two layovers for the cheapest flight, so I don't want him to suffer much. I buckled and emailed the Pet Airlines guy to pick him up on the 27th. While I am in Japan, my yoga teacher will be taking care of him for a week.

After that, I decided to ship a suitcase at the post office, but of course, found out once again that they won't ship suitcases (especially not by sea) if it's over 20kg. So I ended up having to take everything out of my suitcase and put it into 2 boxes they supplied, and the sum came to about $73.

Being very pleased with having booked the flight for Japan, I booked the hostel too, all 7 nights, and wrote down the directions from the airport to the hostel. As I was trying to book my flight home to Boston, I got distracted because there's a woman who wants to take some of the furniture off my hands.

So I attempt to go meet her at 5, but then her schedule intervened, and I wandered around Shinae instead, putting together this Greek/classical outfit for no reason other than vanity. It all cost about $130. But first, I had a blueberry cream cheese waffle and Earl Gray tea for lunch. Then I went home for a while and was facebooking. Then I went to go meet the woman who wants furniture. I remember thinking, I spent a lot of time at Choongdae's front gate today, while drinking a small size aloe juice.

She came by, she's very friendly and talkative. We went back to my apartment, and she wanted all the things she said she would, so I helped her take the bookshelf, bookcase and water kettle to her apartment. We had to dismantle the bookshelf a bit first. I also gave her quick dried food I knew I wasn't going to finish. And a 3-meter ethernet wire. We got to talking, and she's also from Boston. I miss Boston. We got a cab back to her place, which is very far on the other side of town. She gave me $10 for the taxi home, and I was grateful.

Then I went outside and took the bus. But the bus was the last bus and stopped only at the bus rest stop where they all go at the end of the night. I got off, but I had no idea where I was. I remember the lady talking about it, and I am very much at the east end of town. I walked for about 15-20 min. before I could find a taxi. I was so relieved when I did, because I was getting hungry again. Most of the food I had had all day were snacks. I bumped into the head teacher who helped fire me when I got home, and I told him life is awesome without TOPIA.

When I got home, one of my photographers asked me to register with Forever 21 the Korean site, so I did that fumblingly, while trying to finish booking my flight home. In the few hours I was gone, the price had gone up $200! @.@ So then I finished booking my flight home - because it was still cheaper than the other prices, even the price at Choongdae. Then I registered for a familiar clothing store - in a foreign language.

After that, I realized there were huge holes in my plans to paraglide with my friends on the 16th, so I called the company again to fix those holes, and now there is much more information. But I still faltered and kind of freaked out in front of my friends. I emailed my mother and sister about the cat. I plotted out the rest of my schedule with my Australian Korean BFF, and we're going to some herb gardens tomorrow, with something as yet unknown for Wednesday. Because I'm meeting her tomorrow about 9ish around her apartment, I should go to sleep now.

It will be a deep sleep. Zzzzz....

A Taste of Chaos

Do you think it's lucky or a misfortune that SeoCheongju TOPIA gives me so much to write about? After the last post in which I thought I was going to be fired, more strange events have been happening at my work place. Thankfully, this news has nothing directly to do with me.

This past Monday was a very hectic work day, because both the head teacher and another teacher were out, both due to illness. I imagine some people had to cover the second teacher's classes, and the academy owner himself covered the head teacher's classes. This doesn't mean that the owner actually taught, mind you. He just took all the classes to the second floor to have them sit in the computer lab and do their online homework. He said that teachers shouldn't bring their kids down to the computer lab while he's conducting classes there (in Korean). It wasn't until after another teacher told me directly what he said that I understood he meant me.

In this back drop, the real story happened during seventh period. By eighth period, we were told no kids were allowed on the second floor because of something that happened. While most people were teaching, apparently the father of one of our lower level students stormed in with his wife to talk to the teenager's homeroom teacher. Two teachers went to talk to him, one male and one female. Whatever they said to him must not have satisfied him, because he took one of the academy owner's trophies and cut himself accidentally while smashing it. When I came back from class to sit down and try to plan the next day, a different female teacher told me that she was commanded to clean up the blood that the father had smeared everywhere. A male teacher helped her. She said that the father was really crazy. When one of the receptionists had me leave, the father was red faced, pushing past the vice academy owner demanding to see the male teacher who had initially went to talk to him. The teacher went out reluctantly, full of fury at the lower level student.

Then I was instructed to go monitor the same class that the lower level kid belonged to. I told them that nothing was really happening, but that they were to continue to do their own work independently. When I offered to help anyone who asked, a group of three boys had me help them do a crossword puzzle that was part of their reading class homework. I led them on, giving them small hints here and there for them to figure out since they couldn't do it using the clues the book provided alone. At the end, the atmosphere of the class was much more relaxed, and those three boys finished their crossword puzzles. One of the receptionists came in to pass out the academy announcements for April, which included tuition fees information and such. When the bell rang, we were all glad that the day was over.

Today, the father came again to negotiate with the academy owner - with a friend, in a suit. According to the head teacher, he had filed a complaint to the Board of Education against TOPIA. He said that none of the teachers at TOPIA paid much attention to his son, and that none of us can teach. Therefore, someone from the Board came by to do an inspection. Before the man came to inspect, however, the head teacher ushered a Canadian male teacher, an American Korean female teacher and I into the break/meeting room to tell us that we must leave the premises until the vice academy owner calls and tells us to come back. The reason for this is that we three were, for some reason, not registered as TOPIA teachers in the paperwork for the Board of Education. So the three of us leave and head to a coffee shop to talk for an hour.

Everything is fine when we come back. There may still be a lawsuit between TOPIA and that parent. Oh, and I'm not getting fired. I pressed the head teacher to give me the details of the "final warning letter" and he wrote out that I just got the letter because the academy owner gestured and supposedly told me to go calm down a crying child who failed a test, but since he was gesturing and not saying anything, I misunderstood -  not to mention at that time, I didn't yet know why the child was crying, because I asked her and she kept crying and refused to talk to me. I only found out later because one of her classmates told me. Basically, as long as I keep my head down and give the academy owner no reason to think that I'm deliberately disobeying him, I'm good to go. They also really need people, because the turnover rate is so high.

This means that I'm going to attempt to stay for the rest of the six months and then decide what to do from there.

The Bell Tolls - Korea, Round Two, Fight!

Driving to Cheongju took 4 hrs, mainly because there was some traffic due to an accident along the way. The former coteacher put on a Korean American radio station, which narrated in English but mixed in some old Korean songs. When reception ran out, he put on a tape about how foreigners view Koreans that was still sympathetic to the Koreans. I feel like there should be more literature telling the natives here how to deal with foreigner presence, because people have run away from me because I was speaking English before.

The Cheongju Express Bus Terminal was next to a building called Dream Plus, and it was tiny. The waiting area only had roughly 8 benches. I sat down to surf around on the netbook using Samsung wi-fi while waiting for my recruiter John Yoon, mentioned before here. I spoke to an old American tourist couple in the meantime about the crafts fair that happens here every year the last two weeks of September. Mr. Yoon arrived maybe an hour and a half later - I was really early despite the traffic - and he called my employer after greetings.

The owner of the private academy turned out to be a short skinny and well intentioned man, Mr. Min. We went straight to TOPIA, where he and Mr. Yoon talked for a bit, and I was introduced to my two handlers, Alex and Yvonne. They're both nice and very businesslike women. Yvonne is more outgoing than Alex, and I assume more high ranking as well. When I start teaching, I'm going to spend a few hours on that website everyday, entering homework assignments, readings and student grades.

Afterwards, they showed me my apartment - which was happily less than ten minutes walking away from my work place, and only a few minutes walking to two bus stops as well. It had security, was convenient, definitely big enough... but had absolutely no furniture save the bed. I need to walk around and familiarize myself with the area anyway, but this forces me to go out since I need furniture to put clothes in. Yvonne and Mr. Min did say that they'd provide me with a desk, which they followed up on about a week later, and they bought me a chair to go with it, as well as an end table and a mirror, as well. Anyway, that day they told me to rest, and that two hours later, I should eat dinner with Yvonne and Mr. Min.

As was practical, I spent the two hours setting up my bed, letting my cat roam the apartment, and putting all my necessaries in the bathroom. Then I went to eat dinner with my superiors. Mr. Min is a nice guy who has some grasp of English, but mainly relies on Yvonne to do his speaking for him. She is a powerful woman - short, skinny, pretty and very charismatic. It's hard not to like her, and it's people like her that make you want to work for a company, even if it's a corporate franchise - and every corporation in the U.S. and Korea practically comes with a warning label.

After dinner, she wants to see how I'm living, so we talked for a bit more in my apartment. She seemed satisfied and left, but two hours later I discovered that the gas had not been turned on, and I'd be too cold to take a shower. When I called her about it, she came to investigate immediately - if you're working for someone who works that hard herself, how could I bear to disappoint? She called the gas company, and they said that this apartment doesn't have an account currently, so they'll fix it the next day. She was irritated at it, and I said that was fine, except that I felt really dirty. She was nice enough to let me stay at a hotel for the night and shower there, though I hadn't unpacked anything so I still couldn't arrive in nice clothes the next day.

After the first day of observation, they asked me how it was and I gave them my initial impressions. They seemed happy to know that I'm somewhat comfortable with it. They also told me to dress more formally, which in my head translated to "Try harder." I guess it was reasonable, since I was in a long sleeved plain tee without makeup and had on trainers (long exercise pants). The next day, I wore a short dress with black tights with a long pendant necklace as per Korean fashion, and also put in my contact lenses. The way people viewed and treated me differently was very immediate. I was no longer invisible; it was like I materialized out of thin air.

I got to know my coworkers' names not only from introductions, but also from having to observe their classes. I noted the differences in each of their teaching styles, as well as the actions they all have in common, which I took to be habits that I should cultivate. I preferred the more businesslike demeanor of two of the female teachers who still bantered with the students and have great senses of humors. There are also more women at this private academy than men, and the two new hires are also Korean American women. I wonder if they thought I was Korean American. (I'm going to wager that I was chosen based on my recruiter's advertising, my previous one-year experience, and looks, though.)

Each teacher carried around a case of chalk, a board eraser, an audio wire, flash cards if they use them, extra pens and highlighters, and maybe a notebook for remembering things. They used their laptops when the book comes with a cd track that they might use, and also make marks in the attendance record for that class, as well as the homework record. Textbooks are par for the course in an academy, because the curriculum, timeline and syllabus are already all set. There are cameras in every classroom, which are live fed to the tv in front of the receptionist desk for all to see. The staff has a more cajoling American manner in terms of educating the kids, and everything is somewhat tightly controlled - but not unreasonably, so far as I can see.

They took me to immigration on Thursday, where I had pictures taken - I was wearing a new shirt, yay! - and they wrote my new address on the back of my Alien Registration Card. Apparently, that's all that's necessary to consider my E-2 visa renewed for now, though they did say that I should submit my national criminal background check whenever I can, since I told them that it was in progress and the U.S. FBI should be processing it now. I honestly actually don't even know when I should be expecting it. I applied in August, so November or December, maybe? Anyway, now I can do useful things like get a phone plan. I've been surviving off of using prepaid phone cards.

Aside from visiting Daejeon this past weekend, I also bought and installed a small bookcase - which became a shirts dresser for me - and a clothing rack. I'm finished with unpacking half of the spare bags and two of my suitcases - two more await. I still need more furniture because there must needs to be a place to store my pants, which I will take care of ASAP. I will also teach my first classes tomorrow (to substitute for a guy who is filling in a cavity and getting his wisdom teeth pulled), and I think I'm ready too, so wish me luck. =)

Sudden Changes

A few months ago, the South Korean Board of Education had decided - and related through GEPIK (Gyeonggi English Program of Korea) - that due to budget cuts, they will cease to hire any new people before March 2012. This means that everyone who already has a contract can finish, but renewing with public schools will be a problem Korea-wide until they say otherwise. No one seems to know when they're going to have enough money to hire again; the March 2012 date is tentative and mainly there to stem any further questions.

What does this mean for me personally? Well, my contract is over this coming September 26. My E-2 visa expires October 27, and my corresponding Alien Registration Card expires on the same date. This means that either I find a job here before that time, so a new school will help me acquire a new visa or I'm going back to either the U.S.A. or preparing to go to another country. I decided that I want to stay here for another year, because I have more to learn about teaching, there is more to see in this country and I don't want to immediately leave some of the new friends I've met here.

So the past two weeks have been a mildly feverish rush of contacting recruiters and applying for jobs that way. Two days ago, I had made a list, and realized that I had actually contacted and applied with up to twelve recruiters. They all initially responded to receive my resume and photo, but many of them stopped after that, and around four stayed. I ended up half applying with EPIK, and then talking to a few other people about private academies. Because I am not Korean American, some places were off limits to me - this is because some parents really want a teacher at their academy that they can talk to, and my lack of Korean would be a barrier to that. Other places only want men or white people, sometimes their criteria can be very specific. I even heard that there are sometimes age requirements.

As with choosing between countries when teaching abroad, transitioning between jobs means choosing the ideal setting for me to live in. By now I had tired of the country life and want actual cities with convenience stores nearby, so I looked at my options for large cities. I've already explore a good part of Ansan and Siheung, even though the move to those two places would be easy, so I wanted something new. Seoul is too prestigious, and not being Korean American or having more experience teaching, this city is mainly closed off to me anyway. Incheon might have sounded interesting, but I know more people down south now, so that's where I opted to go. I applied in Suwon, Daejeon, Busan and Daegu. Next is the realization that because my contract ends September 26 - terrible timing! - just after most public schools are done hiring, I would have to take the place of someone who changed their minds, or just go for a private academy.

Private academies are completely different from public schools. The hours are from afternoon to night instead of morning, there are fewer vacation days and shorter breaks, and your supervisors get much more control over your teaching methods and style. I'm hoping the last one won't get me into trouble, because I had to change many things as is even when I was teaching in public school. There's a lot more paperwork to be done, in terms of others' evaluations of you and then your evaluations of the students and having to comment on students' posts on internet sites. I expect to have seven more teaching hours each week. While in public schools, they expect you to create your own curriculum, academies give you a curriculum and you follow that. I also heard that the academy sometimes either doesn't follow the contract or interprets it in such a way that they make it hard for an employee to leave or fine them so much that they ended up with only 20% of their total income.

As a result, whenever I was offered a place to work, I have to research it across a few sites for a good while before concluding whether that place has a bad reputation and whether the posters' complaints have any grounding to them. In fact, I'm still doing that, and one of the methods that people often says works is to call the school directly and ask to speak with one of their English teachers to see whether they are happy there. Either way, I'm expected to move out of my apartment by September 26, so I've begun packing. And the beat goes on.

College Diploma and Transcript

It takes a college degree to be an official teacher. That is, if you're going to be paid for being a teacher, then you're probably going to need a college degree. I'm going to assume you have a college degree, and therefore a diploma. Now we're going to talk about how to get a duplicate diploma if you lost yours, and how to retrieve an official academic transcript.

I also just realized that I wrote the previous entry assuming that everyone would know where their diplomas are after they graduated. But if you couldn't get the copy of your diploma notarized and apostilled as suggested in the previous entry, here's some information about how to get a duplicate diploma.

Your college or university registrar takes care of all the information regarding diplomas. They have records involving when you were there, what courses you took and when you graduated, so getting a duplicate should be no problem as long as you pay the fee and fill out the right forms. For everyone who went to my alma mater Umass Amherst, you can contact them through the information to be found here.

The same office also takes care of your transcripts, so this is a one stop shop and you don't have to go far. There's also usually a form involved when requesting transcripts as well. They ask for your name, address, date of birth, student number or social security number, and when you attended school. The transcript request form for Umass Amherst students is here.

It takes about two weeks for them to get copies of your transcript and mail it to you. When you get it in the mail, DO NOT OPEN IT. For the purposes of applying for your teaching program, you may notice that they ask for an official sealed transcript. I made this mistake once - if you open it, the record is no longer valid, and you'll have to send for another one. They probably just want to make sure that you didn't tamper with the courses you took, your GPA or your grades to satisfy their requirements or something.

Notarization and Apostille

As mentioned before, this entry will be about your state level criminal background check and the documents you will need from your college and university as part of your recruiter's application for an E2 visa for you to teach abroad in a foreign country.

While the process varies by the state you live in, you can retrieve your criminal background check for Massachusetts at the Criminal History Systems Board. If you scroll down to the middle of the page, there is a subtitle that says "Requesting Criminal Records" and then under that, "I Want to Request My Own CORI". Whether you click on adult criminal history or juvenile criminal history depends on your age. (I knew someone in high school who went to teach English in Mongolia for a summer, so this job opportunity is available to minors - the main difference is that younger people are only allowed to do this in the summer for school reasons.)

Either link will take you to a form, which you will print to fill out. The second page on of the form for adults is titled "Affidavit of Indigency" which basically means a fee waiver, so you only need to print those pages and fill that out if you cannot pay the $25 dollar fee. Again, specifics vary according to state. IMPORTANT: DO NOT sign the form yet. This note does not apply to the juvenile form.

After you filled it out to the best of your ability without signing it, you will prepare a self addressed stamped envelope (SASE). SASE means that you take a long white envelope, the kind for business letters, and write your name and address in the center of it, then put a first class stamp on the top right hand corner. Write a check or money order for $25 if you can afford it; if not, the Affidavit of Indigency will waive it. Put these aside in a safe place.

Now, do you have your diploma on hand? If not, then you should contact your college's registrar for them to pull up your information and they should be able to print another one for you. You'll need to prove your identity with a license or student ID, as well as pay them. The information for Umass Amherst alumni is here.

If you do have your diploma, take that and your filled-but-not-signed criminal background check form to the local town or city hall. Show the clerk your form and ask for notarization. You will swear an oath as per her instruction, and then you can sign your form, and she will stamp it with something like this. After she is done with the form, you can ask her to photocopy your diploma and then notarize the copy. In Massachusetts, each notarization costs $3.

When you are ready to mail it, write your name and address on the top left corner of a manila envelope. Then address the envelope to your state's criminal systems board; the address should be on your criminal background check form. Now put your signed and notarized criminal background check form into the envelope, along with that SASE and your check or money order (unless you filled out that Affidavit of Indigency, then no payment). Send this out. With first class or priority mail, it should take them about a week or two to send back your criminal background check using your SASE.

When you get your notarized criminal background check - if it's not notarized, make sure to call or email your criminal systems board - it's time to apostille both the copy of your diploma and your criminal background check. You can do that in your public records building, which is usually located in the capital of your state. The specific addresses are right here. An apostille is a gold stamped sticker, and should look like this. For Massachusetts, it costs $6 to stamp one document.

These two documents are now ready to be sent to your recruiter. It's up to you and your recruiter whether to send all the documents at once, or to send them one or two at a time. I sent mine in all at once to save on postage, but mistakes are less noticeable and harder to correct if you do it this way.

Official Documents

So we were talking about the decision making process up through the point where we initiated contact with a recruiting company for a specific program. Once you've received a response from the recruiter, your application process has officially started.

There's going to be a list of official documents you'll need to procure. While there may be slight variations based on the country and program, most of it is fairly similar. The recruiter will need all of this information to get you an E2 visa; while you're busying putting together this portfolio of your identity, he will be effectively marketing you to various schools associated with the teaching program, based on your resume and photos. So here's a list:

resume

casual photos, 2 or 3

passport photos

passport

college transcript(s)

copy of diploma

letters of recommendation

criminal background check

application

contract

The smart way to edit your resume would be to Google some tips. Action words are encouraged. Put relevant experience first. Keep everything up to date in terms of locations and contact information. Make sure the layout looks neat. Check your grammar.

If you need it, the passport should be the first thing you work on, because some countries take a really long time to process one. According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, it takes about six weeks. However, since there's so much paperwork involved, I would suggest giving it more time in case something gets written down wrongly. The same site I linked to has instructions in terms of what kind of passport services you need. The recruiter will need you to scan the passport's first page once you receive it, and send it to them.

Then, I suggest going after the letters of recommendation. This all varies depending on how much experience you have, which dictates the number of coworkers or supervisors who would be willing to write you one. The program where I applied, EPIK, required official organizational insignias at the top of the letters, so I had to relay that to my professors. There are also some organizations that plainly don't write recommendation letters - Target Corporation is one of these. This step comes in second, because it's the least structured, and depends mainly on your contacts.

Your college or university website should have instructions regarding how to retrieve copies of your diploma and transcripts. Criminal background checks vary by state, so you can Google your state's official website for that information. I'll dedicate the next entry on just these two documents alone.

While you can usually get the application and contract of your chosen teaching abroad program on the site, sometimes these forms are subject to change, so you should ask your recruiter about when to submit these.

Thanks for reading me!

Working Abroad: Why and Paperwork

While there are plenty of blogs via the net about people's adventures and sights once they reach their destination, there's no such information about the process of everything before getting there. I would have found this data really useful, so for anyone who's thinking about going abroad, this is the right place for you. I'm here to add a voice to all the pages about teaching abroad that are made by recruiting organizations.

So why do you want to work in a foreign country?

My reasons were heavy, but simple. I could be staying at home with my partner, relatively near my parents and sister, working a retail job. But I graduated at the end of 2009, and by 2010, millions of people are jobless. I worked at Target for a year, searching for another opportunity the entire time. When I started to apply for a teaching job abroad, these are the things I was thinking about.

I would be away from my partner and family for several months to a year, depending on the contract for the program and recruiting company. Am I okay with that? I risk being distanced from people I care a lot about, and not liking the new environment where I am stationed. On the other hand, I get to explore and be immersed in a new culture, exciting just because it's novel. It would be international experience for my resume, and would change my outlook on many subjects. So is the risk worth the potential gain?

Once I thought about that for awhile and made my decision, the research began. I was lucky, a friend referred me to this program because he's in it and patiently answered a lot of my questions. Still, the other question I was answering was, which country should I work in? I've never traveled for work before, so I was mainly considering "First World" countries, places where the quality of living wouldn't be too drastically different from Boston, Massachusetts, in the USA, where I'm from.

At first I considered China, but the quality of living there is lower, so then I chose South Korea. Next up is choosing a program suitable for you. Many of these programs have pages online where they advertise, so some facts to look for are:

a. length of contract (months? a year?)

b. room and board provided for? if not, how much?

c. wage and salary pay

d. benefits

Once you've decided on a program and recruitment company, contact them (usually through email) and the application process begins. The program I am with is called EPIK (English Program in Korea) through the recruiting company English World.