Ground Score

It’s only been about a week since my last post. Last weekend my friends and I were supposed to make up for missing Thanksgiving in the states by getting together for a big feast on Saturday night. We ended up not getting around to it, and I feel like Thanksgiving was a flop. However, and more importantly to the Korean experience, it was Malcolm’s birthday that weekend and I spent about three hundred dollars during those two days. A few days later, after I was done sulking about my spending habits, I took charge. I finally sent home most of the money I had leftover, leaving myself with just enough to survive until Christmas Eve.

             I’ll get my next paycheck on Christmas Eve, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Malcolm, two South Africans, and myself are going snowboarding for five days starting Christmas Eve night. There is no way we were just going to sit around that weekend not doing something amazing. The girls are volunteering at an orphanage that weekend. I’m all about giving credit when credit is do, but that’s the last thing I would want to do on the holidays. Not only would I not be spending the most celebrated holiday in America with the people love, I’d be spending it sober with a bunch of children who don’t understand me or the Santa hat I’d be wearing. I’m going to the mountains…

            January is coming up, and I get two weeks off after I finish three weeks of English winter camps. Thailand’s on my mind. I’ve heard the full-moon parties there are the best beach parties in the world. The timing just isn’t in our favor, though. We looked at the moon cycle, and we are going to miss it by a few days. At least we will get to join in on the half-moon party. It it’s half the fun a full-moon party is, I won’t be disappointed.

            I found an acoustic guitar on the side of the road this week. In Korea, people pile their trash bags around the nearest telephone poll. Ajumas—little, old, Korean women, who walk around, hunched over like Quasimodo—scrounge through the trash, picking out recyclables. Luckily I found the guitar on top of a pile before one of them got to it. I was walking home from school on Monday when I noticed the guitar sitting atop a heap of trash bags. The neck had been super glued to the body, and the strings rose about an inch from the frets at the bottom of the neck, but it was better than no guitar at all. I dropped it off at home, and then caught a tab to Home-Plus (Korean Wal-Mart). They sell over-priced guitars there, and I knew they’d have strings. Once I was home, I restrung the rusted instrument and gave it a strum. A few of the tuning knobs were missing screws, and the bridges—the plastic pieces with six small groves that run perpendicular to the strings, and hold them in place—had been accidentally filled with super glue. Long story short, I might just need to invest in a new guitar.

Thanksgiving Blues

Today is November 25, 2010. It’s Thanksgiving Day. I never thought too much about missing the holidays until now. It's hard to admit, but I'm feeling a bit of homesickness today. And I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to admit, as long as I had someone around. It’s different this time, though. I’m across the world from everyone I call family, and the sole emotional pull I get from anyone is when I show my students the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving video clip I downloaded from the Internet. They laugh, almost fall asleep, and then barely wake up enough for me to review the pervious weeks lesson. It didn’t really hit me—the homesickness—until I tried to explain to them that everyone in my family is gathering for a feast, while I am here. Maybe it’s not homesickness, though; maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s that I actually am sick with some sort of tonsil infection, and got sent home early from school today, putting me alone in the apartment. Or, maybe it’s that I am now writing while drinking a Budweiser and smoking a Marlboro Light, alone, while having some sort of tonsil infection. Or, maybe it’s just the sum of all of the above. On the plus side, at least I’m writing in my blog.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the holidays. I’ve always known they’re about family coming together, putting away our differences, and telling each other how much we love one another. But, as a kid, I never really gave in to any of that. To me it was always the delicious food, the occasional perfect present, and getting to fight with cousins as much as possible. If, by chance, I didn’t get the present I thought was applicable to my immediate interest in life, I would share my brother’s, even if he didn’t want me to. The holidays were no more to me than that. Parents got drunk and laughed, kids got pissed and threw toys. But as I’ve started to become an adult—and I know everyone is rolling their eyes trying to believe these words are actually come from me at free will—I think I am realizing the actual importance of the family unit.

When I say family unit, I don’t necessarily mean blood relatives. In college, my friends and I had a family. We called each other brother and sister. We fought with each other like brother and sister. We cared and loved for one another like true brothers and sisters do. And this is the same as any family of kin. As long as people recognize one another as individual parts that together to make up the whole unit, then one can call it whatever needs be. This, I think, is what we do as we become adults. We start to detach from our parent family, first as rebellion of the simple idea of family, and holidays because it’s boring and lame. Then, once one alone, they realize how nice it is to be wanted, to be a part of a whole. Then, we start to make our own family bonds, whether with friends all starting anew, or by joining another family all together. Then, as time goes on, we start to establish that family with concreteness. Some need it to be official, in terms of the governmental recognition. They wed, make their vows, hang their certificate, and wear their rings. Some need less, and simply make their vows to one another, excluding the governmental eye—whichever works best. Then, if we are lucky, it grows from that seed to the next. Children are born, brothers and sisters find their counterpart, more children are made, and they all grow up together, making one big family. The fact is simple. It is the human condition to gather.

This has happened to me, here, in Korea. There is a strong bond between a few good people I’ve found. We come from all walks of life, but we are all teachers this year in Korea. The weekends are always our “holidays”. We fight, love, and nag with one another until Sunday’s end. Then we say, “I love you. See you next week.” The weekdays are funny. It’s more of a dream life than real life. We drudge through the job—it’s not bad, but it’s not the most exciting job in the world either. We are all more or less scattered throughout the country, so it’s hard to spend time with anyone Monday through Friday. They point is simple: we are alone during the week, and we yearn for each other by the time weekend comes along. This, in a sense, is my Korean family.

I recently watched the movie Into the Wild for probably the 5^th time in my life. It’s cheesy to name job such a stereotypical movie, but it’s a really good one. The quote you get at the very end is something like this, “Happiness is only real when shared.” I find much truth in this statement.

Korea, my love.

So much has happened since my last blog, I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I’ll just start with how hectic of a schedule I’ve found myself with. Actually, It’s a really nice routine, to be honest. I don’t have a TV at my apartment, nor do I want one. So, it’s good to keep busy. I teach Monday through Friday, until 5pm. Then, as if my day isn't long enough, I run for thirty minutes, do an hour of Kumdo, or Korean language classes (alternating days), shower, eat, then tutor my friend in English until 9pm. For all of this, I usually end up asleep by 10:30 at night. Then I'm up at the crack of dawn to do it all over again. I’m really happy with this schedule because before I left I was doing just the opposite—I was a true night owl, sleeping until 2pm and staying awake until sunrise. Now let me introduce you to my beautiful, scheduled, hectic, but not to hectic life on the weekends.

They usually start just after 5pm on Fridays, and end as I’m walking into school the following Monday, feeling like a zombie. Every weekend there has been some new festival to crash. Seriously, every single weekend since I’ve been here I’ve gone to one festival, or another. There was the Mask Festival in Andong, then Global Gathering (electronic music from around the globe, bumping until 5am) in Seoul, then the Rock Music Festival in Daejeon, and finally the Fireworks Festival this weekend in Busan. I can’t really explain what all happens during the weekends, partly because I don’t remember, and partly because my family reads this. For these reasons, I’ll just let my pictures explain that part of the experience.

On a more appropriate note, I finally got my Alien Registration Card. This means that I am officially registered as an English teacher, the Government officially knows where I live, and I was able to get an ATM card. Also, tomorrow I am getting my first paycheck, and a cell phone. I’m going to be a millionaire (roughly 800 dollars is one million won)! I would get my cell phone tomorrow during the day since I don’t have to teach classes due to school wide testing. However, it’s in my contract that I have to “desk warm”, meaning I still have to go into work, even though there is absolutely nothing for me to do. I don’t mind, though. I’d rather go in and get paid, than not work and have them deduct the hours from my paycheck. So, I’ll get a phone after work, jump on the KTX, and be in Busan by nightfall. My co-teacher is taking me to get my cell phone because there is no way in hell I would understand what I was signing. She needs one anyway, so it’s two birds with one stone. She actually might meet me in Busan this weekend for the fireworks festival—she really wants to hang out with some foreigners. The only part that concerns me is that she is not even the slightest bit a drinker. She might be in for an early Halloween scare.

It’s now Monday, and the weekend in Busan has past. It was yet another one for the record books, with the News Team in full-effect. I’ve gotten pretty close with a good group of foreigners (we call ourselves the News Team—a spin off the movie Anchor Man). We always manage to find each other on the weekends, even though our apartments are all around Korea. There are South Africans, Americans, Canadians, Irish, English, and the occasional Kiwi in the group. I think I am the youngest of the bunch, and everyone seems to treat me like his or her younger brother. I love it. It started on Friday night. I arrived around ten o’clock, and we started drinking at a bar called Crossroads. We ended up having a little too much fun and the bartender pretty much asked us to leave because we scared everyone away. We left, going to this bar and that bar, and by mid-night I realized I had lost the hat my little brother gave me before I left. Malcolm, who is pretty much my Irish brother, helped me trace our steps while everyone else found food for their beer munchies. We literally went into every bar we had been to that night, and no one had seen the hat. After an hour of looking, I had given up and was feeling pretty down about it. I had lost the hat before, but only to find it after a few minutes of looking. This time we had searched an entire block and had no such luck. Just when I thought my luck had run out, Malcolm pulled the luck of the Irish out from nowhere. He walked over to what looked like every other piece of trash in the gutters of Korean alleyways, picked up my hat, and raised it above his head. You have got to be kidding me, I thought. There it was: my dirty, grungy, little brothers spare baseball cap. It was a miracle. We then found our way back to the group, showed them the prize, drank up the rest of the booze, then everyone ended up wrestled in the bushes. By the end of it all, Malcolm had fallen asleep in the back of a random pick-up truck—great start to the weekend.

The next day we met everyone by the beach. By the time we got downtown it was mid-afternoon, and most of our friends were already hanging out. There were over a million people on one stretch of beach, so I don’t know how we managed to find everyone. We were all pretty hungry, so we decided to grab some pizza. We sat on the porch of a very nice restaurant overlooking the beach, eating pizza and drinking more beer. While there, I tried my heart out to impress my newly found Peruvian Queen. She’s 34 years old, though, and seems to think I’m too young for her. It didn't detour me, as I still tried for many more hours. The fireworks didn’t help my situation either (crazy I know), and by the end of it all I had given up on my Latin romance in Korea. Even if they didn’t help me solidify a relationship with the woman of my dreams, the fireworks were amazing. Busan has held this festival for eight years now, and attendance has increased every year. The city spent five million dollars on it this year, with the big-daddy firework costing one hundred thousand dollars alone. I swear it blew every firework show I’ve ever seen out of the water. One of the teachers in our program invited us all to his place because it overlooked the beach, and the bridge. Imagine the News Team, assembled on an apartment rooftop, overlooking a million people on a beach below us, with the best fireworks you can imagine in the background. Still, though, there was no dice with my Peruvian Queen.

A few hours after the fireworks—probably close to two in the morning—Malcolm and me needed to find somewhere to crash. We ended up staying at our friends “Love Motel” for the night. (Love motels are little shoebox-size motels that couples go to when they want to spend the night together. Koreans live at home until they are married, and often don’t introduce one another to the parents until they are engaged. So, when they need some alone time, they go to a "Love Motel". We however didn’t partake in the ordinary traditions of the Love Motel. We just wanted to sleep.) I feel sorry for our Kiwi friend that let Malcolm and I stay. I jumped in the bed as soon as I got in the room, and Malcolm slept on the floor. This put her was stuck between two drunken twenty-something-year-olds having a snoring competition all night. When I woke up she looked pissed, claiming not to sleep a wink all night. Needless to say, we said goodbye and started walking.

Tiahna’s wasn’t too far from the area, so we rendezvoused there. Jezebel met us, and we took naps before the evening festivities (Yes, Sunday, and it’s still not over). It just so happened that the Korean FA Finals was the same weekend as the fireworks festival. I had never seen a professional football (soccer) match in person, so I was pretty excited. Busan, South Korea hosted the World Cup in 2002 and the stadium they built for the event was serious business. We arrived at the stadium thirty minutes before the game started, and I was in line to buy everyone tickets. We met some other teachers from Yangsan, so there were eleven of us in total. Randomly, a Korean man walked up to one of our friends, asked how many were in our party, and handed her eleven free tickets. We tried to give him a beer, but he politely refused, smiled, bowed, and walked away. Koreans truly are the nicest people in the world. We then got in the gate line, and wouldn’t you know it, more free stuff. As soon as we passed the gate, there were boxes full of free Busan Football scarves. We all grabbed a few, I bought a jersey, and just like that, we were Busan hooligans, with standing seats right behind the goal. We yelled a lot, drank a lot, and I’m pretty sure we got on TV. I know our picture was taken for the newspaper. Nuts!

I hope this paints a decent (no pun intended) picture to what my weekends are like in Korea. I’m going to end this post with a few quotes from the weekends thus far:

“This gum tastes like Man!”

“You were making long, complicated jokes in an emergency.”

“It’s raining glitter! Are you guys seeing this?”

            “Man, on the weekends in Korea I spend so much money, it’s like I just open the door to my apartment and start throwing it in the air.”

Mr. Kim and His Family

It’s Friday night and I’m getting ready to go party in Downtown Daegu. This blog will have to be short. I blogged not too long anyway, and there're only a few things I want to mention before I roll. Right now I’m sitting in Mr. Kim’s restaurant waiting for him to get the grill going. The food in the Dining Hall at my school isn't what we would call quality back home, and I'm often really hungry for dinner. This isn't your typical restaurant, though. It’s a tent beside my apartment building with little, plastic, red and, blue tables with matching stools. The look like they belong in an after-school daycare center, and I love it. I actually find myself eating here more often than not. Mr. Kim likes that I am teaching English at the elementary school because he, himself, has daughter around that age. I come here at night to eat because they already treat me like I'm part of the family. I eat with them, no charge, and teach them English words like: empty/full, table/chair, more/less ect. Today my co-teacher and I went to the Immigration Office so I could apply for my alien registration card. It was convenient enough because the classes I was supposed to teach today were all sixth grade, and they were going on an “excursion” to a place I call Korean Disney Land. After our appointment at Alien Registration, I went to the hospital to see my co-teacher’s father. It was a surprise to me, but that’s fine. He was a very nice man. Then she brought me to her his house to drop off some of his belongings. There I met her mother, and she gave me some soda. Everyone is so damn nice! 

Real Work is Real Hard

Today was my third full day of teaching. I say “full day” because I had to teach all the classes for today’s schedule— but it was only two forth-grade classes. I’ve really come into my own skin at the front of the classroom. I have found that my general sense of humor, and boisterous hand gestures are a big plus when teaching children. At orientation, one of the guest lectures told us that teaching is more than just teaching. He said it involves being an entertainer, as well. He said you have to keep their interest so they learn without even thinking about it. He called it teachertaining—I agree. Though, by the end of the day, keeping that enthusiasm can be somewhat of a challenge. My classes are always thirty plus students, and on some days I teach six classes. After three classes my throat starts to get soar, and after five my voice is completely gone. It is really fun though. My co-teachers let me do what I want in class, which often consist of dancing and teaching them expressions like, “What’s up, man?” or, “Word!” One kid actually had on a Grateful Dead shirt today. I gave him an extra stamp in his stamp book. That may not have been fair to the others but I don’t care.

            Besides classes, I have to work with my three co-teachers in the afternoons doing lesson plans. This is somewhat of a challenge because they are all set in doing things their way, which they can’t explain why. Not to be rude, but their methods for teaching are not teachertaining—actually they can be quite boring at times. I don’t mean to say the teachers are boring, but the methods they use seem to be. I’m always coming up with new ideas for activities and they love it. Today we did Simon Says and a mock Flea Market in class. Yesterday I taught the fifth grade (six classes adding up to 180 students, or so) Charades. They loved it!  We also made journals they will write in all year. I made them chant, “We are writers! We are writers!” I think my co-teachers love my classes because they get to laugh at me, too. I don’t think the previous foreigner was very enthusiastic about teaching. They tell me she was quiet and shy. I try to be neither of these things in front of my classes. But, this takes a lot of energy, and I am often really tired by lunch, which is more often then not bad food (I really miss Bojangles and PT’s Grille)!

            Tomorrow evening I am going to play soccer with the PE teachers and their friends. I’ve try to find climbing gyms around Daegu, but they seem to be more than an hour away. That’s too far to travel after a long day of teaching. I think I will look for a gym around my neighborhood today. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted, oh internet abyss!

Orientation Ends, Real Life Begins...

It’s been one week exactly since I arrived in South Korea, and a lot has since happened. I’ve realized the drinking culture is everything they said it would be. People literally stay out all night long carrying around soju bottles or zip-lock bags filled with mixed drinks they buy from the street vendors. Seriously, quart-sized zip-lock bags filled with liquor on the subway, down the sidewalk, whatever.

Orientation started on Sunday, but I arrived to the National Institute of International Education (NIIED) on Saturday. I had met a few people already, and was still meeting more and more during the day. Eventually we all decided to wonder around Seoul for the afternoon. We ended up going to Itaewon (not spelt correctly) and check out the famous, ex-pat hotspot Hooker Hill. It’s not what it seems, there aren’t prostitutes lining a mountain side with drunk, old, white men scrounging for change at their feet. In fact it was nothing like that at all. It reminded me a little of what I think Time Square would look like—lots going on, advertisements on everything, and a lot of white people. There was a very westernized feel to it, and almost everyone spoke English. Long story short, we ended up at an Irish pub drinking doubles of Jameson on the rocks at four o’clock in the afternoon. Again, this was Saturday. I had just arrived one day earlier, and was still thirteen hours off of what my biological clock was trying to tell me. I ended up going home a few hours later, more drunk than I had intended on the first day with the orientation group. But, it was for the best because I passed out as soon as I got back to NIIED, and woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed for the mornings opening ceremony. On the other hand, some didn’t get in until after three in the morning, when curfew was midnight. This happened more or less every night of orientation—a few random people staying out much later than the curfew called for, and paying for it in the morning—soju being the culprit.

I have a love/hate relationship with soju. I love it because it’s cheap, tastes all right, and does the trick when one needs to take the edge off. I hate soju because it tricks me every time. I think: because it’s rather weak and cheap, and that Koreans drink it everyday, I can drink a lot of it. Then I do so and absolutely regret it in the morning. Because it is so cheap, it’s poorly made, and by morning time even the smallest amount can feel like you drank the bottle. I think I’m going to stick to beer while I’m here (but I am probably only thinking that because I’m hung over now).

Next day…

So, today was the first day of classes. I woke up at seven in the morning ready to go. I shaved, ironed my outfit, and grabbed a coffee on the way to work. My apartment is only a few ten-minute walk from my school. The children walk to school from all directions, and my pretty sure some live in the same apartment complex I do. Once they noticed that I was walking to their school, they all started gathering behind me in little groups. They would speak Korean and laugh and whisper and point at my back. I would turn around and smile, and they would all scream a little, smile, yell, “Hello!” and curl into each other laughing some more. It’s ridiculous. By the time I made it to school, there were about thirty students following me. It’s obvious to them that I’m the new teacher they’ve all been waiting for this last month.

The teacher before me was named Katrina. She was from Florida and stayed the entire year. I guess she was a really good teacher because they kind of expect a lot out of me already. I only just started at this school today, and already I am teaching. I had to give a presentation about myself in front of every class. I showed them pictures of my family, my college, and my hobbies. Then, I read the new vocabulary to the students, making them repeat the words back to me. I also ran games/activities. All of my classes are the same during any given day. Today I was with the sixth graders. They are thirteen years old in Korean age, and eleven or twelve in North American age.  In Korea they believe a person starts at year one the day they are born. They add another year when the Chinese New Year starts. Therefore, a baby born in December could be considered two years old roughly one month after they are born—weird, I know.

So, here’s my schedule for the next year: Monday I have five classes, Tuesday I have six classes, Wednesday I only have two classes. Thursday and Friday I have four classes. I forget which days are which classes, but I know I am teaching third through sixth grade.

All of my classes for today were in the morning, and I was lucky to go to the bank today after lunch. For the rest of the day, I am going to work on lesson planning with one of my two co-teachers. Later today, I am going to hang out with a few girls from orientation. It’s one of their birthdays and I’m excited to hang out for the weekend. Plus, I left my ukulele at orientation and she grabbed it for me—soju hangover, what else can I say. Until next time!

Eight Hundred Dollars and a Dream

I’ve finally arrived in South Korea. It’s three-thirty a.m. and I’ve just woken up from my jetlagged slumber to find myself in the basement of the airport. Although, the basement of this airport isn’t something creepy, like one could easily assume—It’s a spa. I arrived yesterday around four o’clock in the afternoon and found my way down here with my entire luggage. It wasn’t until I tried to check in to the spa that the realization that I am in Asia really took hold. They don’t speak English, and I don’t speak Korean. But the people so far have been really nice and helpful. I think it’s obvious sometimes that I’m lost, and people try to lend a helping hand when I’m walking in circles. So, twenty dollars and eight hours since I’ve landed, here I am writing to you, oh Internet world.

The jitters really didn’t hit me until almost 2 hours before my mother and I had to leave her house for the airport. I thought I would be anxious and nervous for the past week, but instead I just slept and ate as much good-old American food as I could. Once we were in the car, however, it really hit me hard and I was nervous. My flight left at six a.m. and the flight itinerary recommended arriving to the airport three hours early for international flights. So, we left New Hampshire at one a.m., just to make sure.

Mom was really helpful during the leaving process. She helped me pack, and made sure I had everything I needed. She even looked up the luggage rules online, making sure I wasn’t bringing too much. Once on the road, she stopped at an ATM to give me a little investment, making sure I would be able to eat all the rice and kimchi my little stomach could handle.  Love you, Mom.

After my mother took a few picture of my on the curb at the airport, I walked in expecting to go though all kinds of checkpoints where I’d have to fill out hours of paperwork and explain my reasons for living in Korea for the next year. On the contrary, there was nothing. I was one of three people in the airport, and the only one awake. Turns out the airport didn’t even open until four-thirty a.m. So I did what any twenty-three-year-old would do in that situation. I sat around watching Jackie Chans’ Kung-Fu classic, The Drunken Master until personnel arrived.

During international check-in I met another girl that was teaching English in Daegu. She was about my age, and graduated from the University of South Carolina. The difference between our situations was that she was going through a private school, and didn’t have orientation. I tried to talk to her about our journeys this year, breaking the ice a bit, and just passing the time. That only got me so far because, for one reason or another, she didn’t want to talk. I left it alone, chalking it up to the early hours of the day. Again, I saw her in San Francisco during our layover. We talked for a brief minute, and then she went to the bathroom, evading the conversation altogether and I never saw her again. What I got from her situation is that she and a friend (who flies in tomorrow) are doing this together at the private school. This girl didn’t seem very extroverted, and I think I may have annoyed her a little. But does that make sense? If she doesn’t want to talk to random people already—especially ones doing the same thing she is, in the same city she’s doing it in—what does she expect from this experience? I hope her and her friend don’t do what I think a lot of people do when they travel in groups in foreign lands—they create a bubble around themselves that keeps the outside world out, and the inside world in.

One of my best friends has been fortunate enough to travel a lot in his life (China, Africa, Europe), and that’s one thing he always stressed was the best angle a traveler can take—travel alone. I know, this can seem daunting, and even down right crazy to someone who’s never tried it. But the fact is one rarely is indeed alone. They are always meeting new people and going for small stints with fellow travelers or locals to other places. This works best when everyone leaves his or her homeland alone. Then, while out there in the wild world, we want to connect with others doing the same thing we are. Individuals look for this, when groups tend to confide amongst themselves, often missing great opportunity at new friendships and experiences. Now don’t get me wrong, it would be great to travel with a friend. But I think that it should be broken up into segments of time, where the party is split, rejoins, the splits again.

So, orientation starts tomorrow, and I’m really excited to get into the city. I’m not sure whether I’ll have Internet or not for the next few days, but I’ll try to keep a good memory of what happens so I can share it with you all. Cheers. 

Let's Get Going!

So, this is the first post of the first blog that I've ever written. As I sit and wait for my contract in South Korea to start, I find it hard to believe I've never written a blog, yet I call myself a writer. Sure, there are many writers out there that have also never blogged, but they still write for themselves. I--since graduation--have not written more than a few Thank You letters to family and friends for my graduation gifts--and even those I'm behind on. Although, just when my writing was at an all-time low, the experience I have set in front of me may well be  just the spark I need to start writing again. FINALLY, I AM GOING TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR A YEAR IN SOUTH KOREA!!!

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't something I've been dreaming about my whole life. It's actually not even something I've been dreaming about since the start of college. I only recently  stumbled into this career path around one year ago when I volunteered at a hostel in Panama. But the lead-up to this specific job contract has been grueling, and I'm really happy this part of the experience is finished. Let me break it down.

I started applying in March, 2010. The deal was to find two reference letters from respected professors at my university who thought highly of me and my potential for teaching English. Then, I had to fill out a twelve page application that questioned for such details as to what elementary school/subjects I attended as a child. Seriously, it asked for subjects of study in elementary school. This was fair and well, except I've grown on up multiple military bases near and far, and they wanted to know about all of them. That's just the first absurdity in the depths of this job's application process. Then, after awhile, and I passed my two phone interviews, through a Canadian recruiting agency, then the Korean Ministry of Education, and both were a bit nerve wrecking.

That May I was told, "Congratulations, you passed, you got the job! More than likely you'll be in Gangwon. Get a criminal history check, graduate in June, then send us your packet. Contracts will be out next month."

Not quite. Apparently, I was one of many that were told the same thing, and it was a race to get packets turned in before the dreadful cut-off for the waiting-list. One thing led to another, my criminal history check was sent to my grandparents house, I was celebrating graduation, new-found employment, plus camp-counseling for a marine biology summer camp at UNCW. Yatta-yatta-yatta, I was informed about my position at the head of the waiting list in late July, potentially not leaving for Korea until November or December, 2010.

Ok, so at least I'm still in there, right? Life wasn't so bad. My Dad was taking me to Hawaii as a graduation present during the first week of August. While there, I got in touch with an old friend that is teaching in Thailand. She told me about this program they run, and thought I should apply with that company. The job, and Thailand in general, sounded really sweet, so I gave it a shot. I applied one day, had an interview the next, and was offered a spot in their program the very next day. Perfect.

Like a sign from God, though, Korea called me back the same day Thailand assured me a spot in their program. "Patrick, we just had a spot open up in Daejeon. Would you be willing to take it in late September?" After careful evaluation of both programs, Korea was by far the most financially beneficial. I had to take it. So, this whole time I'm thinking, researching, and basically getting pumped for Daejeon.

Surprise, another change of plans. Now, officially, I am stationed in Daegu, the forth largest city in South Korea. I don't understand what happened with Daejeon, and I'm not even going to ask. Daegu sounds great, I have my contract in hand, and I'm ready to go. Still, though, I am unaware of which school, and grade level(s) I will be teaching. At this point I don't care. I'm just ready to get there and start this adventure. Until then....