Job Placement

I have just recently received my job placement from Chungdahm Learning. Along with that came my official arrival date: August 14th. That means I'll be leaving Oregon on August 12th. That's less than two months! Wow. My actual start date is August 30th. My training is August 16th-20th. My arrival date gives me two days to get over the jet lag (16 hour time difference - Ufda!). After training I'll have a week to get settled in my new apartment, start some lesson planning, and just in general get to know a bit about my new neighborhood.

Speaking of my new neighborhood, you might have noticed that I haven't mentioned where I will be exactly. I will be in Mokdong (the o's are pronounced long like "mOAt" or "OAts"). Mokdong is a dong (or a neighborhood) on the west side of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. It is part of the Yangcheongu (pronounced yahng-chun-goo), a district of Seoul. According to Wikipedia, "Yangcheongu is home to mostly middle and upper-class families and is considered one of the best wards in Seoul to live."

Above is a lovely picture of Mokdong all lit up at night. I think you can see the Hyperion Towers in the picture. They're supposed to be pretty famous there and are the 105th tallest buildings in the world. Pretty cool. To the right is a daytime view of the same buildings.

That's pretty much all I got on Mokdong. It looks like I'll be living in a city (which is to be expected). I'll definitely post my own pictures once I get there and then you'll have a primary source of pictures of Korea (Mokdong in particular) for your viewing pleasure.

It's kind of crazy how real this is now. In less than two months, I'll be living on my own in South Korea. I'm really excited, but still a little bit scared. It's nice that Kendra and I will be going together. That way we'll have someone we know and can look to for support.

Now I'm just waiting for my visa code before I can go to the Korean Consulate for my actual E2 Visa. Did I mention it takes A LOT of paperwork in order to get this job? It really does. I'm very thankful that I've had my Aclipse Recruiter, Zach, coaching me through all of this and taking care of everything. I don't know that I could have ever figured any of this out on my own.

I'll let you know how when anything happens. Wish me luck, everyone!

Congratulations!

“Dear Jennifer,

Congratulations! After review of your application, Chungdahm Learning has offered you a position…”

In case you aren’t sure what that means, I got the job!! I just got the e-mail from the recruiter telling me that they’re willing to employ me. Now all that’s left to do is get all this stuff done and mailed to the recruiter before May 10 and then I’ll get my official placement (date, exact place, etc.):

• State-wide criminal background check with apostille
• 2 passport photos (get six printed for later in the process)
• 1 sealed AND stamped transcript
• Original diploma (yeah… I don’t have that one quite yet)
• Another copy of the original application

That’s a lot of stuff to do, but luckily I am on Spring Break at the moment so I will have lots of time this week to do it in. Isn’t that great?

So I’ll send that all in and soon after that I’ll know where in South Korea I’ll be spending the next year. Kind of crazy, no? Crazy exciting, that is!

Wish me luck with all the paper work. I’ll let you know when I move on to the next steps.

Here's hoping...

Many of you who are reading this know that I have been thinking about teaching English in Korea for a little over a year now (since February 2009). At first it just looked like all of my other schemes to get outside of the country for an extended period of time. At different times I have considered Peace Corps, study abroad, even a service abroad through BYU. All of those ideas died rather quickly as I considered them more fully: costs, time, conditions of living, etc.

Since teaching English is my chosen profession (the reason I’ve been at BYU these past five years for crying out loud), teaching abroad seemed like the thing to do and most of the best jobs for English teachers abroad are in Asia.

Since I’d like to at least learn some of the language of the country I’ll be spending a year or more in, China was out. (Little known fact about me: I can’t pronounce Chinese to save my life; just ask my old Hong Kongese roommate.)

I would end up spending more money than I’d save if I went to Japan where the cost of living is higher than I would like.

So Korea it is. It just so happened that one of my roommates at the time I started considering this concept of teaching overseas had recently returned from serving an LDS mission in Seoul. I was able to ask her lots of questions about being a foreigner in Korea. Rather than scaring me out of my pants, talking with Trina (that’s the girl) only got me more excited about teaching in Korea. I even got some cursory lessons in the language from her this past summer (essentially, I learned how to read hangul which is the Korean alphabet which just means I can read signs in Korean and have no idea what they really say).

Needless to say, the idea of teaching in Korea didn’t die off as quickly as the Peace Corps and study abroad (certainly not fast enough to make my poor worried parents happy). Here I am a year later, waiting to see if my application to teach for the Chung Dahm Institute in South Korea will be accepted.

And thus ends the first entry of my blog about Korea. Depending on the information I should receive later this week it may very well be the last entry of this blog. Will I spend the next year in a foreign country or looking for a job in Oregon? A few more days will tell if I’m meant for Korea. Keep your fingers crossed that I get the job!