late night calls

Got a random call last night at like 11pm, Unavailable number, weird. Turns out it was my recruiter calling from Taiwan, haha. Just chatting about various visa process stuff, what paperwork I need, my upcoming interview with the school, etc. A lot of it was review but there was some new information. I don't like the part in applying for a job where everyone uses the overly formal, business language, I prefer it when things are more natural.

So it looks like depending when my diploma gets in I might not be able to leave until September. SUPER LAME. I am doing everything in my power to get it before then, must beat Heather there. So yeah, I may be running around like crazy after I finally get that in. Which might be difficult if I get it in the middle of camp. Since I can't exaclty take a day off.

Hopefully another update soon, stay classy.

first offer has arrived.

So, got my first official job offer when I woke this morning. It was for the largest ESL (English as a Second Language) chain. Reviews are mixed. People say it's pretty unimpressive. It's not amazing but it isn't terrible. So I'll probably keep it as a safety. They require a very straightforward teaching style based on prepared things so I wouldn't get to run as much stuff myself, which I would really prefer to do. How can I learn how to teach if they're just making me read from a script! It may not be the case for all the locations, but I have to assume the average, not the outlier.

So I emailed my recruiter back asking about other schools, hopefully I get a response soon.

One cool thing from the offer was a location that piqued my interested. Bundang, it's a suburb-type deal of Seoul. It's pretty affluent, nice air quality, and quieter than Seoul. That seems a bit more in sync with my lifestyle than the big city, but still retaining the city part. You can read about Bundang here! So I may start looking for jobs in that area.

So yeah, will update next when I hear back from the recruiter. Hooray.

Departure Update

Late July? Very possible!

Even more

IMG_1775
Originally uploaded by laflame

Taken at the same time as the other one, no editing done. Just trying the light meter into giving me silhouettes. I am in love with this camera.

More pictures

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Originally uploaded by laflame

Trying techniques and advice I found online.

New Camera~!

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Originally uploaded by laflame

Random late night picture #1

Good luck, Bad Luck

Alright, so bad news first, I guess?

Getting my diploma in early/mid July is going to mess with my departure big time. It looks like until I get the actual diploma in hand and ready to send, they are going to let me accept any offers just because too many people in the past have committed and fell through. At least Heather is in the same boat so we'll still end up there at about the same time. Oh, Heather, I should mention her.

Apparently I talked so much about going to Korea over the past year that my friend Heather, who also just graduated from Keene, decided to sign up as well. Parter in crime, woo. So we're aiming to get placed in roughly the same area so we can go on many adventures. I think I'd definitely do a lot of fun/amazing things by myself, but having a friend to do it with will totally make me do even MORE fun/amazing things. So yeah, she'll probably come up again, but there's her introduction.

Anyways, yeah. I'm doing what I can to hurry things along but there doesn't look like there's a lot I can do on the diploma front but wait. When I called to see what could be done they were willing to write my number down as soon as I came in so I can just drop by the campus and pick it up, which will save a few days of shipping at least.

The good luck was over my background check. I was expecting it to take weeks, or a letter saying I filled it out wrong, or the notarized seal wasn't valid, or something. But I got a call from my mom today saying that she had already received it! Mailed the request on Monday, received the finished check on Friday, awesome. So now the next step is to go to Concord and get it internationally notarized. I still need to fill out the forms that Reach to Teach, the recruiter I'm going through, sent me. Those'll get done tonight or tomorrow night.

Well, while I'm waiting I will have one thing to fill my time with. New Camera! Canon Rebel XT, and a bunch of other acronyms that I don't fully understand. It is awesome.

So yeah. Just playing the waiting game for now. The next update might be a little while away, depending on things play out. Shouldn't be more than a week or two though. So stay tuned.

Formally accepted

So I wake up this morning to three new e-mails in my box. Cool. Apparently now I am officially accepted and they're getting me ready with the forms and checklists and such to make sure visa stuff gets done asap. 

To travel to other countries you need a visa, it's like a pass, I guess. Depending on why you're going and for how long you need different types. If you're just going on vacation, you barely need to do anything, you can pretty much just show up and say 'I'd like to take a vacation here' and then you're allowed to stay for a month or so. But since I am planning on living there, I need a special kind of visa called an E2 visa. E2's are specifically for foreign language teachers. There is a lot of work to getting an E2. Among other things I need to: Get a background check notarized and apostilled by the Secretary of State of New Hampshire. A medical check. Double-sealed transcripts from college. At least two trips down to Boston to visit the Korean embassy to get things signed. And a few other things that I can't remember cause I just woke up and am super excited.

I've already submitted my background check request so I should get that back in a couple of weeks, but then I still need to do the Secretary of State stuff. I've requested the transcripts which will be available on Monday. It seems like the biggest wait will be the background check. Lame. THIS IS ESCALATING QUICKLY, AHHHH.

The one sad part is that I thought I would be getting to see different positions this week but apparently that will still be in a week or two after I get a few more things done with RtT. I don't think it will affect my departure time by much (Early August) but I was still looking forward to it.

To balance out that disappointment though, I've decided to invest in a nice camera so I can take amazing pictures for this blog. So I'll be driving down to Mass tonight to pick it up. I think it was like an 800 dollar camera originally and I'm getting it for 300, aweeeeesome. Camera Link!

So yeah. Hopefully I'll have another update soon.

success?

It's a good thing if you're surprised that the interview lasted 45 minutes, right? Julianne (I think that was your name, sorry!) was lovely to talk to. She was in Taiwan and was just waking up, first interview I've had that broke the dateline.

I think I did pretty well. The conversation slipped into a casual tone surprisingly quick. It felt like we were just chatting more than an interview for a lot of it. I kept slipping back into some 'this is how you talk in an interview' mode now and then for my answers which probably seemed a bit contrived, but m'eh. 

The questions were pretty much exactly what they gave me a heads up for. One I think I could have done better was on bringing an inattentive classroom back to you. I think I went a little too discipline-y, bah. But the rest were ones I had somewhat prepared for, it was more of an issue trying to not sound cookie-cutter.

Overall, the interview increased my belief that this is the right decision for me. I will miss the kids from Many Options to death, but this is definitely the kind of experience that I need to be aiming for right now. It is probably going to be much more challenging than I am imagining now, I hope so, but I'm pretty sure it'll all work out.

Hooray.

first entry!

alright. just to be clear: the name of this blog is 'seoul is on fire' BECAUSE MY LAST NAME HAS THE WORD 'FLAME' IN IT. WANTED TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS ON BOARD.

Anyways!

This is becoming slightly more real than me just talking a lot about it. I have my first interview tonight at 8:30p with Reach to Teach Recruiting. Apparently they are one of the more well known recruiters for this stuff, which is somewhat reassuring. I'm pretty confident in my interview skills but this is my first phone one, so that'll be interesting.

It seems like I missed the boat for SMOE, public school, jobs. Sad. But I've still talked and read stories from enough people on hagwons (private academy meets after-school program), where I think it'll still be a really fun time. More money too, which is nice. Hopefully this week I'll be able to start and finish the 'Name Andrew's Cat in Korea' contest. Woo.

Anyways, I'll again after the interview, yeah.