Putting the Pieces Together

I can’t believe it, but in exactly one month I’ll be on a plane headed for Incheon International Airport in South Korea. Everything has been happening really quickly since I graduated from St. Thomas. I mailed all my documents to my BridgeTEFL recruiter in Colorado, they were forwarded to the English Program in Korea (EPIK) office in Korea, and a few weeks later I received a contract for a job in the city of Daegu.

The nine-page contract is in Korean and English, and vaguely outlines what sort of duties, housing, and benefits I can expect. I don’t know where exactly I’ll be teaching or what age or level of students; it’s also subject to change throughout the course of the year. I’m guaranteed some basic appliances and furniture, but I don’t know really what type of dwelling I’ll be in or where it’ll be relative to my work. I won’t know any of this stuff until the orientation or even after. I get two weeks paid vacation, and the Korean national holidays off, but I might have to work during the school vacations. I get some settlement money to help pay for my plane ticket and other initial expenses, but I also get money held back from my first few paychecks and returned to me at the end the year (if I fulfill my contract and don’t trash my apartment). None of this was really surprising to me because I’d read most of it on the BridgeTEFL website, but that was also several months ago when I was first starting their online class.

Once I had the contract in my hands I could apply for an E2 visa. It was sort of a nerve-racking process; my mom and I braved the 270-mile journey from central Wisconsin into downtown Chicago with all of my documents, and after some confusion with my application (the consulate wanted specific contact information for my guarantor in Korea, which I don’t have because I don’t know exactly where I’ll be just yet…), $45 for the application fee and $17.50 to have my passport mailed back to me, we were back on the road. I was really relieved to get my passport back, with the visa inside, a few days later. I wasn’t completely convinced that everything was going to work out until I was actually in possession of my passport again; I hate to let that thing out of my sight!

So now I have a job contract, a visa, a plane ticket, and significantly less money in my checking account than I did one month ago. Next time I write I’ll hopefully have some more interesting information, as I continue to research my future home!