It's Official!

I have a contract! I'll be at the ChimSan location of the MoonKkang English School in Daegu, SK. I teach M-F from 4:40-10:20pm (with the exception of Wednesday, which is 4:40-9:50pm) and have days and weekends off. The salary at MK is a bit higher than the other schools we looked at, and I chose the option with less vacation days so I can save a bit more. So I have 5 paid vacation days (I sense a trip to Japan coming up). My airfare is paid for by the school, and I have rent-free furnished accommodations, also courtesy of MK. I only have to pay for utilities. I start teaching December 21st, but I start a brief training period on the 18th (so I suppose I'll be leaving shortly before then). Hooray for finally knowing what is happening!!

For real this time...

Alright, yet another slight change of plans.

So to get you up to speed since my last post, the interview that was supposed to happen never happened. The school simply didn't call. In our frustration, Angie and I applied at MoonKkang English School, and this time we applied directly to a school, not a recruiting agency. MoonKkang is a very reputable school, and from what we've heard it is THE school you want to work at if you teach in SK. 

So we were doing a bit of double dipping with Hoya and MoonKkang so we didn't cut off any options. Hoya called back a week later and asked if we wanted to interview with a school THAT NIGHT. We knew absolutely nothing about the school, but we had the interview. (Side note: we had an interview scheduled with MoonKkang for two days after the Hoya interview.) So it turns out the Hoya school was a school in Suwon (just outside of Seoul) for small children (ages 3-7). Not only would we teach English, but also singing, dancing, and role play. I am not trained in singing and dancing, but when they offered us the job we decided to tentatively accept, pending the outcome of the MoonKkang interview. (They hadn't begun processing our visa paperwork yet so it wasn't a huge deal). 

So then we had the MoonKkang interview two days later, and we found out at the end of the week that they would love to have us join their staff. The catch is this: Angie and I will be teaching in different cities, and she leaves a few weeks before me. Angie will leave Nov. 30 to teach at a MoonKkang in Busan, and I leave Dec. 18 to teach at a MoonKkang in Daegu. We'll be about 2 hours away from each other. The fact that we're not together is not ideal, but at least we're close enough to visit on weekends and such. We both decided that the opportunity to teach at the best English academy in SK was worth the frightening prospect of being separated. And we've been in contact with people who teach at MoonKkang, and from what we hear they take very good care of their teachers. Heck, we even get free Korean lessons!

On the Road Again!

Due to the postponement of our original departure date, our trip has been hanging in limbo for quite some time now. First we were going to stick with Aclipse and leave for Korea in November and go to Ireland in the interlude. Then our window of opportunity for Ireland was becoming more and more narrow due to scheduling conflicts on our side (due to the uncertainty of our departure date in November) and on the Ireland side (due to our hosts having other commitments). In the end, we decided to switch recruiting agencies because Aclipse seemed to be a dead end for us. That meant Ireland was no longer an option as our projected departure date is now mid-October. To give you an idea of the time frame, we signed up in April and were supposed to leave in August, and then the date was pushed back to "some time in November." Not cool. 

However, my father works with a guy whose son decided to teach in Korea, and he signed up with a different agency in the beginning of August, and he was IN Korea by the end of the month. Needless to say, we switched to his agency, one called HoyaEnglish. You can check them out at http://www.hoyaenglish.com/. Fortunately, all of our paperwork was already in Korea, so we just had our old agency forward it to the new one, and voila! we are ahead of the game. 

Just a couple of days ago we heard back from our recruiter, and she has found two schools about 10 minutes from each other that would like to have Angie and me as teachers. Both schools are located in Daegu, (also Taegu) the fourth largest city in South Korea. See the map to get an idea of where we're going (it's Taegu on this map). For info on the city, check out this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu. Apparently, since the schools provide housing (rent free!) for their teachers, we will each have our own house to live in, but either one of them is large enough for us to live together if we choose. We are scheduled to have phone interviews on Monday evening, but the interviews are supposedly very informal and more of a way for them to check to make sure we have the proper American pronunciation of English words. I'll be sure to post when I have more information.  

There's always a delay...

So I got a call from my recruiter recently, and I received this as a follow-up email:

"Several recent events have had the combined effect of significantly reducing our hiring need for the next few months.  Firstly, we have seen a record rate of contract renewals amongst our current instructors. While this is a very positive reflection of instructors' experience here at CHUNGDAHM, it unfortunately means we have fewer openings for new instructors. The swine flu scare has also had a temporary effect on student enrollment, which has in turn further decreased the need for new instructors. Thankfully the impact of this issue is already starting to diminish. And lastly, as a result of shifted guidance due to global economic conditions, new schools targeted to open late this summer will now open at the end of this year/beginning of 2010.

Any of these factors alone would have had only a minor impact on hiring needs, but all together created a “perfect storm” condition that has resulted in a significant decrease in needs.  It is unfortunate that the real impact did not become apparent until very late in the process, and that we weren’t able to provide more notice of this to you."

In a nutshell, that means that my departure date has been pushed back from August to November. It stinks that I have to wait, but it'll give me some more time to prepare for the trip and to make a little bit of extra money before I go. 

Angie and I have decided that instead of waiting around to leave for Korea we'd like to do a bit more inexpensive traveling. We signed up for the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) program. You can read more about it here: http://www.wwoof.ie/. It's a great way to travel and see the world for relatively cheap (just airfare and whatever souvenirs you want while there). We'll be traveling to Ireland to work at an organic retreat center outside of Galway. We've already been in touch with a host and the family is excited to have us with them for the month of October. Exact dates are still up in the air for both Korea and Ireland, but I'll be sure to post them when I know.

Adventure #1

So this is not technically a Korea adventure, but it's a pre-Korea adventure with my Korea traveling buddy. That being said, I think it's blog-worthy. Angie and I went to Windham's Seacoast Fun Park for a little bit of a thrill. The SkySwing (pictured here) is a 100 foot free fall, and then you get to swing back and forth through this huge arch. It's pretty cool and very safe. All for the low, low price of $15 per person. And you can get fried dough after!

The Dilemma

I received this in a birthday card and thought it was worth sharing...

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk rejection.

To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. 

The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love. Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave. He has forfeited his freedom. 

Only a person who takes risks is free.

Pieces of Me

Some pictures of the people I love <3

http://s926.photobucket.com/albums/ad106/jdorion/

Introducing...

So everyone, welcome to the official "Jaime's Adventures in South Korea" blog, as promised! As most of you already know, I recently graduated from the University of Maine, and I accepted a position as an English teacher in South Korea (no I don't speak Korean, but I'm learning. Fortunately, Koreans speak English, too). I'll be leaving in mid-August (around the 13th or so). My training starts on August 17th in Seoul, and my job officially starts on August 24th. I'll be teaching from 4-10pm Korean time, about 4 or 5 days each week (not too shabby, eh?). And not to worry, I'll be traveling with a very good friend of mine: Angie, from Temple, ME. She, too, graduated from UMaine with a B.S. in Secondary Education, concentration in English (same degree program as me). We'll be traveling, living, and possibly teaching together. I've included a link to her blog because there's a good chance she'll be more diligent about posting (or she'll post in more detail). I'll be sure to post with more details later; I get my contract in July, and that will include specifics regarding pay, exact location, grade level assignment, housing, etc. I hope you enjoy this little window into my life abroad!