getting things together

Seeing as how I only have 22 days (15 business days) till I take off for Korea, I'd better get my act together. I'm still waiting on my visa number to come through. Its getting down to the wire here. I need to have enough time to get to the consulate and have them process everything.

Some other things I need to do are:

• cancel my cell phone
• pay my credit card
• see if I can defer my student loans
• complete my loan exit interview
• get luggage
• figure out what to pack
• save money!

That's just what I could think of off the top of my head. I posted on the Yeosu Wayguk facebook group saying that I was coming in the 21st and if anyone had any tips for me. I also messaged the teacher that is at Jonggo MS right now asking him a few things. Its getting down to crunch time.

The last item on my list is proving to be the hardest. I got paid on friday. A little over $500. That same day I dropped $740 on my ticket. Ugh. Whats worse is that in my attempt to hang out with everyone before I leave, I end up spending money. There's nothing easier than grabbing a bite to eat with friends. If only I could order off the kids menu. Life would be easier haha.

Speaking of money, the Won is doing great right now. When I first applied for the job my salary of 2,000,000 Won equalled about $1,570. Now its upwards of $1,600! I know its not much, but every little bit counts when I have to send money home for student loans.

Sending the money home just got a little easier. KEB (Korea Exchange Bank) has a new type of account just for expats. It allows us to send money home over the internet and also issues us an international debit card. Score!

Now for some Korean flash cards.

Flight Status:

Officially booked!

Done.

$737.40 later, I have my one way ticket to Korea. The flight changed a little bit. I'm leaving Boston at 6:10pm now, so my layover at LAX is a little longer, but I still get to Incheon at 5:00am.

Speaking of $737.40...I really need to step up my game on saving money. I've been doing alright this summer, but in the 2 weeks or so after my birthday I pretty much ran out of food. Which means that I've been spending around $20/day on meals instead of $70 for about two weeks worth of food. FML. I've since gone grocery shopping and stopped spending money on things when I can.

The official countdown is 23 days until I'm airborne. Crazy. I emailed Carrie my flight info last night. She replied saying that she thinks I have to prepare many things. That got me thinking, I haven't really prepared all that much. Now I'm dissecting every aspect of my life to figure out what I need to set up, cancel, or change in the next 23 days before I leave.

I'm going to be busier than I thought.

Red Eye to Incheon

I'm buying my ticket to Korea tomorrow.

My one way ticket.

Weird.

Its a good thing tomorrow is also payday. From the looks of it now, my ticket will be about $758. That's including taxes, fees, and flight insurance. Normally I'd say screw the insurance, but this isn't just some vacation that I'm taking. Plus, with the insurance I'm covered up to $1,000 if my luggage gets lost. I'd rather eat $40 from not using the insurance than eat a $700 ticket.

I need to arrive at Seoul Incheon Airport by 2pm on Friday August 21st. Luckily there are quite a few flights that will get me there before 2pm. Way before 2pm. How bout 5am? Most of the flights I found have me leaving Boston at around 7pm, leaving LAX at 12am, and arriving at Incheon at 5am. Looks like I'll have some time to kill before my ride to Kimpo and connector to Yeosu. Hopefully Korean airports are a little more fun than American airports.

I START WHEN??????

My two day long awaited email just came!!!

I START AUGUST 21ST AT YEOSU JONGGO MIDDLE SCHOOL!!!!!!!!

I don't think I could be more excited.

It really hasn't hit me yet that in less than 1 month I will be living outside the US for a whole year. Unreal. I don't have my visa number yet but I'm not worried about that. All I have to do once I get it is make an appointment at the Korean Consulate in Boston. At least I know what and where I'm teaching.

I went to the Yeosu Education website to find information about my school. The only part in English was the location on a map. pretty much smack dab in the middle of Yeosu. Can't complain there. I like being centrally located. There is also an email address, but I'll save that for tomorrow or something. Baby steps.

Mr. Sammarco the middle school teacher. Has a certain ring to it. I'm definitely OK with teaching middle school. Hopefully the kids have at least a little background of English so I'm not teaching them from scratch. I was able to find an English teacher list through the Yeosu Wayguk facebook group. On it I found the name of the teacher that was at Yeosu Jonggo Middle School this past year. I facebook messaged him asking what he thought of the school and if he had any tips...etc.

More great news, my flight situation is going to be WAY easier than I anticipated. Instead of flying from Boston or New York to LAX to Incheon, then taking a bus or train or something to Kimpo Airport and flying from there to Yeosu all on my own dime until I get reimbursed, I just found out that the school takes care of everything once I land in Incheon. They bring me from Incheon to Kimpo in a car and buy my ticket from Kimpo to Yeosu. All I have to do is buy my ticket from the US to Incheon, which I get reimbursed for. That cuts down the cost a bit. About $100 on the Kimpo-Yeosu flight and a few bucks and all the stress of finding a way to Kimpo from Incheon.

So much to do in so little time!

waiting kills.

I need a life.

Really.

I do.

As soon as it hits 8pm and is 9am over in Korea, I compulsively check my email in hopes of getting my placement. About every 5 minutes. Even when i KNOW that its going to be about a week until I hear anything. And before its 8pm...I sit there and count down the time until it is 8pm. I need to stop. But at this point, there's not much going on in my life to distract me. When I'm working I'm either sitting in an office at a computer...checking my email every 3 seconds, or I'm on dispatch where I have to be on campus...aka in my room checking my email every 3 seconds. Help.

I also feel like I've run into a roadblock with my research about Yeosu. Most of what I can find I've already read, or it just talks about the 2012 World Expo. There are only so many articles you can read about kimchi or why its NEVER ok to write someone's name in red. I guess I could focus all of this time and energy into actually learning how to speak Korean.

Don't get me wrong, I'm wicked excited to learn the language, as you can tell from my other post. You just need to take it with a grain of salt. Its really hard. Plus there is no teacher to help me and its way too easy to look in the back of the book at the answers. Not to mention I study at my computer so I can listen to the dialogues on CD, and guess how often I take a break to check my email for the message that I KNOW won't be there. Yup, approximately every minute or so.

I'M SO UNPRODUCTIVE.

Even right now. Tonight. I've been sitting in the office since 6pm. What have I done? The usual facebook, twitter, fmylife, textsfromlastnight, 59 games of bubble spinner, watched Knowing...oh yeah, and I checked my email 209438762093486 times! All while if I turn my head slightly to the right I see my Korean book. Mocking me. I even brought index cards to the office so I could practice vocabulary. I guess in the last 15 minutes of my shift I can pull it together enough to make a few flash cards instead of ranting and raging like this.

Ok. I can do this.

Here I go.






Right after I check my email.

Brain Fart

Major brain fart. I can't believe I didn't mention my discovery today. Well...its not really a discovery. More like I found something really helpful to me that had been there all along. Lately I've been pretty concerned with my social network, or lack thereof that I would have when I arrive in Yeosu. I was on a message board about Yeosu expat networks when I saw a posting about the Yeosu Wayguk facebook group. Facebook??? Carrie did mention that I could find other native teachers using the book.

My first 3 seconds on the group were a flood of information. There were postings on just about every topic I was wondering about. What to pack, where to hang out, what to do, health insurance, vacation time...the list goes on and on. What I liked the most was one post that a soon to be expat started. She said how she was coming in August and just wanted to say hi to everyone. The other expats seemed so welcoming and interested in helping this girl even before she arrived. I found a lot of comfort in knowing that the Yeosu expat community was easy to find and easy to break into.

Delivery!

I just checked the status for my documents....

As of 9:42AM Monday the 20th (8:42PM Sunday the 19th in RI) my package was loaded onto the FedEx vehicle for delivery! I should be expecting an email from Carrie saying that she received it. Placement here I come!

My bucket list is going great. Charlsey and I got fondue yesterday at the Melting Pot. Two words: Cheesey Goodness. One of the best meals I've had in a long time. The dinner menu tonight consisted of a Philly Cheesesteak and some fries. Definitely American, definitely delicious.

More importantly, I hit the Korean book hard today. My Teach Yourself book had me writing some dialogues, translating sentences then structuring them into the Korean form...even reading a waiter's note slip and translating the order from Hangul script to romanized from to English. The next chapter dealth with introductions and some nitty gritty grammar. I forsee this being the hardest part. That and the vocabulary. So I guess basically everything. Learning a language by yourself with just a book and a couple of CD's is a HUGE challenge. A challenge that I embrace with open arms. Just learning a language is a big deal, but being self taught how to communicate with an entire population of people is mind blowing. As hard as it is to press on, the outcome will be extremely worth it.