Today I was told by my recruiter that my school no longer wanted to hire me. Forget that I have worked my tail (and wallet/charge card) off to get all the documents necessary, and signed a contract, for it. Apparently there is a huge misunderstanding between Jane, Scott, and I. They perceive any question about the school, visa process, or documents that I’ve had thus far as me being picky and suspicious. And while I have every right in the world to be suspicious enough to have all of my ducks in a row and accounted for, I have just asked questions out of curiosity and need for information and clarification on certain issues. I’m mean, it’s totally safe to say that I’ve been screwed over before, so I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But, for whatever reason, Jane and Scott felt the need to inform the prospective school in Oido that, in their eyes, I was being difficult. In fact, Jane informed me that if the school does not want me as their teacher, they will drop me as a client. Apparently three schools prior to this one didn’t wish to interview me as a prospective employee for the same reason ECC fired me. I honestly don’t have the faintest clue as to why I’m still here anymore. Experiencing new cultures, sceneries, adventures, and environments is exactly what I’ve always wanted to do. All things aside, I’ve really enjoyed my time in Korea thus far. I’ve just got to figure out a way to make money while I’m living here.
Turns out that, by the end of day, the school in Oido chose to keep their contract with me. Well, I guess, seeing as how this is going so far, we will just have to wait and see how they feel tomorrow, as they might once again change their mind. I’m currently talking with some of my friends in Japan via Facebook to see if I can stay with one of them during my visa run. If so, I don’t see why I couldn’t leave for Japan the first week of May. After the school in Oido gets all of my documents, they will send them to the local immigration office, who will then issue me a visa number. It is at this time that I will go to a Korean embassy in Japan to obtain my new visa.
Nobody actually knows the address of our apartments, so the teachers just have packages and so forth sent to the school. No one that I asked knew the address of the school, and the front desk was too busy to give it to me in time for my mom to send me my aposilled diploma and sealed university transcripts. So I gave her the address of a lady by the name of YoonMi at our church. Apparently the envelope arrived on Saturday, so YoonMi brought it to church on Sunday. Well, since I was too busy climbing a mountain, I wasn’t there to get it. So she just put the documents in a cabinet by the computer in the dining room. Both Monday and Tuesday I went to the church during my breaks at school, but no such luck. I knew they always have Wednesday night service, so I went there tonight after my 6pm elementary class. I searched and searched, but must have been looking in all of the wrong places, because I couldn’t find my documents. I felt really bad because I couldn’t explain to the pastor why I was there. He didn’t understand. I couldn’t figure out how to ask him to let me use a phone there, so I walked all the way back to school to call YoonMi and ask her where she put the documents. Then I walked all the way back to church to find that the dining room door was locked. Appa was preaching, so I just sat and waited a good 30 minutes until the service was over. When he walked down stairs and saw me, he told me to go home. I think he was really frustrated by not understanding why I was there. When he saw the urgency in my expression and the sadness in my eyes, he unlocked the dining room door. I found my documents!! I had phone teaching and a presentation to make, but too bad…I went home instead.
I will most likely leave at 7:30am tomorrow so that I can get to school by 8:00am, call Jane to sort out when and how she would like to get the documents from me, and create this presentation that I have to give at 9:10am before kindy starts at 9:40am. I have 150 minutes of kindy, 200 minutes of elementary, and phone teaching tomorrow. I want to finish phone teaching so that I won’t have any on Friday or next week. Next week I will have enough on my plate with evaluations, tests, and whatever my recruiters feel the need to make me feel bad about. So, I will most likely be at school from 8:00am until 9:00/9:30pm. Such is the life.
I’m kind of excited about the idea of only being at school a total of eight hours a day. I will be only teaching and getting paid for four hours a day, but I will be sure to find a hobby for the other four. I will be the only foreign teacher at the school, so there will be plenty of Korean spoken around me, which will hopefully help me learn more of the language. I will get to eat with the Korean teachers in a private room while the kids serve themselves lunch in their classrooms. The apartment they will provide for me also has other ESL teachers that live there, as Oido has many schools, and therefore many foreign teachers. I am sure that I will be teaching all grades of this elementary school, but I’ll survive. I look forward to finding a gym, exploring the city, buying good food, exercising, and living a physically and emotionally healthy and satisfying life here in Korea. I can only imagine how wonderful that will be.
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