Starting Up

It began with an advert.

'Foreign teaching organisation seeks disaffected Brit 25-yr olds for possible opportunity to have a year away from bad weather, recession and Rupert Murdoch-run media.'

Well..that's not exactly what it said, but it's amazing how 12 months of working in different places, being turned down for research jobs and still having nearly not enough money to pay the rent every month will change your view on job descriptions.

Anyway...once I knew I was heading away from everything I know for quite some time, I figured it might be a decent idea to write down what was going on. For three reasons.

1.) So people who were interested might take a look and see what I was doing.
2.) So I would know what I was doing. Because I don't most of the time.
3.) To detail how many times I got l  To give an interesting account of a foreign culture.

With all this in mind, I actually took action and made up this blog.

Guess it really all started with an advert for a teaching job in South Korea on a well-known careers website a few months ago. It's long been an ambition of mine to go to the Far East, but up until now things hadn't been going too well (two letters of rejection from JET being testament to this), and I'd almost given up on the idea by the time I saw this ad. I would apply through a recruiting agency, ESLStarter, but the job itself would be run by EPIK (English Program in Korea), so it was a Government-run programme with a decent reputation. Looking more closely at the country itself (excellent scenery - check, massive amounts of technology - check, loadsa incredible hot women - check) I decided to give it a go and apply.

I sent off all the accompanying stuff for the application, and pretty much straight away I was answered by a very nice and helpful lady called Claire, who has helped me through the application process ever since. A week or so later I had an email saying I had a phone interview. Of course, the person on the other end of the phone was sat in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, 8 hours ahead of us, so that meant it had to take place at 7.30am. Cue getting up at 6am, strong coffee and a shower for my pre-game.

Evidently my preparation wasn't in vain, because a couple of days later I got an email saying I'd been successful! Job done, right? Wrong.

Because I applied fairly late for the job, once I sent in the required paperwork (50 quid to get it to Korea fast, unbelievable!) I was quickly told that nearly all the positions in South Korean public schools had been filled, so I was put on the 'wait list'. I very quickly realised (through conversations on forums) that this was NOT a good thing. It meant you could end up waiting for a placement in Korea to arrive that could take months. After reading this, my line of thought went thus:

First thought: Bollocks!
Second thought: Look for other work
Third thought: Invested too much time and money in this to back out now!

So...I waited. And waited. Kept sending emails to Claire but she hadn't heard anything either. Applied for a couple of other jobs with no success, beginning to lose hope, until finally, exactly two weeks ago, I got an email from Claire saying that I now had a placement, in the Chungbuk district of Korea. However, they wanted me to start work at the end of August. Which meant getting all my materials ready, sorting out travel and visa documents, and getting mentally ready - all in a little over two weeks. Add to that having to move out of my house and shift a dozen boxes and bags of random stuff too.

So, as you can imagine, the last fortnight has been something of a rush.

However, I now stand (or sit) here at my Mum's house in Milton Keynes - bags packed, flight booked and with only one loose end left to tie - getting into London to grab my passport with visa attached that'll actually let me teach.

So how do I feel here? Guess it's the same as anyone would when about to engage in a massive step - mixture of massive excitement and bowel-knotting fear. It's not really hit me that I'm about to go to the other side of the world from everything I know yet - I don't think it will until I'm about to get on the flight. I'm now at the deep breath before the plunge, so I don't really know what to do with myself. Other than write here, of course.

I could sit here and compose a list of 'things I'm going to miss' or assorted rubbish like that, but in all honesty I don't see it as really relevant because I'm going to miss a lot of things, and I won't know what I'll miss most until I'm actually out there and it's not there. Probably my pool cue family and friends, then.

Anyway, I think that's about all the backstory that need be told. I'll probably write again either tomorrow (going out to some garden event) or on Friday (once I've got back from London). In the meantime, if anyone reading this has any comments/suggestions/abuse they want to throw in, by all means go for it. I'm particularly interested in how I could make the blog page better looking. I came up with the header myself and I'm rather proud of it, but what else could I stick in here that might be useful? Look forward to your suggestions.

RM.