Skyping with my students

It's hard to describe how I feel right now. I just had a 20-minute conversation via Skype with my future Korean students. They are all 13 years old. I was surprised to see how well they could speak English. I felt like I should talk really slowly so that they could understand, but the teacher there, Kat, was talking to them really quickly and even with some slang so that was quite the surprise to me. She said something along the line of "Who wants to ask her a question?" but when you say it in real life it comes out more like "Who wantsta asker a question?" and that is normal to a native English speaker but can be confusing if you don't know the language very well. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they could understand her! This will make my teaching much more fun and easier too.

They asked me questions like:

• What is your favorite hobby? (They must not have been either listening to each other or listening to me because they asked this one twice)
• What is your favorite food?
• Do you have any brothers or sisters?
• Do you have any friends in Korea?

After some prompting by the teacher we talked about the time here (it was 6:19pm when I answered so I explained that it was dinner time so they could understand the context and that it was only Tuesday).

I'm so glad that I got to Skype with them (they could see me but I could not see them, so that was a bummer but oh well). I'm really grateful that Kat was willing and wanting to do this with us. She told me in an email that she uses Skype with the students to talk to her sister. That's pretty cool too. I would love to find a class in the world to Skype with my students. How cool would that be? I was going to say "the US" but then I remembered that no classes are in session then due the the time zone. London would not work because they are 9 hours difference. But something like Sydney, Australia would work since they are very close in time zones. How amazing would that be!? I'm going to try to search for schools to be Skypemates with!

The silliest thing is that I worried I smiled too much. I have heard a lot that you have to be very strict and stern with the kids there. Did I seem too friendly and therefore set myself up to have students not respect me? It's hard to not smile when you are staring at yourself on Skype and you don't get to see who you are talking to. Plus, I just smile a lot. I'm going to hope that this could only be a good thing.

Anyway, SO glad that I got to do that. Wow, what an amazing opportunity!

Criminal Background Checks

Right now I am really stressed out. It kills me that I did my criminal background check wrong and I have to re-do it. But the process is such a pain that I'm scared everything is going to be ruined.

First I have to get my fingerprints. This costs $20 and is by appointment only. The next available appointment is Thursday at 6:30pm. Well, of course I signed up. I had no choice.

Next I will have to send a check to the State Police for $33. There is no expedited process and it will take 5-7 days. I don't even know what kind of envelope to send this in. I should find that out.

If I send it on Friday morning it could get back to me by late that next week.

At that point I'll have to drive down to Salem, Oregon (about an hour drive away) and get it apostillized. This costs $10.

All of this MUST be done by August 25th because that is when I fly out to San Diego and officially leave Portland.

I am so scared all of this will not be done in time. I'm worried that I'm going to get delayed again which maybe isn't the biggest deal but I feel like I'm already making a bad impression on the school because my start date has already been delayed from Sept 1 to Sept 7. And what if I still don't get everything done by then?

I admire my ability to take on an idea so quickly and just go for it but this was also a terrible idea. This legal document process is so complicated that doing it in just 1 month is not really possible. There is just too much to do.

This just in: I just got a phone call that said that if I can't get all my documents in time then they will be forced to find another English teacher at that school. And as for me.....??

I'm still afraid that this is all just a giant mistake. I like adventure but am I really ready for this one?

Lessons I have already learned

It's true I'm not the most organized person, but I think I'd still believe the application process is complicated and difficult to compile even still. I have messed up in the completion of my documents so many times now it is ridiculous.

• I thought that I could get the normal 2 passport photos and then photocopy the rest required. Not so. You actually need to order extra passport photos as they will not accept the color photocopies.
• Criminal Background Check: this must be done at the state level, not the city level. I had never had to do one before so I assumed that the city would just extend out to the state. Not so. Now I have to take yet another trip down to Salem to re-do the papers.
• Apostillized documents: not only do you have to get your criminal background check apostilled but you also have to get your diploma notarized with an apostille stamp. You should probably remember to do this all in one trip. I did not. Lesson learned on that one.
• Your letters of recommendation have to be pretty specific and include things like your dates of employment. Most people do not include this on a general letter of recommendation so you really have to ask that they include that in there. As such, you often can not use an old letter of recommendation but rather get a new one from that person.
• I read online that you can't use your passport if it will expire during the time that you are going to be abroad. For example, my passport would have expired in May 2010. So I went and got a new one. After I sent in my passport I found out that I could have traveled anyway and the process to update it would be much easier had I done it when I was already in Korea rather than now. I'm on the fence about that one. It would have been nice to speed up the process of receiving a new passport, but I'm glad it's one less thing I have to worry about. I feel better knowing that my passport can now last me another 10 years.
• Using Dave's ESL site is never a waste of time. Reading other people's blogs are also never a waste of time. But you do always have to take it with a grain of salt. You have to understand that everyone comes from very different places in their lives with very different expectations of what they want out of their experience. To just make a blanket statement like "you should only live in Seoul" is just not fair. Not everyone wants that.

My blog is from my perspective, nothing more, nothing less. If I were to give a very short summary about who I am, I would tell you that I am 26 years old, white, female, upper-middle class, well-traveled, and well-educated. I have been to over 20 countries though most of them for only a short period of time. I have been to South Korea, for example, for the length of 3 days in the city of Busan. My longest travels have been to Costa Rica (where I lived and worked for 1 month at age 16) and Australia (3 weeks at the age of 7).

I seek adventure and I'm an adrenaline junkie though I admit to not partaking in my addiction nearly as much as I would want. While in Korea I hope to snowboard, scuba/snorkel, and hike. Cities and temples are a given.

I'm going to try to be an adventurous eater. I'm a vegetarian but I have been attempting to expand my eating habits so that I can fully appreciate the Korean food culture. I don't see myself eating chicken on a stick anytime soon, but who knows.

Really, who knows...