What's up guys and gals?

I usually wouldn't write a blog for pretty much any reason. I usually don't feel a need to spill my life story online. I'll openly tell parts of it if it's relevant to the conversation at hand but I don't usually like to just write it and throw it out there. It feels awkward.

But, well... This is a special occassion, I guess :P

So, for those who follow my story and read authors notes, you may be aware that I am moving to Korea for a year to be an English teacher (cliche gap year much). Since I am currently waiting in Kuala Lumpur airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Incheon, I thought this was a good time to write about some stuff and basically use this as a mini diary, haha.

Let's start at the beginning, that's where stories usually begin. I was born, I went to school, I went to university (Bachelor of Biological Science with Honours), did well at university, then decided I was sick of science because I'd been studying it non-stop for 4 years.

So, I enrolled for a CELTA (an English teaching course) that started less than 2 weeks after I finished my honours year. Then followed the most intense 5 weeks of my life. Not even kidding. My final exams in university had nothing on that course. They had us in the classroom teaching actual students on our second day there. The students were all adults attending free English lessons and the class was mostly refugees, asylum seekers and poor immigrants. It was really terrifying and really difficul but also incredibly interesting. It also managed to make me, a girl of 22 who had never taught a day in her life and who, before last year, had never considered teaching a job I woud ever do, actually not terrible in a classroom. Sure, I'm still shaky and a little bleh at times, but I believe I can do it. Which I definitely couldn't say before the course.

So, CELTA done, I applied to the EPIK (English Program in Korea) government program. They promise that, if you are accepted you will be placed in a public school somewhere in Korea and, after hearing loads of horror stories of Hagwon jobs and private listings, I was happy to go for the government program for security reasons. 

That application requires so much stuff and took so much time. I can only say for Australian timings but I'll list them below, they may interest some people:

• Appliation form - that was easy. General information, a couple of essays where you gush about teaching and Korea, a lesson plan (ok, that was less easy, but still)
• Apostilled police check - applied for hte police check online ($45), got it in a week. Apostille took a day at the passport office ($60)
• Apostilled birth certificate - this , I'm English but live in Australia, so I had to get it couriered and ugh. It took 2 weeks but cost an arm and a leg. I probably could have got it cheaper but I left it a little last minute :P
• Naturalisation papers - this was a copy of my citizenship certificate which I had to get notarized by a notary public ($50 for 1 document and $25 for any others)
• Apostilled diploma - also . So much. Not just because my university gives out A3 (double letter sized-ish for Americans) diplomas. It was a pain in the to carry around. Anyway, because I don't want to send off the original, I had to get it photocopied. Then the university had to sign the copy saying it was a true copy of the original. Then I had to get it notarized by a notary public ($25), then I had to get it apostilled ($60). It took little time overall but was the most complicated document to obtain.
• Copy of CELTA (or TESOL if you don't do CELTA) certificate
• Signed contracts for Seoul area as a 'just in case you get placed in Seoul' thing (I didn't).
• Signed declarations saying I don't have visible tattoos or piercings and I won't smoke in the school grounds

So I submitted the application form online first in earlyish Jan. AN agent got back to me in about a week and said I was successful and arranged a skype interview. I did that, it went fine. They ask all the usual job interview questions ('if you friends had to describe you, what would they say?', 'what is your worst point?', 'if x problem occurred, what would you do?') and some more specific ones ('what is your ideal teaching method?', 'you have a bad coteacher, what do you do?', 'why Korea?'), it's not too hard. So I passed that, he got back to me within 2 days with the results. Then I had to post all the documents (and photocopies of them) listed above to Korea (this took a week). They then sent the contract, I signed it and then applied for a visa and booked flights.

Boom, done.

Easy right? Haha no.

But honestly, that only took around a month and a half to get sorted. And now I am sat in the airport halfway to Incheon.

When I get to Korea, I have a day to play with since it was cheaper to fly in a day earlier than they suggested and get a hotel. So I'm thinking of touring round Seoul briefly, if I can. Then I have to meet the EPIK coordinators in the airport to be taken to wherever the heck I'm going.

I know I've been placed in Gangwon province. That's the province in the North East and is well-known for its nature and mountains. It looks super pretty. But other than that, I have no idea where I am going. I don't know what town or city, I don't know what school. I don't even know what age group of students I'll be teaching. So it's going to be interesting.

And that was a long and rambling post. I hope it was interesting to some of you. If not, feel free to ignore me :P

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'll be happy to answer, whether to you specifically or in a master list type blog post.