That time my job suddenly didn’t exist

On June 30th, I woke up to an email from my EPIK coordinator, which made me really excited, until I read the contents, because I thought he was going to say that contracts were going to be mailed out soon or offer a document with general information about my new city. Which meant I could apply for my working visa and book my plane ticket. Instead, I was informed that I no longer had a job! The Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education elected a new superintendent and with that, all positions offered for August had been revoked.

Excuse me, but what?!

I had a mixture of thoughts and feelings going through me – chiefly being that I had just spent 6 months preparing for something that disappeared in a single email and wondering what in the world I was supposed to do next. Thankfully, EPIK stated that they would try to place me in another location, which I was extremely grateful about, but at the same time completely nervous. I didn’t know how many positions were still available and, since it was so late in the game, I would be offered a position in a place that doesn’t show up on Wikipedia.

I stayed optimistic that I would be offered another position and after a day or so, I began to accept that I would probably placed somewhere rural and probably as far from Seoul as possible. I was sad because that meant I wouldn’t get to be close to the two friends I have made during this process because they were placed in Seoul. Still, I stayed positive that I would make more friends and have a lot of fun hiking and working on my Korean.

The email came three days later and I braced myself, honestly, I almost didn’t want to open it. I read through that one paragraph email several times, my excitement growing with each read through. EPIK had found me another position! To add icing, a cherry, gold sprinkles, and caviar to the top; the position was in Seoul aka the place I originally requested! 

So to add to my massive lesson on patience, I can now say that this process has taught me that “you have to put up with the rain to see the rainbow.”

EPIK Timeline

Even though it has been done many times before, I have decided to share my timeline for EPIK. I hope you find it useful!

February

• 1 – Submitted application and two recommendation letters
• 3 – Received confirmation of my application
• 4 – Requested FBI background check
• 7 – Received sealed transcripts

March

• 8 – Received background check
• 13 – Received expected letter of graduation
• 14 – Received apostilled background check
• 24 – Received an email for an interview
• 30/April 1st (KST) – Interview

April

• 4 – Received email saying I passed my interview
• 8 – Sent documents to Korea
• 9 – Sent updated SMOE contract to Korea
• 11 – Coordinator processed my documents

May

• 10 – Received my diploma
• 16 – Sent diploma to be apostilled
• 27 – Received apostilled diploma
• 30 – Sealed final transcripts and apostilled degree sent to Korea

June

• 3 – Received placement in Incheon
• 30 – Placement was canceled 

July

• 2 – Received placement in Seoul
• 15 – Received contract and NOA
• 15 – Booked plane ticket!!
• 17 – Mailed contract, NOA, passport, and application to Korean Embassy for visa
• 23 – Received visa

August

• 14 – Arrived in South Korea
• 18 – Started orientation
• 26 – Life in Korea officially began!

I’m moving to Incheon, South Korea!

For the past five and a half months I have been working to secure a position as a Native English Teacher in South Korea. It has been a long process full of paperwork, requesting official documents, anxiously waiting to see if I passed each step of the application process, and doing research on the country…which was in addition to finishing my last semester of college. So needless to say, these past few months I have fine-tuned my multi-tasking skills and learned several lessons on patience and letting go of things outside of my control.

This morning all of my hard work and patience have paid off as I received an email offering me a position in Incheon! I had originally requested Seoul, but that’s okay, I am happy to finally know that I have a job. Up until now I felt like I was in limbo, I couldn’t say that I was officially going to Korea, but I had to live like I was staying in America.

I am so excited right now and I’m glad that I ordered some Korean language books because I’m going to need them!! My next step is earning as much money as I can to take with me (you can help out here), waiting for my contract in the mail, getting my visa, figuring out what I need to pack for a year, and how to close up my life in America. Next month I should know the day that I need to be in Korea by, but unfortunately, I won’t know my school or the grade levels that I’ll be teaching until the end of orientation in August. So still a little more waiting to do, but I think it’ll be a little more bearable this time around!

-About the program-

I applied to teach English as a foreign language through the English Program in Korea, which is run by the South Korean government and places teachers in public schools around Korea. They hire teachers for elementary school – high school from seven native English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa. the UK, and USA. If you are interested in applying, they typically start accepting applications in August and February.

EPIK Document Collection: Finished!

Today I shipped off the last bit of my documents for EPIK – my apostilled degree and final transcript. I got my final transcript in the mail some time at the end of last week, but unfortunately, the envelope had gotten ripped in the mail, it was only a small tear, but I didn’t want to risk mailing it off and having to send another one later. Mailing documents to Korea is expensive!!

So now that I have all of my documents out of the way, it’s a slight weight off my shoulder. Even better is the fact that the Ministry of Education should have already started looking at applications, so hopefully I’ll hear back in the next few weeks! That will be a major weight off of my shoulders because these days I feel like I’m in limbo. Do I start getting things in order to  move thousands of miles away or do I start on my backup plans? Do I tell my friends that I’m moving to South Korea or do I vaguely answer their questions about my next step in life?

Anyway, I’m trying to distract myself from thinking about when I’ll get an email from EPIK by obsessing over the kpop band, EXO, learning Korean, watching kdramas, spewing out information about Korea to unsuspecting family/friends, and going to work. For the most part it’s working, but hopefully I’ll receive an announcement soon before I completely lose it.

Total Amount Spent (USD): $558

I am finally a graduate!

I graduated on May 10th and I now have a BA in English – Creative Writing!!!

The Monday following graduation, I was supposed to make copies of my degree, have my coworker notarize it, and send it off to Richmond to get an apostille. However, I wasn’t able to do all that until Tuesday, but that’s was fine. Tuesday found me in FedEx trying to figure out how to copy this 12″x17″ piece of paper and if I really needed the seal to be in color. Seven dollars later, I finally figured it out and walked out with 4 bad copies and 2 acceptable ones.

Fortunately, a woman I work with is a public notary and I was able to get my copies notarized for free – so that saved me about $10! Immediately after, I went to the post office to try and mail it out, but they didn’t have the priority mail envelopes that I needed and the woman I was working with was all snappy and agitated, so I left with my documents still in hand.

Through a series of events, chiefly being that I was being lazy and I was having second thoughts about moving to Korea, I didn’t mail my documents off until Friday morning. Thankfully, the authentications office’s website states a turnaround time of 3 – 5 days, so I think I should get it back early next week. At which time, I will promptly take it to FedEx and send it to Korea, along with my final transcripts. Then I will be finished with this document game… well until I, hopefully, have to mail the Korean Embassy in DC for my visa!

 

 

EPIK Documents

Since EPIK is first come-first serve, I wanted to get my documents off to Korea as quickly as possible. I found out that I passed my interview on Friday morning and I wanted to send my documents out that day, but I was still waiting to get my CRC back from being authenticated and my coordinator wanted to look over my corrected application. So I had to wait, thankfully only until Tuesday.

I decided to go with FedEx to ship my documents because many people said that USPS was terrible and that they do not offer tracking once the package gets to Korea. I also looked into DHL and it was a good deal cheaper than FedEx, but when I looked up people’s experiences with them, several said that DHL opened their transcripts! It cost $84 for 2-3 day shipping and $83 for 5 day shipping. There was no question about which option to choose!

I blew some kisses to my documents as I  handed them over and very nearly shed a tear. After taking care of those documents for three months, it was hard to see them go and I was afraid that they’d get lost in the mail. However, I mustered up the courage and walked away. My shoulders lifted a bit. I decided to treat myself to Starbucks. I called my mom. I messaged my friend. I emailed my coordinator my tracking number. I was happy.

Until he emailed me back that night saying that the contract for S.M.O.E. had changed and I would have to mail him the updated copy. I became worried and sad instantly. I was worried that this would put me far behind on the list and sad that I had to spend more money. I even had a moment of thinking, “Maybe I’ll just ask not to be considered for Seoul.” However, I took some more time to think about it and realized that this is such an amazing opportunity and I’ve come so far already, was I really willing to give that up just because I had to do a little more work? I also realized that this is the kind of thing that I’ll have to get used to if I end up going to Korea because their culture is so last minute at times.

With that, I went to FedEx first thing in the morning and sent it off. This time, it cost $56 dollars for 2-3 day shipping vs $96 for 5 day shipping (what’s up with that?). On Thursday and Friday EST, my coordinator emailed me and said he received both of my packages, processed them, and put them in the queue. Now all I have to do is wait until mid-late June to see if I’ll be placed and focus on my last three weeks of undergrad!

Current Amount Spent: $474 USD

I got an interview!

I put off posting about this because I didn’t want to jinx myself or anything. My interview was April 1st, at  9:20 am KST, which meant that it was March 31st at 8:20 pm for me! The days leading up to it I wasn’t too nervous. I tried to keep my mind off of it and I just researched the types of questions EPIK typically asks. I found what really helped me was actually typing out the answers because it gave me time to mull things over things and it really helped solidify my desire to go to Korea.

As they say, appearance is everything when it comes to first impressions and I wanted to give the absolute best. The day before my interview, I set off to find the perfect blouse to wear – preferably in a jewel tone, as that is my best color – but of course, those are fall/winter colors and all the stores have switched over to spring/summer. So unfortunately, I had to do without a new outfit. Which was fine, since I should be saving money anyways!

The day of the interview, I had planned to go to my classes, come home, and relax. However, I ended up on baby duty. My cousin’s baby had pink eye and had to be picked up from daycare ASAP. So instead of sitting on the couch watching another movie on Netflix and scrolling down tumblr, I was watching Barney on demand, keeping a certain baby’s hands away from her eye and my face, and being dragged all over the house by a nearly two year old. Interestingly enough, that was exactly what I need to stay calm. It’s hard to focus on yourself when you have an adorable child demanding all of your attention!

The interview came and went and they told me that I would get a response in 2-3 days, so of course I worried about the quality of my interview during those days! I figured that I would receive an email from them between 8pm and 4am my time (EST) so every night, I’d stay up as long as possible and wake up constantly during the night. Those nights were horrible!

On the third night, every time my phone dinged with a new email, I jumped out of my skin and felt like throwing up! Eventually I had to put my phone on silent and that calmed my nerves quite a lot. Around 3am, I finally got the email. I was going to just leave it until the morning, but the notification bar on my Nexus 7 displayed a preview of the email. All I saw was, “Congratulations Desiree!” I immediately messaged my friends on Kakao and started dancing to Exo’s “Wolf.”

One step closer to Korea!! Good luck to all of the other applicants!!

 

FBI Criminal Records Check and Apostilles

Before I started gathering my documents for EPIK, I ordered a bunch of priority shipping boxes and envelopes from USPS because their website allows you to create and pay for shipping labels online. Which saves me a lot of time since I don’t have to run to the post office every five minutes.

That being said, today I tried to make a return shipping label for when the Department of State mails back my authenticated documents, but you have to indicate the date that it will be in the mail. Not only that, but your only choices are: today, tomorrow, and the next day. Which completely sucks. So totally defeating the point, I trudged down to the post office and paid for stamps. #firstworldproblems

Anyway, rant aside, I got my Criminal Records Check back on March 4th, so it took 30 days since the day I mailed it off to being mailed back. However, when I received it, there was only one copy, when I requested two, but I called customer service and I got my second copy a couple days later. Some part of me had hoped that they would accidently send more copies, but alas, that did not happen.

So, if you’ve been paying attention to my document sticky, you will have notice that I’m pretty much finished collecting my documents, all I have left to do is get my apostilled CRC back, get some passport sized photos, make a copy of my passport information page, and make copies of everything. EPIK says they will notify people about interviews at the end of the month, so close!!

EPIK Costs

For those of you thinking of applying to EPIK, I just wanted to outline the costs that I have incurred during my application process. I am not trying to scare anyone off, but I know that it’s nice to be able to project how much to budget and all that jazz. These costs, so far, do not take into account the cost of sending these documents to Korea, visa application fees, plane costs, and other misc. fees of moving to Korea. If I pass the interview stage and further, I will add those costs up as well, fingers crossed that I’ll be able to do so!

Please note: These are the costs that I have paid, your experience may not be the same as mine, depending on variables such as location, connections, and so on. I will be stating everything in USD, since that’s where I’m applying from, and I’m on the East coast. I’m still working on the diploma, so I put it in italics for expected costs.

 

Item	Cost	Running Total
Passport Application fee Passport picture	$110 $25 Free (Done by a friend)	$135
Criminal Records Check 2 x copies Fingerprints Shipping	$18 per copy $36 Free (Done by a friend) $5	$176
Apostilled Criminal Records Check 2 x copies Shipping	$8 per document $16 $10 (Must include paid envelope for them to return the documents)	$202
Online TEFL Course 1 copy priority mail (coming from the UK) 2 more copies later on (just in case) via regular post	$69 (Used a Groupon deal) $23 $24	$318
Passport Sized Photo 1 copy	$8	$326
Additional Costs Print/copying application + TEFL certificate	$8	$334
Sending Documents to Korea First time (04/08/2014) Second time a day later because the S.M.O.E. contract changed (04/09/2014)	Via FedEx $84 $56	$474
Diploma Notarizing 2 copies Apostille Shipping to/from Richmond Shipping to Korea	Free (Done by a coworker) $15 $12 $57	$558
Visa Visa Fee Priority Express shipping to/from DC Passport pictures	$45 $40 $10 for 8 pictures (Costco, I love you!!)	FINAL TOTAL: $653