PAY DAY!!!!

ok, i need to write new posts about a lot of things, but right now i just have to that it feels sooooooo good to finally be paid. No more surviving on PBJ's, ramen, and cereal, no more having to worry about school's shutting down and not paying, no more having to ask someone to cover my bills for a month, i can pay people back, i can pay for my own phone bill again, i can buy a frickin table and iron and real food. after i checked my account this morning i seriously felt like 100 lbs lifted off my shoulders and i could have cried. theres still other things to worry about, and i still need to make a budget and pay back lots of stuff. but for now, its time to CELEBRATE!!!!

the quest for a visa

my original plan in coming to korea was to teach english for a year, studying korean for a semester was more of a small detour. after i finished the semeseter i had a job lined up starting in february, and i just needed to get my visa in order for everything to be set. however, there was an incident recently in which a teacher was caught for being a pedophile. he was from canada, and i think they caught him when he was in taiwan or something. anyway because of that korea changed its rules on obtaining an E-2 english teaching visa. its kind of a good thing that they did because there wasnt a lot of quality control with foreign teachers. the problem though, is that its somewhat of a korean thing to get all caught up in an idea and do something drastic without thinking too much about the implementation of the idea (which means i had to go through a lot to get the visa now).

you already needed the original or a notarized copy of your diploma (and it had to be notarized by the korean consulate, not just anyone) and your transcripts. if i had sent these to my school before Dec. 15th i might have avoided a lot of trouble, but i didn't. now i also needed a criminal background check, which according to rumors could take months. and it wasn't until mid january that korean immigration decided if it was your first time getting a teaching visa you had to do it from your home country. so all of a sudden i was going back to america and was only able to buy my ticket 4 days before i left (= very expensive ticket). i went right away to get the background check, which i didn't really know much about. i went to the local sherriff's office and told them i needed to show that my background was clear of a criminal record. so they just gave me a background clearance letter based on my driver's license and it costs $40. then i had to take it upstairs to get it notarized for $20. then i had to get it authenticated in the next building over (which means they put a gold sticker on it) for $9. luckily i was able to do all of this on the same day as i was short on time. the i realized oh crap, what if i need a background check with fingerprints and i just wasted $70, but i called the consulate and they said what i had was fine. but i still wasn't finished. i then had to take it to downtown la to the state officea and get it apostilled (which i had never heard of, but makes it an internationally legal document) which burned another $26.

finally i had the background check out of the way, now i needed to get a new set of transcripts from my university. ucla has a stamp seal on the transcript itself, but doesn't put anything on the envelope. which i assume is usually fine, but not for korean immigration. they want some kind of stamp or seal directly on the envelope. in order to get that i had to go to the ucla office in person and special request it. the transcripts are cheap, $6 a pop, but then it costs $15 for them to stamp a signature on the envelope. anyway, they did it in like 5 min, so that was awesome.

i brought everything down to the local kinko's (the background clearance with a bunch of stickers and signatures, the transcripts with the signature stamp, a signed copy of my contract, a health form declaring that i was healthy, and a few passport size photos). because of time, i had to send it fedex international priority, which was $50. i think i sent it on a wednesday and so it would arrive in korea on friday, but korea is 17 hours ahead. so it didnt really arrive until the following monday. then there was a 3 day holiday that week because of the lunar new year, so they didnt submit my documents until another week later. then they called me and told me there might be a problem because the signature stamp for my transcripts wasn't directly on the envelope seal line!!!! seriously. anyway, it worked out. but then it took another week after submitting the papers in korea for them to go through. which meant i had to delay my flight another week (=$90). and my flight was a special deal where i could only stay 30 days until the return flight and i had postponed my flight to the last day possible. if i couldnt get it in time, i would have to buy a new flight and possibly lose $800. luckily i got my visa confirmation number, got an interview with the la korean consulate the next day and submitted my visa, and picked it up the day after that. so i was able to get my visa on thursday, and my flight was leaving on sunday. if it had taken more than 2 days for them to process my visa, i would have been screwed.

life on the edge

random things in korea

i don't have my own refrigerator, so i keep the milk on the windowsill. its so cold outside that it works and i am able to feed my cereal cravings

when i run out of clean socks, i just buy a new pair at one of the street vendors

sometimes i overhear people talking about a foreigner and i try to listen in and eavesdrop on what they're saying. although my korean isn't that good yet so i usually can't understand.

there are some korean restaurants where you kind of do some of the cooking yourself at your table. but because i'm a foreigner sometimes the worker will come do it for me and serve me. maybe because they think i don't know how? or they just want to be nice?

when i see other foreigners i'm never sure if i'm supposed to greet them, and if i do whether i should greet them in english or korean.

two of my nicknames when i was working with kindergarteners were pinocchio and dracula.

in relation to the previous one when people tell me i have a big nose, i ask them why their nose is so small.

in korea, there is always a sauna or jjimjilbang around. they're a cheap place to relax and spend the night. so one time i couldn't get home because it was too late, so i just took a taxi to the nearest jjimjilbang and slept there and then went home the next morning.

i live with a family that has six children - five girls and one boy. the father is korean and the mother is japanese. the kids wake me up every morning for breakfast "samcheon samcheon bop mokja!" (uncle uncle lets eat)

the starbucks in korea is actually more expensive than in america (as is virtually every coffee shop in korea)

dunkin donuts and baskin robbins are really popular, and krispy kreme is rising in popularity

addresses aren't in order by location, but rather by the order in which the building was constructed (at least in some areas)

i you want to get a seat on the bus or subway, you have to be ready to push and shove. especially against older women.

when riding the subway and especially the bus you need to have a good sense of balance. there is a lot of jerky movements. its always fun to watch the mass of people sway in the same directions.

some shopping areas become so crowded that i literally had my arms shoved against my sides and was awkwardly pushed against the person in front of me and could not move for 5 minutes. this was only resolved by the people behind us pushing so hard that we were forced forward.

there are as many words and signs in english as there is in korean.

when i take a shower i lift up the toilet seat so that when i'm finished the toilet seat isn't covered in water

instead of heating through the air, heating comes through the floor. and it gets so hot that my butt will start to feel painful