reflection

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~Søren Kierkegaard

While packing and preparing for my trip, I have been reflecting on what brought me to this week, the week leading up to me getting on a plane with a one-way ticket to South Korea. Just yesterday, my best friend asked “So why did you decide to go to Korea?” I figured that if I hadn't explained very clearly to my best friend what motivated me to pick up my life and move to Korea, there must be other people who are wondering the same thing (as well as why the process took so long from start to finish)--hence this blog post!

About eight months before I graduated from Western Washington University, I decided I had better start thinking about what I might want to do after I graduated. In January, my boss told me about a job fair on campus. I told her I was busy, I didn't think the job fair would have any opportunities I would be interested in, I didn't feel like going. And yet, as only Stephanie could, she gently pushed me to go for just half an hour and hand out copies of my resume to any prospective employers that I was interested in. Little did I know how that day would impact my plans following graduation!

I went, and I ran into my friend Megan at the job fair. She and I stopped together at the Adventure Teaching table and were immediately transfixed. A rewarding teaching job teaching English in Korea, close to other Asian countries, with generous pay, reimbursed airfare, and free rent? Where do I sign?? I came back to my apartment that day and told my roommates, “I’m going to Korea!” The opportunity interested me so much because I don’t have any previous experience with Korea (which makes it new and exciting for me);  I have a lot of Korean friends from my time at Western; and it would provide some valuable teaching experience for me as a recent college graduate with a TESOL certificate.

I applied to Adventure Teaching, which is a recruiting company that finds potential teachers in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries and helps them find teaching contracts in South Korea. I was accepted to go to Korea with Adventure Teaching, and within a few months I had completed all of the necessary paperwork. They arranged several interviews for me over the course of about two months: the first school chose not to hire me; I turned down the next two schools’ offers because they didn’t fit my criteria (all I wanted was to live in/near Seoul and not have to teach preschoolers!); and the fourth school never called me back. By this point in the summer, I was burned out, frustrated, and quite lacking in faith that I would actually make it to Korea.

Over the summer, I worked as a field trip supervisor for a language program at my university where students from Korea came to learn English for three weeks. The students came from a school called JLS (Jeongsang Language School) in Seoul, South Korea. At the end of the program, my supervisor told me that she thought I had worked really well with the students, and said that if I was ever looking for a job in Korea, she could give me a reference to work at that school. Can you say perfect timing? I accepted her gracious offer, and before I knew it, I had an interview, and then a job!! I was thrilled to not only have finally found a job, but to have gotten a job at such an incredible school that perfectly fit my criteria. I will be teaching 5^th and 6^th graders at a hagwon at JLS in Gangnam, Seoul. PERFECT. After an awkward conversation with Adventure Teaching in which I thanked them for their help but withdrew my application from their program, I was fully on board with Jeongsang Language School. And then of course it took a while to get housing and my visa (look how pretty it is: below!), which is why I am STILL in the U.S. here in mid-October.

But now the time has come! I have my visa and airplane ticket in hand, some nervousness and lots of excitement in my heart, and quite a mess in my room as I get organized and packed! South Korea, here I come!!

“Before the rising sun we fly; so many roads to choose” ~The Carpenters