We Have a Contract! ...Again!

Many of you are probably thinking that Will and I have left the country already, or wondering why we haven't. "Hey, weren't they supposed to leave yesterday?" Well, yeah, but now we have yet ANOTHER target date to arriving in South Korea. We now have a new contract with not Osan Wonderland, but Jecheon Wonderland English Institute. Wonderland English Institute is a chain, and while Osan could not wait for us to arrive, Jecheon can... at least until October 20th. We ran into yet ANOTHER (I feel like I'm overusing that phrase...) document issue. Will took my FBI check, which took SO LONG to arrive, to Atlanta to have it apostilled, only to learn that since it's a "federal document," it has to be sent to D.C. ... which takes 2 weeks. The school also wants to wait on Will to get his visa in the U.S., and he still has not received his background check. So... we are waiting... still... It WILL happen. (I say to myself daily...) We are both impatient to leave, to leave Mercer (since we are not students and kind of don't belong), to leave Macon (as dear to us as Macon is, it's not our home anymore), to leave his parents' house (as kind as they've been, it's getting a little claustrophobic for all of us). 

In the meantime, Will and I are researching our new location - Jecheon City. Jecheon City is a tourist city because of its beautiful mountains, historical sites, pretty lakes (or lake... not really sure), and ski resort. It's a small city surrounded by mountains and fields. Its average high temperature in October is 67 degrees Fahrenheit, in November it's 52, in December 39, in January 35, and in February 40. It snows a bit, though not a whole lot. Any of you who know me well know that this excites me A LOT. Will, on the other hand, is a bit less excited by the prospect of cold weather. He will whine and complain, but I will continue to dance in the snow. The downside of this is that I now have to buy winter clothes. 

So while I'm tired of waiting, I'm extremely happy with where we've been placed. I will post more updates in the coming weeks. 

Readying

Well, I might as well start writing, seeing as Will (my longtime boyfriend and longertime best friend) and I are supposed to be in Korea by September 20th, which is the Tuesday after next, just 12 days! Really more like 11.5 days, since Seoul is 11 hours head of Macon time. Things are going to start moving very fast. 


Tomorrow, Will is going to Atlanta to get our diplomas and my background check apostilled by the state... now that we finally know what to do with that. We will then FedEx those documents to Korea, and they'll have everything they need from us in order to get our E2 Visa number. Once they get the number, we will send our documents to the Korean Consulate in Atlanta and set up an interview... for me. (Will still doesn't have his FBI check... I'll address that in a minute.) I will go the interview and pick up the visa the next day. We are trying to convince the people we are working with that it would be a good idea for Will to go without his visa, since he has 90 days to get after he enters SoKo. We still don't have plane tickets, so I'm anxiously waiting to hear what day I actually leave. It will probably be next Saturday or the day after. 


I now need to find a very large suitcase and stock up on certain makeup and toiletries and favorite foods, and pack it all up, and I'll be set. The weather is about the same there as it is here right now, so no drastic wardrobe changes are needed.


Now. How am I feeling about all this? Well, that's a good question. I'm happy everything is coming together, but at the same time, the worries that I might not actually get to go have not completely departed. That, and I worry that I'll leave important things undone or unpacked or unbought. I'm also just starting to re-examine the feelings I have about actually being in the country, not just getting there. It will smell like fish and other unpleasant things. It will have strange foods that I cannot immediately identify. It will have subways and signs in Korean and tightly packed crowds. I'll have to learn how to bow, to eat with chopsticks without my hand cramping, to not leave my chopsticks in my rice, to not write names in red ink, to not wear sunglasses in front of my boss, to shield my cup with my hand when I drink in front of Will. I will mess up. I will be extremely embarrassed, and forget that they have all seen Americans make stupid mistakes. 


But I'm also so very excited to immerse myself in another culture. I have never had the chance to do that before. Where I have had smaller opportunities, shyness and fear of embarrassment have stopped me from taking them. That's about to change. In the coming posts I will blushingly post all my faux pas and write about how people reacted, how I reacted, what I learned about myself, other people, American culture, and Korean culture. 


I hope that in this year I can share with you all laughter, embarrassment, knowledge, opinions, and most of all, great stories. Thanks for reading.