A LONG, HARD ROAD 

TO A DREAM I NEVER KNEW I HAD

 

I was wondering what I should start off with and thought, why not start from the beginning? So here goes nothing...

I'd been missing Hawaii terribly since graduation (almost two years ago now), and I missed my tutoring job more than I ever thought I would.

Who wouldn't miss this?

All through college—mostly because I was a tutor—people asked me if I wanted to teach, and I always denied it. Teaching was not for me. No way would you ever see me in a classroom; it just wasn't going to happen. I took a job as an English tutor mostly because I felt English was something I was adept at and which I enjoyed, though I was very dubious about the whole teaching concept that tutoring encompasses. Tutoring came less naturally to me than I would have liked—though I can't say I was surprised—and on more than one occasion I found myself struggling to teach certain concepts that came naturally to me but unnaturally to non-native speakers, but I enjoyed tutoring nonetheless, and eventually my skills and confidence grew. My tutees were fabulous (most of the time anyway), my coworkers were just as nerdy as me (if not more so), and my supervisor was like a second mom.

Too soon it came time to graduate and leave my island paradise. I relocated to the Las Vegas area to be closer to my sister. My new job was enjoyable, mostly because of the people I worked with, but it was nowhere near any field I was interested in. Only a few months after I left Hawaii, I realized I needed a plan, I needed to figure out where I wanted to take my life (career-wise anyway). It was a little over a year ago—right around Christmas 2012—that I had a crazy idea: teach abroad. This was something more than one of my friends had done during college, though I had never considered it in the slightest while I was at school (remember my aversion to teaching?). I had friends who went to Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, China, and Hong Kong. The answer of where to go was almost immediate: South Korea. I'm still not sure what it is that attracts me more to Korea than anywhere else, maybe it's the culture, or the friends I made at college, or maybe it's just where I was meant to go.

So the decision was made, but how on earth did I get started? I knew I didn't want to do it right away—I was still pretty settled in my job and was enjoying time with my sister and the friends I had made in the area. Maybe in a couple years or so, was my thought. Turns out The Lord had other plans for me. Randomly, one day I started chatting with one of my Korean friends on Facebook, and though I had just barely made the decision to teach in Korea, I mentioned it to him. Lo and behold his sister was a recruiter for English teachers! He put me in touch with her, and she gave me the basics of the process I would need to go through to get started. Only a few weeks after that, a former roommate came to visit me in Vegas, and what do you know, she was leaving to teach English in Korea in less than a month! She put me in touch with a Facebook group that was set up for those who wanted to teach in Korea.

A few months passed and things at work got crazy and stressful for me. Everything started feeling wrong. It felt like I was somewhere I didn't belong. Over the course of a weekend (it was late August 2013) I did a lot of praying and soul searching. What was wrong? Where was I supposed to be? The answer came and within a month, I moved back home, getting in gear to prepare everything for Korea. This just goes to show that your timeline and The Lord's aren't always one and the same.

The list of paperwork was long and not exactly cheap. But to me it was worth it. I was going to Korea, and nothing was going to stop me. By this time, everyone knew my plans (and some of my friends, I'm sure, were getting tired of my excitement and constant updates on every tiny detail). December rolled around and my recruiter contacted me with a possible job offer, so we set up a day and time for a phone interview. The time for the interview came and passed and still no phone call. The nerves were setting in. Maybe they had all of a sudden found someone else or just plain didn't want me. Only after a prank call from my sister and two and a half hours of waiting did they finally call (turns out they forgot they had parent/teacher conferences). The interview was fairly short but went well, and my recruiter informed me the next day that they wanted to hire me. I was so stoked! I would be teaching in Incheon, which is right by the capital, Seoul, and by the ocean!!! I think I'm most excited to live near the ocean again. And oh my goodness, I will finally have humidity again! After living in Vegas and Idaho, I'm ready for some moisture in the air again (although come the Korean summer, I might take that back).

Now it was time to finish up the paperwork and send it in. Even before the school received my paperwork, they sent me a contract, which I reviewed, signed, and returned. Along the way, there were a few hitches (I can imagine this process is rarely smooth). I had to contact the post office, because it seemed the lady at the post office had given me the wrong type of tracking number. They had to do an investigation to see where my package had ended up. By this time it was late January, and I was scheduled to begin teaching February 20th. I was a little anxious (after all, I still had to apply for my visa before I could schedule my flight and head out). Long and stressful story short, after many many many calls to various departments, we concluded that either the package was taking longer than usual to get to its destination or it had disappeared into oblivion (I will never use USPS again, and I suggest everyone going through this process learn from my mistakes and keep a safe distance from USPS too). In a panic, I started the process all over again. Thankfully, a few months back I had begun an FBI background check through the FBI itself before realizing I had less time than I thought and changed to an FBI approved channeler (more expensive but so much faster). So I had two FBI background checks in the works. By the time I had realized my package was lost, the second background check had arrived. So all I had to get were my school transcripts, a copy of my diploma, and the apostilles for my diploma and the background check (still a ton of money I would rather not have spent, but you gotta do what you gotta do).

With all this trouble, I started to doubt that Korea was the right thing. But as soon as I stopped fretting about everything that was going wrong and prayed, I knew it was still right. Things may not go smoothly, but it is where The Lord wants me, and what other reason do I need than that? Sure, it's a risk, but seeing as I've avoided risk most of my life, I think it's time to trust the Lord and take a risk.

Now January has passed and February is beginning. The school knows by the time I recollect all the paperwork and mail it to them (by UPS or FedEx and NOT USPS) that there won't be time for me to get my work visa in the States. So we have concocted a plan. As soon as I get the paperwork together (I should have the last of it in the next couple days) they will fly me to Korea where they will process everything to get my visa number, which I can then take to the Korean consulate in Japan to get my work visa (a story I promise to post after I get back from Japan). The cool thing about that, I get to say I visited Japan! The downside, the cost and time. We are currently working on finding a flight for early this coming week. So this time next week, I should be writing my next blog post from Korea!!!

Well, here's to all the adventures ahead (I promise to include a lot more pictures in the posts to come)!

Sorry for the never-ending post. I hope all of you are looking forward to all the stories to come of my explorations, my challenges, my mishaps, and all the hilariousness that ensues in between!

Twenty years from now you will be more

disappointed by the things that you didn't do

than by the ones that you did do.

So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sails. 

Explore. Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain