Indeed!

We live an exciting life for sure. Yes, Jen, the pay is slightly less, but our workload is also smaller time-wise. With this in mind, however, we also must note that with LCI we were to be given lesson plans, while with GDA we are responsible for making them up ourselves. Now, though this task may be slightly more intimidating and admittedly shall be more work, it also allows us to have great opportunity for creativity and the chance to really make our classrooms our own. I’m kinda going into this adventure with plans to gain some real teaching experience, and the opportunity to really dig in and create a curriculum is actually appealing to me! Like Jen said, we’re getting good vibes from this school, and we’re even more excited about going to Korea than we were before!

Now, on the more nerdy side, I’m sitting in my last Hebrews class and have nothing to do. So, I’m going to give our faithful readers a tour of BUNDANG and GDA.

If you click HERE, it will take you to our school’s website. We shall be employed at the Bundang ‘campus’. Jen and I were both fascinated by the fact that they used all non-Asian children in their advertisements/web-site. It’s slightly sad that they want the kids to be seen as ‘English’ as possible, and we’ve made it our mission to love these little Asian children and try to learn more about their culture. Anyways, check out the pictures – it looks like a neat place! For those of us fascinated by the wikipedia site, click HERE to gain insight into the world of Bundang. Without ever having been there, I’ve noticed that there is a nice, nature-type focus, and parks seem to be popular. HERE is Bundang Central Park. I have also learned that Bundang is considered one of the richer areas in South Korea, and designer stores seem to be in close proximity. The Samsung Plaza, featured HERE, is a good example of this designer-marketing.

As Jen mentioned, she is going to be the brave soul who arrives first. I will follow a couple of weeks later. We’re determined to find a neat church in the area, and I really want to get connected with a Young Adult sort of group – it would be sweet to have a group of people to hike with/explore the nation with. Though I’ve heard that Bundang is the location of one of the world’s Mega Churches (think huge audiences), I’m not sure the HUGE church atmosphere is my style. HERE is the wikipedia information about the Global Mission Church, and HERE and HERE are the GMC’s websites (in Korean).

This should be exciting. We’ll keep you posted.

Change of Plans!!

Ok, folks....so for once I have the presence of mind to post up on this wall a little about where we find ourselves at today!
So, on Sunday night I received a call from our lovely contact at ParkEnglish informing me that she had "good news and bad news, which I wanted first??" ...so of course, I said the bad news. Turns out the teachers we were to be replacing at LCI had decided to renew their contracts....which meant the positions were no longer open to Katie and I. I was taking this setback rather well, understanding that I still had some good news to hear. So then she informs me that they had found a replacement school for us....After getting off the phone with her, I immediately contacted Katie and we proceeded to look at the school's website, etc and the best part is: we are getting more positive vibes off of this opportunity than we were with the previous school (not that LCI was giving us bad vibes!)....so in terms of salary, it is a tad lower I think (? Katie, enlighten us all if you know something I don't!), but the hours are not as overwhelming as they would have been at LCI. The area of Bundang looks fabulous and nature-y and is right on a subway line to Seoul! The apartments also look pretty inviting--Katie and I will most likely be sharing a 2 bedroom aptm....
Now came the hard part: the catch with the positions was that they had different start dates: one at the end of June and the other in mid July...so we had to decide who would go it alone for a few weeks and through various factors we arrived at MOI! So in the relative time frame from now till then, I have major VISA application work that needs to be done!!!

Well, we have received our contracts (I am waiting to hear back from my sisters who have both been to Korea to teach and are offering their help by looking over the contract for possible downsides, etc) and will be going for our police record checks tomorrow as far as I know (as well as handing in our requests for transcripts sometime this week)....so things are beginning to pick up the pace!

*Jenz*

PS. On a funnier note: I had a crazy short little dream. I was at home and suddenly realized that my flight was leaving at 9 pm (please note that in the dream it was 830 and since I live an hour and a bit away from the airport there was no way I was making my flight) and I still was not packed nor did I have luggage within which to pack everything. So my sister, who was supposed to drive me, whips out her luggage from underneath the bed (random!), tells me to throw all my clothes into a garbage bag and pack it all into the luggage bags on the way to the airport...so then we are in the car and realize all of a sudden that my flight wasn't going to leave until the following morning!!!
OK, so we are going to hope and PRAY that this doesn't actually happen but something tells me it won't because I'm the type of person who packs three weeks in advance, especially with a big thing like this...anyhow, just thought it was funny how stressed I felt in the dream. Cheers!

JEN IS COMING TOO!

Upon reaching Letter to the Hebrews class (still in session), I was able to connect with Jen, who informed me she was also able to confirm the position in Korea. So. It’s officially official. Yongin, HERE WE COME (in 3 months).

For now, there are still 35 minutes left before this class is over for the day. Gracious, I hope we survive.

~Kate (and Jen)

We have a JOB!

Well, it’s been awhile, but here it is:

WE HAVE A JOB! Upon discussing our options with a few friends (Justin and Joy) who are also heading over to Korea in July, we decided to switch recruitment companies. It’s not that ASKnow was doing anything wrong, it just seemed that Park English seemed to be able to give us a bit more peace of mind.

We sent in our application forms, and within a day or two they *called* us up and asked me a few questions about what we’d be interested in. Later that same night, they called saying they had a job that they wanted to recommend for us. Within a week, we had interviewed with the school, emailed a teacher a couple of times, and gotten rave reviews about the job. So, with much thought and prayer, we reviewed the contracts and I faxed my contract over last week.

Surprisingly I haven’t seen Jen in the past week (weird), so I’m not entirely sure what her status is :)

If all goes according to plan, we’re going to be living in an area known as Yongin. It’s apparently about an hour away from Seoul by bus (Seoul is the BIG city). Yongin is home to a Disneyland type resort called Everland, and a Korean Folk Village. We’ll be working at the Jookjeon LCI Kids Club. LCI is a chain of English Language schools for kids, so if you’re looking it up online make sure to note that it is the JOOKJEON version of the LCI club. Apparently, it’s also spelled Jukjeon. Either way, the references we’ve emailed have given us rave reviews of their workplace. So we’re getting pretty excited.

We’ll be working with kids in kindergarten/elementary school, so it’ll be a job requiring lots of energy. The good news is, the days start at 10am (wootwoot!) and end at 7:00pm (not bad!) – these seem like my ideal working hours. I’m pretty thrilled at the idea of being able to sleep in a bit each day. How lovely.

So, that’s our big news. We have a job! And we’re officially leaving sometime around the 15th of July. I’m sure time will fly, and we’ll be there before we know it.

~*~Kate~*~

History is HISTORY!

Wooooo! I’ve finished my last history term paper EVER!

 

That being said, I’ve been up for over 24 hours now, and am quite tired. I’m going to be heading off to bed soon.'

The big surprise can wait until I’ve slept :)