The preparation

for teaching English in South Korea is grueling. I applied to teach abroad at the end of June and since then all of my activities have been centered around filing paperwork, looking for job opportunities, interviews, and just mentally preparing to sell all of my stuff and leave! The job I accepted is going to be great! I will be teaching in a suburb outside of Seoul. The suburb is called Ilsan. It is a newer suburb and is the home of the largest man-made lake in South Korea. There are several perks to teaching ESL in South Korea. First and foremost, I will be making 2.1 million won a month. This converts to between 1600 - 1750 USD a month. On top of that, my school will be paying for my furnished single apartment. Granted, the apartments are VERY small, but that just means cheaper utilities. In addition to the free apartment, I also get my plane ride paid for roundtrip. I get two weeks of paid vacation, two weeks of unpaid vacation, and 14 national holidays off of school. My students will be elementary and middle school students and I will be teaching six classes Monday through Friday. It's going to be fabulous.

Now for a bit about Ilsan. The city is outside of Seoul and was created to alleaviate the housing shortage in Seoul. As I mentioned earlier, the city is home to the largest man-made lake in the country. Surrounding the lake are a variety of walking and jogging trails. The park has a cactus arboretum, botanical gardens, and a toilet museum. I have no idea what the toilet museum involves, but I am definitely going to check it out! Ilsan is also the home of the National Cancer Center.

I do not know much about my school or my apartment. Most of that is because the website is in Korean and google cannot translate it. I know that my school is called run by a group called Youst. The name of the school is Youst - Lingua Language Institute. It is a private language school and my hours will be from 3:00 - 10:30 pm. I will be teaching extra language classes to students and have my office hours at night! It will be a change from the daytime schedule in the US. My apartment will be between 10 and 15 minutes walking distance from my school. It will be a furnished single apartment. Most of the apartments for ESL teachers (and Koreans) are approximately 250 square feet. It will just be me so that is fine, but I hope I have a loft apartment. That will give me a separate area for sleeping!

All that is left now is to get my visa number, head to Boston for a face-to-face interview at the Korean Consulate, receive my passport with the visa stamped inside, and schedule my flight. My first day of school/training is August 23rd. It's going to be fabulous! I cannot wait to meet my students and get a feel for where I will be living for the next year. A lot of people are asking if I am worried that I do not know Korean. I am not worried at all! I will figure it out as I go along and probably make some embarrassing mistakes along the way. Such is life. I cannot wait!