New Year, Interviews, and the Folly of Taking a Long Break from Language Study

Christmas festivities were unconventional this year for my family. Normally we go visit family out of state, but we made plans this year for Florida. Unfortunately the temperatures were supposed to be unseasonably cold, and that didn't seem to be a good mix with Busch Gardens' roller coasters. So we changed gears and went first to Nashville to ice skate and see some art exhibits, and then we drove to Atlanta for a few days to look at guitars, museums, aquariums, furniture and ammunition stores. I also got a Costco membership, which has reciprocity worldwide, and there are three locations in Seoul! It was sort of a chaotic vacation, but I did appreciate getting to be with my parents and siblings. Next year's holidays will probably be an entirely different matter.

It looks like everyone just needed a break from things for a while--I'm up to my 4th interview offer! Let me go over those in order to get things caught up.

High School in Suwon
The first school ended up hiring someone who interviewed right after I did, and the person was actually in Korea to interview in person. That's understandable, and I was mainly glad that I got to have a trial run on Skype to figure out what on earth I was doing. We set up a mini TV studio in the laundry room, so I could have privacy during the interview and I could have flattering lighting and a good backdrop for a positive impression. It's sort of insane looking to see the room in Skype mode!

High School in Yong In
This was my second interview (conducted this past Sunday, Jan. 2), and it went much better. I figured out a way to let the MacBook's firewall let Skype's connection through better, and it didn't lose connection a single time. The interviewer was actually dressed very casually, and interviewed me from her home since their school was out on winter break. As I told my recruiter:

"The interview with Yongin High School went very well. I enjoyed talking with the interviewer and she said I have a very good accent with clear articulation. Her English was very good, so I feel that we were able to communicate well with one another. I asked her when I might hear back about the interview results (I was not sure if that was proper or not, but she didn't seem to mind). She told me that it might be a little while since they were on break, but she would speak with the headmaster and they would let you know the response in the next week or two. She asked some very good and sincere questions, and I feel that I gave her honest and well-spoken answers.

"I have a good feeling about the Yongin school. Even though I forgot to ask a few questions that I wondered about, I feel like I got very good and thorough answers to the questions I did remember to ask. Even though the school is a long commute to Seoul and I would have to use the bus instead of subway, it seems like a nice place and a very straight road into Seoul. The school is in the "outskirts" as she described it, but maybe that is a good thing. Young (the interviewer) told me it is an older school, and very big, so she pointed out that brings good and bad aspects. I liked their "teaching philosophy" and she seemed to like mine. I liked that the school seemed to have good classroom technology and that I would have freedom to design a lot of my teaching materials."

So we'll see. The interviewer asked one of those "very personal questions" that interview preparation sites tell teachers to prepare for: what religion are you? Christian? Catholic? I saw you mentioned a Bible camp on your CV. Is it too personal where you come from?" So I got to tell her I was a Christian (Presbyterian), and I didn't mind being asked though probably some Americans would think it was too personal. She said she was a Buddhist, I think. Anyway, interesting exchange! :)

I wasn't entirely sure about the location, since it seemed pretty remote compared to Suwon and the cities I had listed as my ideals. It is 800,000, but it's pretty spread out. But the next interview offer put things into perspective...!

Foreign Language High School in Dongducheon
My retired military cousin and his family will appreciate my reasoning for turning this interview down completely. I looked at the school on the map, and the "military camp town" is about 80,000 people and about 15-20 miles south of the DMZ.

It's close to U.S. Army Camp Casey, about which my cousin wrote 5 years ago, "We found out we will be moving Camps, from Camp Stanley to Camp Casey, which, if the General who decided that had asked me, i would have said THAT'S THE WRONG DIRECTION!!! My missiles can range 300K, we don't need to go any further north...send me down to Seoul!!! But alas, General So and So didn't ask me." The plus side was that there would be two other foreign teachers like myself there. *blink*

I took a risk and told the recruiter I wasn't interested in the location and it did not suit my goals at this time, but that I was thankful for the offer. It turns out it's okay to turn down an interview offer every now and again! That was a relief. I'm sorry; if I could go on too long of a hike in the wrong direction and end up at the DMZ, that's just not a place I'd pick to work. ...Plus, camp towns don't have great reputations.

High School in Siheung
This interview is forthcoming, and will be my first phone interview. It's located in Siheung City, which is essentially an extension of Bucheon. That means it's between Incheon (and the airport there) and Seoul, so it's very well located and connected, while still remaining "smallish" (400,000 population, ha). I thought it was interesting that the school's motto on their webpage is, "he who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." This is a public, co-ed high school, and they're quoting Proverbs, interesting! It's a very different church and state culture I guess! Their school promo video was very well-edited and skillfully filmed.

In other news, my FBI apostille finally arrived back from D.C., so that means all I need now is a school and a consulate interview in order to get an E-2 (teaching English) visa! All the other paperwork has come in, as far as I can remember.

Regarding language study, I powered up Rosetta Stone after about a month of neglecting it, and it was like getting punched in the face. One of the first exercises was a writing one, and I had to type out several spoken-only sentences. In the earlier writing exercises, I had only had to copy what I saw, but this assumed I knew all the letters already. So with great discouragement but also great motivation, I set to work making flash cards. Wow is THAT a time-consuming endeavor! Especially with about 40 different sounds to learn contexts for. I only got about a third of the way through the sounds before I had to stop. But it was fun to pull out my old linguistics textbook for the phonetic alphabet so I could transcribe the pronunciations.

So much to think about and so little time remaining before the new school year starts on March 1!