A lot of prep time comes before you actually travel overseas. There are passports, vaccinations, visas, and the “how will everyday life be” exploration (blog reading in my case). Also for my personal preparation there is moving all of my belongings to my parents house. This required a 24 hour drive with my dog in the backseat and a trunk (front seat, and one backseat) full of my belongings. As well as six UPS boxes coming in four days.
There is a lot of extra “never thought of” factors that play a huge role in taking a job overseas. For example IP address. There are several websites that will not work outside of an America IP address. Sure there are ways around that but most of them are somewhat shady or against terms of agreement with the website.
My biggest concern at the moment is the dreaded visa. The word that comes to mind when I hear the word “visa” is “apostille.” For those who do not know what that is it is a rather time consuming measure in which you get all of your U.S. documents authenticated for use overseas. You do not need this for every country Korea is just one of those countries. You have to send off your documents (often an FBI background check and a notarized copy of your diploma) to the appropriate government official. This could take up to 5-6 weeks. Also The FBI background check could also take up to 5-6 weeks. In other words official, important things that I need to teach in Korea that I don’t have time for. So I am now sitting and waiting for the background check to come in so that I can send it off to get it authenticated. It is a bit nerve racking to think I only have about a month to get all of this taken care off.
So as of right now I am waiting, joining a gym for a month (gotta get in shape!) looking on Pintrest for teaching ideas, and planning to meet up with friends before I go.
travelingwithroots.com 