I've decided to go back to Korea and teach another year. This time, I've decided to work for EPIK, the public school program in Korea. So begins again the hell that is the application process...actually, I've been doing the application process for a while now, and I just haven't written about it because I've been paranoid that someone from my work would find this blog and get me in trouble. (They don't know I'm going.)
Now that I'm totally committed to doing it, I don't care very much if someone from work happens to stumble across this blog now. I mean, the job I'm at is fine, I'm getting paid substantially more per hour than any other job I've had in my life...but technically, I only work 15 hours week. I probably spend another 15 hours per week reading the young adult novels and otherwise preparing. So, I figure worst case scenario, I'll just coast along on my savings until February.
Anyways, I've been preparing documents. Today I had to make a request for a second criminal background check. Now I understand the need to make sure the people that are applying for a visa are not criminals, but I've never committed a crime, so the fact that I had to pay $70 in the first place was pretty annoying. I think if your record comes back clean, you shouldn't have to pay, or at least get a discount. The criminals should pay for that shit. Also frustrating, you have to wait 2-3 weeks to get it back. What the hell are they doing that it takes 3 weeks to process? What kind of morons do they have processing these things? Are they allowed to use computers?
My current recruiter said that I probably wouldn't be able to use my first criminal record check, because it had the name of my previous recruiter on it. I had to switch recruiters, because it turned out the first recruiter didn't know what EPIK was. So, I had to change it, but no one could tell me what to put in the field marked "Name of Agency or Organization." My new recruiter said that if I should put anything in that space, it should be "EPIK". At the police office, I asked the lady whose job it is to process criminal background checks for a living what should go in that space, and she told me to phone the Korean consulate. The person at the Korean consulate whose job it is to deal with criminal background checks had no idea, and told me to ask my recruiter. On the advice or lady #2 that works at the police office whose job it is to help people fill out CBCs, we decided to just write "Visa application" in that space.
So now I've spent $140 on a piece of paper that doesn't say anything. I asked my Korean conversation partner what the process was like in Korea. He said that he couldn't remember exactly, but it cost no more that 10,000 won (about $9) and took about half an hour.
