Happy Thanksgiving

Today was a heady return to the good old days of eating fruit and drinking coffee in various teaching lounges for hours. That's right, I spent part of the day lying on a couch in the nutritionist's office drinking free coffee and reading a book with a personal heater directed at my feet, after which I went to lunch, and then to the nurse's office for a dessert of coffee and persimmons. At which point she invited me to return in the 7th period for the early dinner of donggasu-kimbap and ddukbokki she had ordered for us (being her, the nutritionist, another teacher, and me). I didn't even know that donggasu-kimbap (only a combination of two of my favorite foods here) even existed. Oh yeah, and I taught some classes and stuff.

I don't think they did it because it was Thanksgiving. I don't even think they remembered that I told them about that. I think they did it because they are kind, warm, open-hearted people who genuinely enjoy treating their friends. But it was fitting that it happened on Thanksgiving, because it helped remind me of how thankful I am for these people. Without them, I would've spent those hours using my butt as a chair-warmer and surfing the internet for useless time-wasting material. Without them, this would just be a job, boring and necessary. Instead, it's an experience. Thank you, thank you for my friends here in Korea. Thank you for every student who ever spoke up during my lessons while everyone else was sleeping. Thank you for Hye-eun, who said her English had improved through talking to me at a time when I felt like I was failing her. Thank you for the taxi driver who gave me a discounted fare for speaking (pathetically disjointed) Korean with him. As you can tell from these thank-yous, not every moment here has been perfect or successful. What I'm thankful for is all the people and moments that make those failures totally worthwhile.

North and South Korea

Since I had several people asking me about yesterday's artillery fire between North and South Korea, I figured I'd make a short blog entry about it.

Yesterday, the teachers' office remained full after the last bell (something that never happens), as everyone gathered around the room's single TV set to watch coverage of the fires on Yeonpyeong island. I didn't even realize we had a TV in there until then. Su-jin told me that things were "not good," and there was a generally solemn air. But after that, we went home, went out to eat, went to sleep, and came to school the next day. Life as usual.

Although the attack is considered the most serious aggression between the Koreas since the Korean War, there is currently no fighting going on, nor are there any plans to fight. Pretty much everyone involved wants peace, so there is pressure on all sides to patch things up. There are actually relatively regular clashes between the two Koreas, which are usually meant to serve some political purpose and keep North Korea on the map. I'm no political relations expert, nor am I Korean, and I can't really pretend to know all the details, so I won't. Although I encourage curious people to read up on it; it's actually really interesting stuff!

I did have some interesting conversations about it today with friends, co-teachers, and a student. Reactions varied a lot from people like my student, Hye-eun, who was really worried about the effect a war would have on the Korean people and the possibility of unification (which she is for), and Mr. Lim, who laughed and maintained that North Korea was only posturing and can't afford a war. Although there are plenty of views on the matter, there is currently nothing going on here and our lives haven't been affected. With luck, it'll stay that way.

Halloween Weekend

Since I'm behind, as usual, this is a post about Halloween. Hey, it's only a month late, right? In any case, Halloween isn't really celebrated here, so there wasn't much to do unless you want to go to a party at one of the bars where Americans hang out, but I didn't really want to, so my friends and I went to an amusement park in Daegu called Woobangland. It wasn't particularly big, but it had a Halloween theme going on for the holiday weekend, so we wanted to check it out. One ride in particular gave everyone bruises and sore muscles. The idea of the ride is that you try to hold on and it tries to knock you off. No seat belts, no safety harnesses, no cushions. You just sit on these unpadded seats and hold on to the handrails for dear life. In America, that'd be a lawsuit waiting to happen. But here, it's super popular with the teenagers.

On Halloween itself, Sandy, Geoff, and I went hiking at Eunhesa again. I recommended it since I thought it was so beautiful before. This time it was fall, so we went to see the changing leaves. I think the temple is more beautiful in the summer but it was nice in the fall too, and the weather was really good. We had a picnic along one of the trails and it was a really pleasant time. Trying to get back from the temple, we couldn't figure out the bus situation. A bus came, which I still think was the right one, but the driver told us no and drove away, stranding us for who knows how long until another bus came. Fortuantely, some middle-aged guys coming back from the temple gave us a lift. I actually got to use one of my few Korean phrases, which was awesome. It was, "우리 집이 삼산Apartments 옆에 있어요." It means, "Our house is next to Samsan Apartments." Straight out of the old textbook.

Check out the pictures and stuff under the "read more" link.

The Perfect Opera

"You'd never get away with all this in a play,
But if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue,
It's just the sort of score audiences adore,
In fact, the perfect opera!"
            - The Phantom of the Opera


As people who know me are aware, I love The Phantom of the Opera, and I was very bummed that the short-lived Korean revival production would be closing just before I got here. But in a stroke of amazing luck, the run got a short extension, and even moved from Seoul to Daegu, the big city 30 minutes away from Yeongcheon! Long story short, I got to see the show on Oct. 28th, and I'm so, so grateful for the opportunity. Not only was it fascinating to see the show in Korean, it was a flat-out incredible performance with some of the best singing, lighting, and overall presentation I've ever seen. I fell in love with the show all over again.

I went with my friend Sandy and some of my co-worker friends including Su-jin and Kyoung-ha. I was really worried they wouldn't like it, since they'd never heard of it, they had never been to a musical, and, well, the seats weren't cheap. But the first thing they did at intermission was jump out of their seats to go buy the cast recording, so I guess they didn't hate it! Actually, the whole night was a total success and a wonderful experience.

Koren for this post: 오베라의 유령 or "opera-ui yu-ryung"

is Korean for Phantom of the Opera.

Click "read more" for more photos!

Old News

I realize I've been a little slow updating, and there are a lot of things I never got around to blogging about, so here's an apology post with some old photos from last month. Terrible, I know. Basically, I went on a few trips that I never wrote about, but I have pictures for. The trips were a weekend outing to the beach with my co-teachers and a general teachers' picnic celebrating midterms. So here they are!

School Festival!

So, last week was Yeongcheon Girls' Middle School's School Festival. It's basically two days of games/contests for the students, and a way to show some school pride. Since I'm not a homeroom teacher, I didn't have to do anything other than watch the festivities, so it was nice and easy for me.

The students were really cute they way they got all into it, and the weather was perfect. Sunny, but not hot, and with a breeze. I really think fall is a gorgeous season here. Although it isn't quite as green and lush as the summer, the summer is also really, really humid and full of bugs. So, all things considered, I prefer this. I took a bunch of movies this time, so hopefully they'll all work.

The girl in the top picture with me, also shown here on the far right, is a mentally-disabled student, so I don't actually teach her. But, for some reason, she loves seeing me and talking to me, although she only knows a few words. She's also one of the only students I know who likes getting her picture taken. She had me take her picture several times during the day, but I chose these two to post. She's always friendly and cheerful, which is something I can relate to. The girl on the left is holding a sign reading, "현정님찬양."

찬양 means "praise," and 현정 (Hyun-jung) is a name, and 님 is a respectful title suffix (like Mr. or Mrs.),

so I believe it is a sign cheering for Teacher Hyun-jung.

More stuff after the cut!

Andong Mask-Dance Festival

Actually, the Andong Mask-Dance Festival was several weekends ago, but I'm always behind in posting.

Basically, the festival celebrates traditional mask-masking and traditional mask dances. We didn't get to see as many performances as I would have liked, but it was blast. We ate lots of unhealthy fair food, made masks, and wandered around. There were tons of other foreigners there. Clearly, everyone at Orientation had put this on the to-do list. The weather was very nice, and we stayed one night in Andong. We didn't really see any of the city other than the festival grounds, though.

More pictures after the cut!

The List

This blog entry features a list of things I miss about America and a list of things I like about Korea. I like doing this several times while I'm abroad to see how I change/adapt.

Ok, it turned out kind of long, so it's after the cut.

Seoul!

This post is kind of late, but that's the nature of things. Anyway, Korea has two main national holidays, New Year's and Chuseok. Chuseok is sort of a Thanksgiving Day when you pay respects to your ancestors and thank them for the harvest. Everyone travels to their hometowns to pray at their parents' or grandparents' graves and make the traditional offerings of food and alcohol. As for foreigners, it's a great time to travel to some of the big cities because they're relatively empty during this time. For that reason, my friends and I took off for Seoul.

It was actually a great time to visit, as it wasn't overcrowded and the weather was good (although Seoul had actually experienced flooding the day before we arrived). The subway was easy to use and decently priced. Because of all the foreigners, I was able to pick up American chocolate chip cookie mix and Germn schoko-muesli, two things that made me very happy. We stayed at a hostel that was conventiantly located right over a subway station. It was a nice, reasonable place with free breakfasts. All five of us shared one room, and it had a kitchen, fridge, and computer with internet. This post has lots of pictures, so I put them after the cut!

People Stop and Stare...

"...they don't bother me. For there's nowhere else on Earth that I would rather be."
 -My Fair Lady

I'm making this blog post just so I can look back on it a few months from now, when I will probably be burnt out and disillusioned, and remember exactly what it is I'm doing here and why I'm doing it.

Basically, two weeks ago was one of the happiest weeks of my life. Why? Nothing particular happened in it. I didn't go anywhere, and I wans't on vacation. I was just in a good mood the whole time. My classes went well, my kids were great, my fellow teachers were friendly and generous, and I finally feel settled in here and at home. In fact, now that I'm teaching, I feel like a contributing member of our school's little family and no longer just a burden on my co-teachers. Students yell out "I love you!" and "You're beautiful!" when they see me in the hall. Other teachers invite me to their offices or desks for coffee, grapes, pumpkin, apples, honey tea, or chocolate two or three times a day. Miss Doh found out I liked the school lunch's chicken and rice soup, so she had the nutritionist pack me up a whole big pitcher of it to take home. Speaking of the nutritionist, Jung Mi Gyung, she is super nice and invites me to her office all the time. So does the school nurse. Kids come to talk to me in the teachers' office, clustering around my desk and giggling.

Yeah, I know it won't always be like this. Pretty soon, students will probably see me coming and think, "Ugh. English class again..." And the other teachers will get tired of giving me free food. When I'm no longer a novelty and my friendships have been built and settled. But I always want to look back on that week and think about how happy it made me, and how lucky I am to have such a great school with so many supportive people who have made a real effort to reach out to me and make me feel at home in this country.

Pohang Visit

I'm behind, as usual, so here's a post about last weekend's trip to Pohang. I went there with my friends, Sandy and Geoff. We went to visit some other friends who are teaching in Pohang, namely, Sam, Courtney, and Daniel. There are quite a few people in Pohang, actually, as it's one of the larger cities in Gyeongbuk, but we kept our party small. The weather was humid and rainy, a lovely combination, but the trip was still a lot of fun. This is another picture-heavy post, so I'll just put most of it under the link. But first:

It turned out that the day of our trip was also the day of some sort of festival in Yeongcheon. I felt a little bad missing it, but what can you do? I did manage to snap a few pictures of the cloth figures dressed in traditional clothing that were all over the park.

Another cute pair.

Their sign reads:

건강하세요!

Which, I believe, means:

Be healthy!

This area is known for its herbal medicines, and I'm pretty sure that's what this pair represents.



Ok, now "read more."

Nobody Expects...

… well, yes, the Spanish Inquisition. But also, the things that happen to me here in Korea. At least, I don’t. You already heard my story about the trip to Daegu with Su-jin. Now listen to this story about my not-so-simple trip to the grocery store. So, after a day of sitting around school, I decide I am a little low on food and should go to the store. See, my co-teachers are scandalized that I can’t cook. Su-jin was shocked. Mr. Lim was concerned; how would I eat and get enough energy every day? Turns out sandwiches are a foreign concept, as are microwave dinners. So, I had been avoiding buying food on our many shopping trips so they wouldn’t see the type of sad, American “culinary preparation” I was capable of. And now, on my first night to myself, I figured I would just slip out and buy a few things at the local Yes Mart (a small grocery/household goods store). While there, as I attempt to discern from the pictures just what it is I’m buying, another young woman approaches and asks if I am also a foreign teacher. Turns out she’s from Canada and is teaching in Yeongcheon through a sister program to EPIK which handles after-school classes and tutoring rather than public school classes. We talk a little, and it’s nice to have an English-speaking person to cling to, so we hang out as we shop, even though she buys actual food and I buy potato chips and processed cheese. She explains in the course of our browsing that she lives in Yeongcheon, but she went out for a walk and got lost and ended up here. Somehow she needs to get back to Yeongcheon. Yeah, she started at 4:30. It’s almost 7:40 now. Shocked and confused, I tell her this IS Yeongcheon, and did she really walk for three hours looking for a grocery store? Cause I seem to pass one every three minutes. She has no idea where she is, where she lives, or how to speak Korean, and now it’s dark out. I just can’t let her randomly wander off into the night, so I tell her I’m sticking with her until she finds a taxi or something.

She does have her address written down on a piece of paper, so we pull it out to look at it. I suggest she ask any old Korean off the street, as I have had a good experience so far with finding friendly, helpful people. She asks a guy on a moped who’s making a delivery. He doesn’t speak any English, but he gets all caught up in our cause, goes back into the Yes Mart to borrow a phone from the cashier and calls the landlord of the girl’s apartment. They discuss how to get there, but he has to make his delivery, so he tells us “Wait here – five minutes.” He knew those words in English, anyway. We wait awkwardly for two minutes when someone suddenly greets me. I turn around. It’s Mr. Lim. He just happened to be walking by.

I explain the situation to him (hastily explaining to him that I am the not the one that’s lost – I live two block away. It would be pathetic even by my standards), he looks at the address, and points out the right direction. But we have to wait for the delivery guy to come back, ‘cause it would be rude to just disappear. So we chat a little with Mr. Lim. When the guy gets back, Mr. Lim speaks to him in Korean and the end of it is that Mr. Lim will walk her home, and I will accompany them, for my health. To compound my new friend’s embarrassment, Mr. Lim insists on carrying both of our heavy grocery bags (we bought milk and stuff). To compound MY embarrassment, he looks in mine and asks me what I bought. So much for keeping my eating habits a secret! Her apartment is only 15 minutes walk away –- she had just been wandering in a huge circle for three hours – so we drop her off and then walk back. Mr. Lim tells us a little about the joint Chinese and Korean history and actually it’s a pleasant walk, especially once we convince him to let us carry our own groceries. When Su-jin first told me to think of him as a grandfather, I had a hard time. My experience with grandparents is a little lacking, and Mr. Lim intimidated me. But it’s starting to grow on me. I realize more than ever that I really lucked out with kind, generous co-teachers, even if they do predict my sudden collapse from malnutrition.

First Impressions

This is actually an old post that I wrote up, but never posted. It's from last Tuesday:

Today I was thrown into a Middle School Grade 1 (American Grade 7) class with no preparation. Well, they did say to expect this sort of thing. Fortunately, I had a few resources at my disposal. I told them my name and where I lived. There was a map, so I showed them where Minnesota was and told them a few facts about it. Incredibly fortunately, my mom had just emailed me some pictures of our family, so I threw them up on the screen and did some questions. Who is she? She is my sister. Etc. Everyone was naturally surprised and interested to know I had an adopted Korean sister. I just went on in this way with all the photos I had. The kids did ask me some questions, though not many. Mostly “How old are you?” and “Do you have a boyfriend?” Although, I've also gotten "Do you like candy?" and "Is Obama handsome?" Around that time, I ran out of steam and there were five minutes left in class, so Mr. Lim let me go.

There were a couple of important things I noticed. First, I noticed that, while a few students were brave and spoke out, many students didn't say anything, even when we were repeating words as a class. And several were sleeping or chatting. It was hard to get their attention without disrupting the rest of the class. I have to find a way to get everyone more engaged. I also noticed that while I try to engage specific groups, I’m leaving the rest of the class with nothing to do, so I have to find ways to keep the other kids working while I make the rounds. Group work is the obvious solution, but I’m worried about keeping them speaking in English. Maybe it’s better, though, to keep them occupied than worry about whether they are speaking English 100% of the time, since the level is fairly low. Also, they may be braver if they don’t have to worry about shouting out answers in front of everyone.

In happier news, Dong Yun is never in the teacher’s office, so I haven’t gotten to be friendly with her, but she happened to come in for a second today, and I made a point of stopping her and asking about her weekend. She asked what I do after school, and I told her I sometimes hang out with American friends, then I suggested that she and I hang out sometime. She looked very happy at that, so we set up a meeting for tonight in a nearby café. I’m really glad it worked out. Everyday I feel more and more how kind the people in my school are.
Also, I noticed how the students all gave me the canned “Fine, thank you. And you?” answer when I asked how they were. So I think my first lesson for Grade 1 will be how to answer that question with a bigger variety of answers.

Weekend Trip

This is a picture taken at Manbulsa (Temple of 10,000 Buddhas) on Manbulsan (10,000 Buddha Mountain). From the parking lot, you can view the largest of the 10,000 Buddha statues as it towers above the treeline. And yes, there really are 10,000 Buddha statues, but most of them are very, very small. I went to visit the temple last weekend with Su Jin as part of my "tour" of Yeongcheon. And yeah, this is mostly just a picture post, to make up for my previous lack of pictures.

Before the cut, the Korean for today is the requisite washing machine photo. I figured mine out, cause it's a pretty simple machine. On the right side of the picture are the power button (on top) and the start/pause button (on bottom). On the left side, the button with the finger says:

코스 or kosu or "course."
This is for selecting the cycles, shown above in a sort of oval. You just press 코스 until the light underneath the desired cycle is lit.
표존 =pyojon = regular cycle
울 = ool/wool = delicate cycle
Those are two I use most.
And now, on to the photos!

Adventures in Daegu

Today was my first day at school. I didn’t have to teach, but I did have a lot to do. First, I met the vice principal and several of the teachers, including the English teachers: Mr. Lim, Miss Baek, Miss Oh, and Miss Doh (pronounced "Eem," "Beck," "Oh," and "Doh," respectively). They were very friendly, and Miss Oh made Korean coffee for me. Turns out “Korean coffee” is the kind that comes as a mix. They don’t actually make it. Then the Vice Principal had me say a few words in front of the teachers, after which he gave me a school tour. It’s quite a big middle school – 6 or 7 hundred, I think, in grades 7, 8, and 9. Miss Oh showed me the teachers’ bathroom. All the toilets are squatters except the “handicap” toilet, which is Western style. Miss Oh explained that the previous female native teacher always used this Western toilet. When they asked her why she used a handicap toilet, she told them, “I am handicapped, because I can’t use squatters.” They told me to use the Western toilet, if that made me more comfortable, but actually that motivated me to try the squatters out—when no one else was around—and, well, it worked out ok. Enough said.


If you want to read more about my adventures, click on "read more." If you want to know what a squatter toilet is, click on "read more" and scroll to the bottom.

Farewell to Orientation

Ok, I have a little free time to try and catch up with the blog. Last Sunday, we had a field trip to a Hanok Village, or a village with traditional houses, as well as a large Buddhist monastery. They were both beautiful places, although the oppressive heat made them a little hard to enjoy.

We had lots of classes at Orientation, some good, some boring. There are definitely a lot of things you never hear about until you get here. If I could ask two things of EPIK, it would be to prepare a more thorough and honest description of what happens here and to put some effort into standarizing the program. It's hard to give an accurate description of what life here will be like, because every experience is so different, but they could compile a collection of stories or some statistics or something. In any case, I finished my crash course. I don't feel all that prepared to teach, but I have some ideas at least.

Now here's our Korean pictures for the entry:

Ok, again the sign is cheating by having the words in English, but we can still figure out the Korean. The sign says:
금연 "금연  구역입니다"
or kuemyeun - kuemyeun kuyeugimnida
"Kuemyen" means "No smoking" and "kuyeugimnida" means "area" or "this is an area." So together, it reads
No smoking.
This is a non-smoking area.

This is the sign on the Jeonju bathroom stalls when they're unoccupied. It reads:
비었음
piessuem
which means:
Empty

Here is opposite picture,
사용중
sayongjung
for:
In use

Now, on to the real pictures!

School Update

I haven't had time to upload pictures, so I decided to make a quick picture-less post. I was finally assigned my city/county. I'm in Yeongcheon. It's in Southern Gyeongbuk, not too far from Daegu, and it's also very near all my friends, who are in Pohang. In fact, a few friends are in Yeongcheon with me. I feel so lucky that things worked out that way! I'll be teaching at one middle school, possibly a girls' middle school. Several people in my area are teaching at three schools, which I guess is pretty common in the rural areas. We didn't actually find out the names of our schools, but now I'm getting ready to bus over to Yeongcheon and meet my head co-teacher. Exciting!

As an additional note, I signed my new contract, and they did accept my printed-out certificate from TEFL Online, so I recommend that people in a hurry don't waste any money on having TEFL Online send them one.

I don't know when I'll have internet next, but hopefully it'll be soon and I can catch up on posting my pictures. Until then!

The Place for Superstars!

Jeonju University is the Place for Superstars. No really. Check out this sign.

That's on the dorm where we're staying. It's also written all over inside. I doubt real superstars would agree, but it reflects a general positive attitude. The campus buildings are called things like "Star Hall," "Hope Hall," and "Peace Hall."

I also forgot yesterday to mention the in-flight movie selections. The movies were grouped by genre which included "Drama," "Comedy," "Classics," and "Beyond Special." I'm not sure I'd like to be labeled "beyond special," especially since browsing through the content didn't really clue me in to its meaning. There were films like Home Alone, the live action The Little Prince, and a special on the life of Van Gogh.

Yesterday they treated us to some special presentations which consisted of the Five Drum Dance, a Taekwando performance, and a Fan Dance. All of them were excellent. I took some pictures and movies, so as usual, they're after the "read more" cut. For my sisters, the Fan Dance fans really did look just like the ones we had as kids! Brought back a lot of memories.

Before the pictures, I thought it would be fun (and useful for me) if, with each blog, I did a little bit on Korean language by photographing simple, but important things like road signs or instructions and trying to decipher them. So here we are:

This is a sign I found walking down the street. It reads: 천천히
Which is: cheoncheonhi
I looked it up in my dictionary (thanks, Robyn and Sean!) and it means "slowly."
Interestingly, it's not at all similar to the word for "slow" in the dictionary.
Obviously, in this case, it's a warning to go slowly because of construction.

This one's kind of cheating. First, it's pretty obvious from the picture what it is. Second, it's just English words. But we'll look at it anyway. So, it says
초코칩 쿠키
Which is: chokochip kuki.
"Chocolate chip cookie." Pretty easy.

This one's a little difficult because the letters are in script form and a bit stylized. Here's what it says:
순창 섐물
That's: sunchang saemmul
Sunchang appears to be the name of the brand, so that's not too important. 물 means "water," and I discovered that 섐물 means "spring."
In this context, it refers to "spring water" or "mineral water."

Very First Day

This morning I woke up in South Korea. Still a little hard to believe. I won't lie, the 14-hour flight was long and unpleasant (despite the very kind staff of Korean Air), but it's over now. It was easy to meet up with other EPIK members in the airport; the vast majority of English-speaking young adults in the "foreign passports" line were soon-to-be teachers. We're set up in Jeonju University for our EPIK Orientation. This is about a week of classes about teaching, EPIK, and Korean culture, which should be helpful. I've met people here from the US, Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, and New Zealand, although New Zealand and Australia have very few.

The weather is very hot and humid, a lot like the weather I just left in Minnesota. The heat has been one of the main topics of conversation between us, right after "Where are you from?" and "Have you ever taught/been to Korea before?" The answer to the latter is usually "no" on both points. We had our first experience of buying food at a Korean mini-mart, where the pictures on the packages were the main selling points, as we didn't know what any of it was. I've only met two Korean-speakers in the group so far.

The next bit has a bunch of photos, so I'm putting it under the cut. Just click on the "read more" link to continue.

Greenheart Travel

I'm going to Korea through EPIK, but I used Greenheart Travel as a recruiter. I've heard that it's way better to use a recruiter, and I'm definitely glad I did it. I figured I'd make a few comments about Greenheart here. They do recruiting for a lot of programs in different countries, so it looks like a pretty big operation. Their website is nice and professional, but I couldn't find a lot of reviews or information about them on the web that didn't come from them.

My experience was mostly very positive. They had compiled useful, well-organized documents that helped streamline my application process, they set everything up for me, answered my questions, and helped me keep track of what I had to do. I'm not in Korea yet, but so far no problems. My contact in the company was very friendly and helpful, and I wouldn't have any complaints except for a few things. First, she was a bit hard to get ahold of. She didn't provide a phone number, and while she answered emails very quickly about 2/3 of the time, 1/3 of the emails seemed to never reach her or never get a response. I had to continually resend these emails to her and soon learned that if I didn't get a response in 24 hours, I wasn't going to get one. Since I was joining the program at the last minute (my fault!), and lots of the stuff was time-sensitive, this could be frustrating. Second, the information Greenheart gave me was good, but I wouldn't say it was as thorough as it might be. If you use Greenheart, I would definitely recommend surfing the internet a lot to look a people's blog, other recruiters' pages, and forums, to supplement your information. I want to stress that I didn't have a bad experience. In fact, I mostly had a really good experience! I just wanted to give out those warnings.

TEFL Online

My EPIK interviewer basically told me to do an online TEFL course, both so I could get some experience and to give me a pay increase. He said it was "highly suggested," by which I understood that EPIK really, really prefers it. He said "make sure it's an accredited institute." Well, it doesn't take much internet research to figure out that there is no board of accreditation for this stuff, nor would I call any of the online programs an "institute." My recruiter said any of the popular online (100 hour+) courses would do, so I did TEFL Online, and I figured I'd write a short review of that here.

Click on the "read more" link to see the full review.

Intro

In western lands beneath the Sun
  the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
  the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
  and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
  amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
  in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
  beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
  and Stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
  nor bid the Stars farewell.  

-The Return of the King

This is the blog I'll be using to keep track of my own journey, though I am at the beginning rather than the end, and it hopefully won't be as bad as Sam's. That song is one of my favorite poems of all time, and I chose to name the blog after it because it's a poem about hope and endurance and being far away from home. The first few posts here probably won't be interesting to my friends, but they may be useful to other people planning to teach abroad. I'll try to be as honest and as informative as I can be. So, until next time!