You know what's fun now? Everytime I come to blogger to log-in, everything is in Korean. It's a good thing I know just what to click to get where I need to go, otherwise I'd never be able to update this blog. And for some reason, even though my computer is set to Korea's time zone and my profile has been updated, I have to post my blog entries on American time because it doesn't recognize the fact that I'm a day ahead of everyone else. So if it looks like I posted this entry on Monday, it was, in fact, actually Tuesday. For the record. (And because it bugs me.)
July is monsoon season here in Asia. In Korea, it's called jangma. What it really means is that it rains. A lot. And it's not just a steady drizzle or even moderate rain. It's gushing buckets to blustery rain that comes at you from all sides and soaks you to the bone. The fortunate thing is that it's not a constant rain....it will let up for some time (maybe 20-30 minutes) before pounding down again and it often stops at night. It rained like this on Sunday, was clear yesterday, and today it poured. Luckily for me, I can often avoid the rains altogether by staying indoors, but today I had to go to base.
Every month, an official from Korean immigration comes to the base here to issue visas to military/DOD dependents. You have 90 days to get it your visa. I made my appointment as soon as I arrived in Korea, but it wasn't until today. Yesterday, I went to a pre-screening, where they check all my documentation to make sure it's all in order and of course (because this is the military) there was one little thing missing from one piece of paper, so I had to wake David up (he was sleeping because it had to work the night watch that night) so that he could put on his uniform, come to base, to have his command fix this one problem. Annoying!
So I had to go back to base this morning to pick up this aforementioned piece of paper and got gloriously soaked in the process. In this kind of rain, an umbrella is really only a showpiece. It really doesn't prevent the rain from coming at you from all sides. I got some lunch and met up with a friend to lament our employment woes (as in, there are very few jobs here) and then headed to the building to get my visa. But of course, because nothing is easy around here, trees had knocked out the power and an entire section of base had lost electricity and I could not get my visa. But hopefully--if it doesn't rain later this week--I'll go to the immigration office in Seoul and get my visa issues worked out without having to wait another month. I hate not having a visa, just in case something were to happen.
However, the day was not a total bust. I managed to take a taxi back to our apartment by myself having finally successfully learned how to say "hello", "thank you", "left", "right" and "I don't speak Korean" in Korean. And yes, it did take me 3 weeks to learn just that. Korean is hard ya'll and my tongue does not want to make some of the sounds that it's supposed to make. The other fantastic news is that our household goods have arrived in Korea (I hope it's all here! and in one piece!) and will be delivered on Thursday. I'm so excited to be reunited with my things. At least it will give me something to do for the next little while. And take my mind off the painful process of job hunting. I think I'd rather get another root canal than write another cover letter.
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"He made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet." -- W.B. Yeats
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Welcome to Wandering Feet, the Malone family blog where we share boring stories about what's going on in our boring lives so we don't forget what we did yesterday.
3 comments:
First of all, I am loving reading about Korea even if I'm being lazy about commenting. :) And I'm so excited for you to get all your stuff. Put up pictures of your awesome apartment when you have it all!
Second, some advice that you may ignore since clearly you weren't asking for any: if it's not totally necessary to get a job, don't stress about it. Of course it's nice to have mote money, especially if you can save it... I'm not trying to say things about your finances because I have no idea but what I just am trying to inelegantly say is to enjoy your child free time. I worked part time (I still just had to stop myself from saying only part time) after we got married and I always felt like I had to make excuses for myself about why I didn't have a 'real job' or I felt embarrassed that we were lucky enough that I could do what I wanted because we didn't need me to work more. And now, of course, when I am lucky to get ten truly free minutes in a day (which often means I shower) I so wish I had reveled in that time more where I could cook intricate things and craft and sew as much as I wanted. I did enjoy my job, but there's part of me that wishes I would have given myself the freedom to be a full time wife because it was such a blessing to have had that as a possibility. I'm saying all this to say that if you're felling like I was, guilty for no 'real job', don't! You'll have a real, 24 hour job soon enough. If you want or need to work than ignore all the above, but whatever your situation is don't feel guilt or too much stress.
Okay, I hope that came off okay. :)
Lizzie. I like your posts. Keep it up.
Emily, I appreciate your advice because I do often feel guilty for not having a job. But sometimes I almost feel more guilty about the fact that I don't really need to have a job. I had a part-time job in Hawaii and I grew to love all the free time I had to read and cook and get other things accomplished but I still felt that I wasn't contributing enough to the family. My main reasons for wanting to find a job here is so that it will give me something to do (since David has such a strange schedule) and so that I can earn money to pay off a large chunk of my student loans from grad school. That's the hardest part for me. It's my debt and I want to pay it off myself. I'm looking into teaching English here because they pay pretty well and it's only a year contract. I hope to be pregnant by our second year here so then I might just work part-time tutoring until the baby is born. But I'm also trying not to stress about it too much. I know everything will work out the way it's supposed to.
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