EPIK Limbo

June 16th.

Wait.  June 16th?!  What?

I have 4 more days of school left.  I'm not entirely sure what it is going to feel like when all of sudden I have no grading, no planning, no e-mails to send, and no photocopies to make.  This has been my life for the past ten months and all of a sudden, it will come to a screeching halt. The part that makes it most scary is that I'm still not certain about my future in the fall.

All of my documents have been submitted to EPIK.  I had a little bit of a set back once I mailed my original documents because not long after I mailed everything I realized that I had sent the wrong version of one of my reference letters (and of course that happened even after I checked everything a million times...figures.) I also had to send out another paper that I guess EPIK wants from people who have teaching experience (apparently it's a new thing for this term).  So, my documents got out a little later than I was hoping, but there are still plenty of positions, so I'm not all that concerned.

So now, all I do is wait...and wait.....and wait a little more.  I should know my placement by the end of June, but of course, I am hoping for it sooner rather than later.  Until then, I'm just kind of in EPIK limbo.

I still have mixed feelings about leaving.  It's been an internal tug of war for quite some time, and the fact that school is ending and I have to think about how I will never be in my classroom again, never see many of my students again, etc. makes it that much harder.  I've always been overly emotional about periods of my life coming to an end, and this is no different.

Documents, Documents, Documents!

There they are...aren't they beautiful?

Originals and copies...ready to go! 

These, my friends, would be the pictures I texted my friends not too long ago.  Why you ask? Because well, this day has been moths in the making. Today, I finally mailed out all of my EPIK documents to Taiwan.  Taiwan, you might say? Yes, Taiwan, because that is where my recruiter is located.  I send everything to my recruiter, and then he will send them to Korea after checking them and making sure everything is all set.

I had all my documents ready to go last week, but I was waiting on my recruiter to ok the scans of my documents.  I didn't hear anything from him all week, which naturally made me start to panic, but it turns out he was sick for the majority of the week and out of the office.  Still, I am nervous because I know at this point it is getting late in the game.  I"m totally freaked out that I will have forgotten one of my documents or that I will simply be too late and the positions will all be filled.  I have spent countless hours getting all of these things together...not to mention the money I've spent on getting all of those lovely pieces of paper pictured above.  Just to ship everything from NH to Taiwan was $81 (as Megan said, that's 7 or 8 mojitos on a cruise!) I'm not really sure what it's saying about my life when I start to measure the cost of things in amounts of alcohol.....but regardless, I think I'm going to be broke by the time I actually get abroad!

So, for now I sit and wait and anxiously stalk the tracking number that goes along with my documents.  

In the meantime...cheers to waiting! 

Almost there....

I spent from 4:00-7:30 this evening getting all of my documents together.  I started the process for EPIK at the beginning of February, when I submitted my application with the recruiter I'm using, Reach to Teach. From that point I began working on my application, which included essays and a lesson plan (which took me a ridiculously long time despite the fact that I'm a teacher--turns out I don't really know how to teach English....).  I also had to gather letters of recommendation and get my fingerprints taken for an FBI background check.

I submitted my application at the beginning of March. From that point my recruiter called me to go over my application and I made a few changes to my original app.  The revised application was turned in by the middle of March.  After that, I had a mock interview with my recruiter via Skype about a week later.  From that point there was a small lull as my application couldn't be officially submitted until April 1st.  I waited a few weeks to hear about when my interview would be scheduled.  I was away on vacation from the 20-27th, and as soon as I got back to having internet access I checked my e-mail and found out that my interview was scheduled for the following night. Talk about short notice (although really they gave me plenty of notice...I just wasn't in the country to know about it!)

In the "lull" period I received a bunch of steps to start collecting my documents because EPIK wants your documents right after your interview.  This has been the most time consuming part of the document process--getting my background check notarized, then shipping it to DC to be apostilled, and getting my diplomas notarized, then sending them to Concord to be apostilled, getting copies of transcripts....there is a ton of paperwork!

I found out I passed my interview a few days after my interview (beginning of May?), but I didn't have all my documents together yet, which is why it's taken me so long.  I finally got my background check back from DC on Friday.  Today I had to get more passport pictures taken (because you need 6 total for all the paperwork that is to come).  Of course, the lady at Wal-Mart didn't take my original pictures right, so when I went to pick them up, I had to take them all over again. Once I FINALLY had my pictures and other documents, I made copies of everything, then scanned the copies to my recruiter.  Now all I need is the OK to send the documents and I can finally mail everything out to Taiwan, where my recruiter will process everything.

This whole process has taken way more time than I can accurately depict.  It wouldn't be as bad except for oh you know, I'm also teaching full time right now.  Teaching consumes all of my time in itself, so running around doing all of this stuff has made some of my evenings pretty exhausting (not to mention the cost of obtaining and mailing all of these things around....it really adds up!)

Nonetheless, I am excited to almost be done! I'm crossing my fingers that everything works out, because as scared as I can be at times, I know this is what I want.