I have been living in South Korea for two months today. I am becoming comfortable with my life out here and have even been calling it home. I was thinking the other day how different my life was before. Prior to my move, my life was consumed with work and school, and I was a stress mess. Now whenever I encounter any stressful situations I feel more stress then I should because I am no longer accustomed to dealing with high levels of stress on a daily basis. I must say, my life for the last two months have gone by fairly quick and has been very relaxed, and my life prior to Korea almost seems like it happened in a different life time.
So I have only had a few situations, which has only been recently that have left me feeling frustrated. Last week I finally received my ARC card. Apparently I could have received my card on July 7th but I put my phone number on the mailing slip. I don't know why I did that fully knowing that I don't speak Korean, so they had called and sent me a few texts requesting I contact them so that they could deliver my package. In my defense I do receive a lot of spam texts and there was no way I would have been able to read the text, and for the phone calls well everyone who knows me knows that I am not the best at picking up the phone, also there is no voicemail, and how the heck would they been able to talk to me.
Anyways, like I said, I got my ARC card, which meant I could finally get internet. After I got my new bank account, my new co-teacher called the internet company and provided all my information and everything seemed like a go until they found out I didn't have a subscription cell phone (it's pre-paid) and said that they could not identify me without my cell phone. Then what the heck is my ARC card for! My co-teacher called several other companies but they all said the same. After school, my co-teacher and I went to the internet/cell phone store and they check my ID/ARC card and they informed me I could get internet for $200 in addition to the $30 monthly payment! I asked how much there phones where, and they said that it was $100 dollars for a phone, $30 for installation, and $12 a month for service. When I asked if they had anything cheaper for a phone the salesperson just gave me a blank stare. I really don't want a new phone since I really don't use my phone now, and I pay $10 a month and that is for 40 outgoing minuets or 40 outgoing texts, which last me a month. After some hesitation, my co-teacher offered to put the internet under his name, so thats how now I got Internet. By the way, I couldn't get WiFi because that would require a 3 year contract!
The most frustrating thing was that I had to depend on someone to do all this for me, and because of the language barrier I am not sure if I understood everything because it just seems so ridicules. My plan is to look for a new phone and transfer the internet under my name because I just feel comfortable with it being under my co-teachers name. But again I will need his help to get all this accomplished.
School has been great, and I am defiantly getting better at teaching by developing new skills. I am now teaching summer camp and I have 2 more weeks left. Here is a short video I made today of my school.
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