A busy week

This week has had its ups and downs.

First, SY and I started the process to get her an immigrant visa. I had to email the U.S. Embassy to request an appointment to submit a petition. We got a response a few days later that our appointment will be on Monday.

At that point, we submit the petition and some other documents and pay $355. Then we wait for our petition to be approved.

When (if) we find out it’s been approved, we set up another appointment to submit more documents, and it gets kind of tricky. Among other things, I have to show that I can support my wife so that she won’t end up “a public charge” (meaning she won’t end up on welfare).

This seems like a bit of a catch-22, since I’m not likely to get a job in the U.S. until I’m there. I suppose I could fly there for an interview, but then – why not just fly there to move? Yet, I don’t want to move there until I’m sure I have a job. And so it just goes around and around. In part as a way to bypass this problem, I’ve been seriously considering a career as an officer in the U.S. Army.

Second, my Korean class is over. For the past two months, I’ve been taking a Korean class at the YBM building in Jongno-Samga. It’s been good for getting me to focus (I’m so lazy when I study by myself), but it used up just about all my free time outside of work. The class wasn’t that well designed, either – there was no listening component, few exercises, and the book was nearly useless. I can only say that about $7 per hour, it was a pretty good deal.

Now I’m free to catch up on sleep, the blog, and do all the other things little projects I’ve been wanting to finish.

Finally, CDI’s winter term just started. I went to training (again) last week, but it wasn’t as inane as it was last time. I still hold that the teachers who get the most out of training are those who have already taught the course (rather than those who are new), but since I was one of those people this time, it was more interesting.

Though I was originally scheduled for 10 classes a week (yay! lot’s of money), one of my twice-weekly classes closed because there were only two students in it. Unfortunately, that puts me, so I’m down to the contract minimum 8 per week, so I’m a bit bummed.

On top of that, both this week and next week some of my 7:00 classes are cancelled so middle school students can study for their public school finals. In one sense, it’s bad because it’s about $400 that I don’t get to earn. On the other hand, it’s great– I get this Friday, next week Monday, and next week Friday completely off.

In the span of a week, I’ve gone from a schedule with just about every hour of everyday filled up to being virtually at a loss about how to fill up my day. This week will be nice, but when January and February come around I’m sure I’ll have had enough.