Cross-Country Travel Arrangements

I was so proud of myself for actually arranging my whole trip from Los Angeles to Dad's house in just a couple hours. Last time I drove from coast to coast, I used a AAA TripTik, which was pretty helpful. It gives you step-by step directions from destination to destination, with maps on every page, plus useful information like construction delay possbiilities, scenic routes, etc.

Now they have the TripTiks available online, for even people who aren't members (which is good, because the AAA website doesn't recognize my member number). I was able to type in my starting and ending address, plus the addresses of a couple friends I'm staying with along the way, and get a full set of directions, plus options for hotels and other stuff along the way. I checked out the hotel information for places I want to stop, and all I had to do was make some calls to check rates and make reservations. Then I just clicked on the hotels I will be staying at, and they are added to my trip, with the directions adjusted to compensate. Boo-ya.

I'm staying in Gallup, NM; Shamrock, TX; and St. Robert, MO for pretty good rates, plus stopping in Columbus, OH and New York City to see friends. This gives me pretty even travel legs each day; I'll be driving 650 miles the first day, but only 500-600 miles each day after that. I'm sure the kitties will be glad when we get to Maine.

Crunch Time

It seems like so recently that I was just sitting around waiting for this whole Korea thing to happen, and now I feel like I don't have time to do everything I need to do. I am rushing around to do things like get passport photos for my visa application, figure out what kind of background check I need done and where to get it, and find a free clinic that will do a health check for me.

The health check was a doozy; every medical facility I called said they couldn't conduct a preemployment health check without a form from the employer, but my hiring agency doesn't provide one and they say doctors do this all the time, so they should have a general form. I ended up digging the medical screening form I'd had filled out for entrance into Pitzer, which I had inexplicably saved for eight years, and recreated it in Microsoft Word, without all the references to "student." The doctor didn't know the difference, and I'm hoping the Korean immigration department won't, either.

I had a great phone interview on Tuesday with a lady from an organization called Kate LA. Apparently this is an organization in Orange County, California, but the actual school is in Gwangju, South Korea, in the southern part of the country. I was expecting to be interviewing with someone in Korea, but she was actually in Riverside, about 50 miles away, when she called me. We talked for about half an hour, during which I asked her a lot of questions about the position and the school, and she told me about the area and what the other foreign teachers (Canadian) were like at the school. She said she really wants to work with an American now. She said she could tell by my voice that I would be great for their school, so she's supposedly going to hire me. Now I'm just waiting for the ball to start rolling.

I'm supposed to get an email with a contract within a couple days, assuming they don't decide to go with someone else. Then I have to go through the grueling visa application process. I really, really want this all to happen before I leave for Maine on December 6. If I apply for my visa here, I can walk to the consulate and do it in person, since I live in Koreatown. If I'm in Maine doing this, I have to mail my application to Boston, which will naturally take longer.

Updates on my cross-country planning soon.