Caveat: Contract

I signed a contract today.  This means I have a job – unless the bureaucrats intervene:  I really have too little confidence in the Korean Immigration Authorities' objectivity (which is to say, in their capacity not to be arbitrary), but… I think I have a pretty good chance.  More than 90%.

So I will start in mid-April, presumably – as soon as I get my E2 Korean work visa.  I have to get this from an overseas consulate, so since I'm going to Japan this weekend, I'm just going to stay in Japan until I get my "authorization number" for my visa, which I can take to the Korean consulate there to get the actual visa pasted into my passport.  I may be in Japan a week or two.  Maybe I'll go somewhere interesting:  back to Nagasaki, or over to Tsushima, or something that's a fairly short trip from Fukuoka.

The school where I've signed is in Yeonggwang County, in Jeollanam Province.  If Seoul is Korea's New York City and Washington DC and Los Angeles all rolled into one, and if Gyeonggi Province is Korea's Maryland and New Jersey and New York State all rolled into one, then Jeollanam is Korea's Kentucky, or Korea's Georgia.  It will definitely be a big change.  But I'm looking forward to it.