I went to Seoul over the weekend. Well, technically, I went to Ilsan, only passing through Seoul. I didn’t do much of what I’d originally planned. My visit with my friend who owns a hagwon in Ilsan turned into an impromptu job interview. I would say… it could happen, if we both take the leap to commitment.
How do I feel about this?
I had been focused on the idea of signing for another year somewhere in Jeollanam Province. Not at my current school – I have enough points of dissatisfaction that I was feeling it would be better to “roll the dice” and see what came up with a different public school down here. But, when I first came back to Korea last January, I had had mind set on working for my friend’s hagwon, but the job didn’t work out due to the financial constraints of my friend, the owner. So if there was any specific hagwon job that could draw me out of the public school teaching gig, it would be that one.
Additionally, I have been singularly unimpressed (not to say annoyed) by how I keep seeming to fall through bureaucratic holes in my efforts to follow through on this renewal. I suspect my school administration is partly at fault, in this matter. But I don’t really know – I just know that while most of my fellow foreigners-teaching-in-Jeollanam (of the cohort that came in April of last year), I seem to be the only one that hasn’t been presented with renewal options in writing, yet. That’s just strange. What does it mean?
So it feels proactive, to just jump on something that seems more certain, more trustworthy. The other advantage is that I get to return to my beloved megalopolis. The drawbacks are easy to enumerate, too, however: the longer hours and less vacation time that goes with hagwon work, and the likelihood that my accelerated Korean-learning will decelerate, once I’m back in the “everybody-speaks-English-around-here-including-the-clerks-at-the-seven-eleven” land of suburban Seoul.
Well, anyway. I will be meditating on this decision. And it may fall through. I have to keep my expectations in check.
I took the bus back to Yeonggwang earlier today. Here is a picture I took from the bus, as we approached my current home town from the north: Yeonggwang Skyline.
