D-Day (or: Man, Immigration is Hard Work!)

Note: At the time of writing, it is approximately 7:30 in the morning, I have been at work for 4.5 hours, and am delirious from lack of sleep. Ah, the joys of working in the news. So when you find me waxing poetic: grain of salt, please.

I would like to take this moment to give props to anyone who has ever up and moved countries (ie the ancestors of the vast majority of Americans). This stuff is HARD.

Yesterday was what I lovingly dubbed “D-day”-- the “D” being for “documents.” I spent the whole day running around making photocopies, going to the Public Records office for an Apostille stamp, being rejected for the Apostille because my degree photocopy wasn’t notarized correctly, going to the UPS store where it was notarized originally and firmly (but kindly) demanding the guy do it correctly for free, going BACK to the Public Records office, and finally getting my Apostille stamp. I also went for a run, but that’s neither here nor there.

I had an interesting conversation with the man at the Public Records office. He said they’ve been getting more and more young people heading over to Korea to teach English. Then he pointed out something that I recently realized myself: in a way, this phenomenon is the opposite of the American Dream. Young, smart, highly educated Americans are being forced to leave the country to find decent employment. Mr. Public Records remarked that this brain drain is a rather sad state of affairs. I can’t say I disagree. In 50 years, I’ll be very interested to see how history treats this recession and how it affected my generation.

On a more upbeat note, I got my FBI background check back the other day. Woo! I'm officially NOT a criminal (and there was much rejoicing). Shipped it off to DC yesterday for the Apostille. Once I get that back, I get to send the whole packet to Korea. After that, I’ll get my contract and notice of appointment, and FINALLY find out what city I’ll be living in(!!).  Aside from the obvious reasons for why that’s exciting, it also means that I’ll finally be able to let my coworkers in on my plans. It’s hard to keep a secret like this for 6 months.

To my coworkers reading this: I'm planning a whole post on this, but I'm sorry for being a lying creeper for the last six months. Please forgive, I meant no harm.