Just...Breathe

The process of acquiring an E2 visa for teaching in South Korea has been long, drawn out, and stressful.  I started back in April.

To be eligible to teach ESL in Korea, you need a bachelor's degree.  I've got two.  Check.

You also need to be a citizen from one of the English speaking countries on their fancy list.  American?  Check.

You've got a beautiful native English accent and a higher education.  Now you have to get all of you documents in order to prove it.

• Apostilled FBI Background check

Seems simple enough.  And it is.  But it takes a while to get the final product so don't procrastinate on this one.  The first step is to get your fingerprints taken.  The third time was the charm for me.  The first time I went, I was confused about what I was doing.  They told me they couldn't do apostilled fingerprint cards.  I didn't yet realize that you had to send the card off.  The second time I went, they were on holiday for the Easter long weekend.  Third time, finally did it, though it was five minutes before they closed and the lady was clearly not happy with me.  But I got it done.  So, you send the card in along with a background check request form and ask them to authenticate it for the purpose of obtaining an apostille.  

Once it comes back, you have to send it off to a company to get it apostilled.  Once you get the shwanky stamp, you're good.  

• Apostilled photocopy of your degree.

They'll ask to see the real degree when you get there.  So until you can, they want as much proof as possible that you actually went to college.  Go to your bank and ask them to photocopy your degree and then notarize it.  Now here's where I wish I knew more.  I got my degree photocopies notarized and sent it off to the Secretary of State to be apostilled.  A week later they sent it back, no apostille.  In Ohio and a few other states, you need to have your notary authenticated before you can have it apostilled.  So I went downtown to the clerk of courts to have it authenticated before ovenighting it back to the Secretary.  Got the fancy imprint on the document.  

• PASSPORT 

This part was hard.  And it shouldn't have been.  Except that I'm the dummy who lost her passport.  So I needed a new one, and really quickly.  But I was getting married!  I wanted to change my name!  I tried to wait and see if I could get the name change proceedings done in time.  There was no way.  And I ended up having to expedite the passport processing and keeping my maiden name.  So now, when I do get to change my name, I'll have to buy a whole new passport again.  Inconvenient and costly.  But that's what the absent minded get I suppose.  

• Passport photos

When you get your ARC card (alien registration card), they want your face on it.  I wanted vanilla wafers from Walgreens anyways.  No problem.  XD

• Health Statement Form

Korea is very particular about the health of the individuals coming into their country.  Not for your sake though.  They want to make sure that you won't start an epidemic or lose your mind and go on a rampage or something.  If you have any sort of mental or physical health issues, it's likely that they'll deny your visa application

• Signed Resume/Signed Contract

My recruiter already had these as we did it all through email.  So thankfully I didn't have to worry about them a second time.

So, I packed up all of the documents (finally!) and shipped them off to Korea via FedEx.  They received the documents July 17.  I was told 1-2 weeks processing time before I could get an E2 visa confirmation number.  This number is sent off with the visa application, payment, and more passport pictures (some consulates also require your transcripts or a consulate checklist) to get my actual visa.  

It's been almost 3 weeks.  My flight leaves in 8 days.  I've bugged and bugged my recruiter, but there's not much he can do.  It's in Immigration's hands now.  So I called a few consulates today.  The consensus seems to be that I can only send my application to the consulate in Chicago because it's all jurisdiction based and only they do Ohio applications.  And Chicago happens to have a much longer processing time than say, New York (only 4 days).  Chicago takes 7 days (7 days!) to process your application and send your passport back to you with the visa.  No rush service.  Even begging doesn't work.  Koreans are ever stoic.  I'm pretty much having a panic attack.  

But Alan, always the calm one, has been helping me look at our options.  At the worst, I might have to fly separately from him a few days later.  (I would be very saddened by this.  I really wanted to go see Seoul with him upon arriving.  Which we wouldn't have time to do if I came later)  But really, everything should be fine.  I can get into the country, just maybe not on my own terms.  Maybe that's also part of the lesson.  Going with the flow.  That's what this whole trip was about anyways, right?

So, my lesson of the day in general...just BREATHE.  My advice to others considering a similar route....DON'T procrastinate.  

-Jessie