At any rate all signs of the rash I got on my weak, white skin while I was sick, sweaty and feverish a month or so ago have finally disappeared. I have slept through the entire night a few times because I didn't wake up sweaty and uncomfortable. It's nice and cool here! My co-favourite season in Korea is spring. It's tied for my fave with fall. I wish every day could be like yesterday. Amber and I went for a walk around the city of Incheon to Inha University where she works and we tried to play tennis but because I didn't think to pack the proper tennis playing footwear, we got booted off the courts and had to settle for playing catch with the baseball. But just being out for a few hours in the sun, moving around, actually exercising without sweating like the pilot from Airplane!, what a pleasure!
Doing something sporty, also a pleasure! The closest I got to that in Indonesia was the weightroom at Gandaria Apartments. But it hasn't been all sleeping and playing. I've put my name in for dozens of part time and full time jobs around here but Korea always has its surprises. They went and made it even more difficult to get a job over here. At least for Canadians. I knew that to get a job here I'd need a criminal record check but what I didn't know is how hard it would be to get one. I remember my last year in Korea all I had to do was get fingerprinted from a local Korean police station on the proper RCMP fingerprint form, which you needed to download and print out from the RCMP website. In fact I didn't even do that. I just got the Korean cops to fingerprint me on one of their forms. Even though it was all in Korean, it was fine. And the cops were friendly and glad to do it for free. After that I had to download the application for the CRC from the RCMP website and fill it out. Then I had to get a certified check. Impossible to do now for me in Korea because you need a bank account and to get one of those you need an alien registration card. To get the ARC I need a job. Can't get a job cuz no CRC and in order to get that I need a certified check, which I can't get because.... Ah, we meet again, Korean Catch 22! No worries, I doubt I'd be able to find a place to get a certified check in Canadian currency anyway. I remember THAT was a real challenge last time I tried.
Back in 2010 I had an alien registration card so I got the check and sent the application. I seem to remember the check being for 130 bucks. That was including faster mail. Only drawback, and the reason I had to leave Korea, was that it took almost 5 months even with the faster mail. It arrived too late to use for my visa application for a job at Dongshin University. So I decided to go back to Canada. It wasn't more than a couple days late otherwise I think I may still be working here in Korea, possibly at Dongshin University. But the hand of Fate would have it otherwise...
So NOW, since September of 2014, Canada has decided to make things easier for people seeking CRC's. Uh-oh. You KNOW what happens when the government does anything "for your convenience." They have now instituted a fingerprint digitizing rule and chosen some RCMP approved companies to do the digitizing. So instead of sending the originals to the RCMP, you send the originals to one of the approved digitizing companies, and give them their fee for the service, OF COURSE. Then they send them to the RCMP. Somehow you pay the RCMP to convert your newly digitized fingerprints into a fingerprint-based criminal record check and mail it back to you. Plus you pay the RCMP their fee for doing that, OF COURSE. THEN, you send the whole works to a friend or family member who has absolutely nothing better to do and would be only too delighted to run in to the one Korean embassy located VERY close to his/her house and get the criminal record check notarized by the Korean consular general she/he finds there. And, OF COURSE, don't forget about his share of the whole scam, I mean process. All in all it's considerably LESS convenient, and let's face it, that's what the government is for, and considerably more expensive. I am probably wrong but "digitizing" just means photocopying, scanning, taking a pic with your smartphone or somehow turning them into a digital picture that can be sent electronically. I'm sure most of us have the technology easily available to do that but when I asked the guy at one of these digitizing places he, of course trying to justify his existence, said, "Oh no, that pixellates them and makes them unusable for the RCMP computer." Is it me? Does this sound like total BULLSHIT to anyone else?
OR, you could get fingerprinted and send the prints along with a filled out RCMP CRC request form to one of these newly formed businesses that do all this for Canadians who are in Korea and finding it impossible to get all this tedius, anal, unnecessary BULL SHEEIT done back in Canada. I found one called "Reliability Screening." It will only cost me 400 dollars to have this done! Yay! And then there is no guarantee that I'll find the job I want in the 6 months that this thing will do me any good. If I don't get a job in 6 months, the CRC becomes unacceptable here in Korea and I have to do this MERDE DE LE VACHE all over again. Even if I find a job at the 5 month and 29 day mark, we go to immigration at the 6 month and one day mark, they will say, "Cannot. Must be less than 6 months old."
But here's the fun part: I've been sending resumes out all over the place to all kinds of jobs. Some that might be wishful thinking but many that I think I'm almost overqualified for. And nothing. Absolutely nothing. I finally got an email from the director of adult studies at YBM, a major private school chain in Korea, a guy named Greg, and he said places get so many resumes nowadays that nobody even looks at your application package unless it has all the required documentation including the CRC that's less than 6 months old. And even THEN you're just in the running, there's no guarantee you'll get anything.
FURTHERMORE, I've had criminal record checks done for every job I've had for the past 20 years in Canada, Japan, and Korea. This last year I've been in Indonesia where it's awfully difficult to commit a crime in Canada. It's the only year of my adult life I haven't documented with multiple official RCMP criminal record checks. In fact, and I have no idea what this means, some of my security guard checks were higher level criminal record checks than the ones done for work in Korea.
All of this means exactly nothing to anyone. People need my money. I can't work anywhere without paying someone for the job. Money trumps reason every time. Why can't we stop being dicks to each other? Why does everything like this require diving into and swimming through olympic sized swimming pools full of BULL SHIT???
Okay, I'll move on. Another thing that sort of surprised me, but not really, was my phone. It's a little, low tech, 2G Nokia. I was pretty sure I'd be able to just buy a new simcard for it here and I'd be reachable by friends or prospective employers. I might even be able to keep the same number. But I went with Amber and with DB, (the two folks who hath fed, clothed and yay they didst giveth unto me succor in my destitution), to several phone shops who all said they don't have 2G simcards. The one at the airport said there are none in the country any more. One place we went to the girl behind the counter instantly started giggling when she saw my trusty, yellow Nokia. I was expecting that, but not expecting the total lack of service for stupidphones. Nothing but smartphones here I guess. But I haven't given up. I know Yongsan electronics market will have something! At least they will if it's like it was when I was last there. Things change. I might not even be able to get a cheap pair of glasses at Nam Dae Moon! I sure hope so cuz the glasses I have, which were bought there for less than 20 bucks frames, lenses and eye exam, are old, worn out and the wrong prescription.
Anyway, I'm headed to Seoul tomorrow and hope to maybe solve some of these problems. I'll visit Heather and Mike and family. Can't wait to meet Iryna and Kelly! Then I'll do a bit of a visit slash job hunt with friends in the area and see if I can't come up with something temporary or even something more long term. I might be able to drop into a hagwon or two and ask them the best way to solve my CRC issues. They might know a few tricks.
John from Wall Street told me that I need to hang in for about two more weeks here and Wall Street will pay my way back to Indonesia and get me set up and working there. But he's been saying that for 3 months. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then I'll have to treat Korea as my new place of residence and keep on trying to get some work here.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Updates will follow as events warrant.
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