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Three basic options now, all of which involve fleeing the country as quickly as possible. I passed the first stage of the Foreign Service Exam back in September and the second stage is in Boston this Friday. I then get results back eventually and get stuck on a queu depending on how well I do. This means that as embassy jobs become available the people on the top of the queu get first dibs on the jobs and then jobs trickle down the queu, which means it could take months and months to know whether I get a job and where.
Have had major second thoughts about recently. I want to have a bit more control over my life than getting shuttled around every three years to god knows where. And I have enough leftist pride that the thought of selling out to Bush is galling. I'm the sort of person who's supposed to protest against the government, not work for it goddamit!
Then there's my Korean ESL teaching job offer. The pay and benefits are about as good as I can get as a ESL newbie in Korea, the hours are beautiful (1-8 PM weekdays) and I should be able to save/pay off student loans to the tune of at least $1000/month (low prices and cheap living on my part). Have wanted to live in Asia for a while and the job seems good and the New Yorker expat who would be my co-worker seems like a good guy who would be able to keep me from doing anything especially stupid (have done as much research to avoid getting screwed over as possible, many thanks to Seeker...). Am also talking to a whooooooole lot of Korean recruiters and should have stacks of job offers shortly (new term beginning soon).
And we've also got Taiwan. The pay's not quite as nice Korea but the school I've got an interview scheduled for tomorrow morning is American-run (unlike the Korean one) which I hope is a good, think I'll get a job offer since SARS is scaring away the competition. And being able to learn Mandarin would be great for looooooooooooong term career goal of being a history prof (love chinese history) and you can't do much better than Chinese food (except in SE Asia where its harder for people w/o experience like me to get a food in the door). And I'd get a motor scooter! Few things are as cool as motor scooters!
Pics from near where I'd be in Korea (Chung Ju, about 700K population in a fairly mountainous bit with temperate weather smack in the middle of South Korea with two national parks and some places for skiing nearby:
Pics from neary where I'd be in Taiwan (Chiayi, about 250K population on the fairly tropical southern coastal plain, apparently pretty smogy but with Jade Mountain fairly close to the north):
Have had major second thoughts about recently. I want to have a bit more control over my life than getting shuttled around every three years to god knows where. And I have enough leftist pride that the thought of selling out to Bush is galling. I'm the sort of person who's supposed to protest against the government, not work for it goddamit!
Then there's my Korean ESL teaching job offer. The pay and benefits are about as good as I can get as a ESL newbie in Korea, the hours are beautiful (1-8 PM weekdays) and I should be able to save/pay off student loans to the tune of at least $1000/month (low prices and cheap living on my part). Have wanted to live in Asia for a while and the job seems good and the New Yorker expat who would be my co-worker seems like a good guy who would be able to keep me from doing anything especially stupid (have done as much research to avoid getting screwed over as possible, many thanks to Seeker...). Am also talking to a whooooooole lot of Korean recruiters and should have stacks of job offers shortly (new term beginning soon).
And we've also got Taiwan. The pay's not quite as nice Korea but the school I've got an interview scheduled for tomorrow morning is American-run (unlike the Korean one) which I hope is a good, think I'll get a job offer since SARS is scaring away the competition. And being able to learn Mandarin would be great for looooooooooooong term career goal of being a history prof (love chinese history) and you can't do much better than Chinese food (except in SE Asia where its harder for people w/o experience like me to get a food in the door). And I'd get a motor scooter! Few things are as cool as motor scooters!
Pics from near where I'd be in Korea (Chung Ju, about 700K population in a fairly mountainous bit with temperate weather smack in the middle of South Korea with two national parks and some places for skiing nearby:
Pics from neary where I'd be in Taiwan (Chiayi, about 250K population on the fairly tropical southern coastal plain, apparently pretty smogy but with Jade Mountain fairly close to the north):
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