NaughtyDog
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Last night I met up with one of the new TaLK teachers in my district for drinks. (&rea - was one of the new teachers on your orientation a Brit named Matt?). His description of the orientation made it sound like absolutely useless BS and an 11PM curfew to boot. He also said it looked like some of the Korean-Americans in the programme were only doing it at their parents' bidding and seemed to have very little interest in or enthusiasm about it. But he seemed to be enjoying the actual teaching now that he's into it. He did say that it really, really varied as to what kind of housing and working conditions different teachers had. Like with EPIK and GEPIK it seems like it's a total crap-shoot as to what kind of situation you end up with.
Yeah! Matt, tall guy in Changnyeong who probably talked about problems with finding shoes that fit?? Haha he's hilarious. You should ask him about Daniel and Robert if you want to know about the awful people they hired...
Was the acceptance based on appearance?Nope I don't think so. They did ask for a passport photo though, but all my application stuff was really late so they didn't base my acceptance on looks. Don't worry, there are a lot of Asians and Koreans in this program if you're worried about that.
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^Doesn't everyone get paid the same...? it says 1.5k on the site... and everyone gets around 15 hours? Or are you comparing to other programs?
Yup, sorry for not being clear.
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Honestly, during orientation I was surprised at some of the people that were accepted. I applied VERY late (around July 20 and started August 15) and I thought it was such an amazing feat that I was accepted. Turns out 40 other people were as late as I was and they accepted some sketchy people hahaha Not to take away from the program, just pretty shocked at some of the people they chose.
So far, I'm liking it a lot. Orientation was kind of a drag because some of the lectures were really repetitive, and it's for nearly a month :S You'll get to meet a lot of new people though and you will get some free time with a curfew though. I'm in Gyeongnam right now, and the amount of people in Gyeongnam is pretty small (about 25 people), so we all got very close during the provincial orientation.
I currently live in Jinju and travel about an hour on bus to Hadong, and so far I think Jinju is a pretty nice city to live in. The schools are much better than they would be in a city like Seoul because they are smaller and have very polite students. The amount of hours that I work are great. I work 15 hours a week with Wednesdays off (those are a toss up depending how your school wants you scheduled).
Yes, I'm still in the honeymoon phase of this program, but hearing some stories in the Teaching English in Korea thread kinda make me glad I'm in a rural area, even though I'm getting paid less.
If you have anymore questions, don't hesitate to ask
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Ok thanks =D July - Jan is best for me so hopefully I can get in then... when can you start applying for July?
It says on the site you can request where you want to go (you may not get it though T_T) but what's a good reason to pick a certain place? I want to be located close to a city at least... for a girl it'll be easier to get some things in cities. I've been to rural parts of Asia for vacation and it was difficult for me to get some necessities... And I really want my apartment to have a sitting toilet, not the Asian-squatting ones.
I looked through the list of locations and I see that these are metropolitan cities
Incheon
Daejeon
Daegu
Ulsan
Busan
Jeju
But TaLK specifically states that people are placed in rural areas, can someone explain a but more?
It's honestly a toss up. My friend chose Jeju as her first choice and ended up getting Gangwon, and my friend chose Jeju as her 3rd choice and got Jeju.
Yes, you are placed in a rural area for school, but it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be living in a rural area. You may live in a city, then travel by bus to your rural school. As for squatting toilets, yeah you'll get a toilet in your apartment, and in public, most toilets are squatters, but there is usually at least one toilet to use. Make sure to bring around toilet paper because they don't always have it for some reason :S
One of the orientation leaders lived in Jeju, and wow, she was home staying with a family in an insanely huge/beautiful house! Apparently there's a person in Jeju that's home staying in a multi-million dollar house this semester. I don't think it has much of a city, but if you like places like that, go for it.
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Did TALK change their program dates? It now says:
- Six-month contract : February 1, 2010 ~ July 31, 2010
- One year contract : February 1, 2010 ~ January 31, 2011
Is there no contract for July - January (6 months)?
Is Feb- Jul a good time to go to Korea? Nice weather? =]
I believe this is for the next application deadline\semester only.
So the next semester starts in Feb 2010, and you can apply for 6 months or 1 year, but next semester (July 2010) you will be able to apply for July - Jan. (I think you'll have to apply by April) Did that make any sense?
The weather in Korea is generally good for me so far. I'm in the south, and it only snows once/twice a year here. The summers are the only things to watch out for because it can get very hot and in bigger cities, the humidity and smog will make it twice as bad.
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The cropping issue is bugging me...
The new soompi is still a bust imo.
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Is anyone applying for February to August? Because... I am. It would be nice to have some people on the same boat as me, hahah.
And I have a few (actually, a lot) of questions.. But I don't know where to begin. :T
Ask away!
I'm currently in the TaLK program, and have already completed orientation and have pretty much settled in, so I can answer your questions as best as possible (:
Oh and Yubumsuk, my mistake, the guy only has a wife lol Still pretty hard, but I think she's going to work here too.
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oohh feedback on the clubs good good do you guys know when the club week is? When you can walk around and sign up to whatever.
&rea - I think you mentioned this to me before, the badminton club. sadly I am terrible at it but it does sound fun... let me think about that~ p.s. I ended up going to kcf and you were right the people there were super nice! Going again this year.
Honey_Babee / cfcong - how is csa at york? I went to one at a different school and it was eh... they were all kind of elitist and cliques. Do they speak mandarin or cantonese? or.. english. Do ppl at the taiwanese one speak only mandarin? I would like to join that one actually. Okay I guess I should say are there people who don't speak mandarin at these clubs hehe.
nobody in asian focus club?
p.s. cfcong I'm taking poli sci course this year (the china one) and I took one on racism last year but I'm not in poli sci anymore
I'm glad you enjoyed KCF! Are you regularly attending KCF? I'm in Korea for a year, I'll probably join again once I come back! Hope to see you there if you're still at York
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Wow sorry for the over-excitedness and overuse of exclamation points
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Is there any kind of chance to go as a couple to teach? I want to go with my fiance however if we're just going to end up not together ... I might as well just do a two-week field trip with the college instead.
Well there are two pairs of couples in my province. One guy's wife is going to be living with him, but she's not teaching (they have a child too). The other couple are just boyfriend/girlfriend and they got placed in the same town, but not the same school, and they are living together at the moment in an apartment TaLK provided. If you're Korean though, I think the chances of the program letting you live together will be low as the couples I mentioned are not Korean. (You know how Koreans are about couples living together lol) If you want to just be placed in the same town, I'm sure if you apply early enough you'll be able to get the same city. Also, if your co-teachers are nice, they might even be able to get you rooms in the same apartment!
Hope it works out for you!
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what clubs are you guys joining this year? any recommendations?
Join YUBC (Badminton) if you want to meet a lot of Asian people haha (Yes, there are girls
)Every level of play.
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I think the next semester starts in January? but it says on the TaLK website that people only go in the program during August... Some people go for a year (August until July) and some go for 6 months (August - January)
What kinda apartment do you have? Can you take some picas? =D
What lectures...? On the TaLK website it says people only work for 3 hours a day (excluding weekends) and they have some stuff to fill up your time,
" A variety of programs to experience Korean culture will be offered under the supervision of the POE during the weekends and in scholar's available free time."
Do you have to pay for these things?
Yeah most people go during August, but some may go for the first semester. The lectures right now are at Kyunghee University which is where orientation is taking place. We pretty much just finished, but they were awful and boring. I'm not at my apartment/homestay yet because we're still in orientation, but I'm staying with my aunt in Jinju anyway.
I think for the POE outings, you shouldn't have to pay. My friends and I have so much planned from tourist areas/sight seeing areas we heard through the TaLK program so we might not go to much of the POE outings. Orientation here is almost done, but we still have a week of orientation at our POE
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I'm at Kyunghee University in the TaLK program right now! I applied REALLY late y though - July 25 ish and I left for Korea August 13th! (Yeah, I got my F4 Visa the day of my flight). If you're a Korean-Canadian, Korean-American, it might be a lot more easier than others, but there are a lot of people who applied to Epic and didn't get a response so they moved on to TaLK.
1lasthope - I think the second semester starts sometime around February, so you'd have to apply now.
Honestly, 6 month term isn't enough. If you're going to teach in Korea, you might start to get used to Korea after 6 months lol Just wait a bit and go for a year, but if you're worried, then yeah go ahead and apply for 6 months now!
Btw, LECTURES ARE SO BORING +_________+
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Lol my boyfriend took Japanese this year and had to drop it because of the strike. For language courses, you really need to keep up and memorize the work, but because of the strike he forgot a lot. Once we got back, they were moving twice as fast haha (The pace of Japanese is already supposed to be pretty quick :S)
Trust me on this, you have just a little over one month until school starts...Learn some basic Japanese right now. Learn to write a bit and some basic phrases because you'll be writing and performing some dialogues in class...
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I got this text from my boyfriend this week: (He had some friends over at his house)
"I just farted and it smelled so much that they all left the room."
He also texted me one morning before I woke up and he was at work:
"It's going to rain, don't forget to bring an umbrella
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Does anyone know if Pmall sells cute laptop keyboard stickers and/or laptop keyboard keys?
My laptop keys are falling apart and I figured I might as well give it a makeover lol
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Flew down to Vancouver from Ontario for a big family reunion, promising her that we'd meet up while I'm there.
Had her number, address, everything. 21 day trip, 14 calls from her, we never met.
I've yet to seek another relationship from that point... Probably won't ever be ready.
Wait.
You flew down to Vancouver with her address, she called you 14 times, but didn't end up meeting and you're the victim?
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Oh crap, I thought I was in a "worst thing your S/O did to you thread" haha
She must have done something awful...Hope you'll be okay from it eventually...
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he can't get traded to the lakers, he wasn't under contract. but then again you can't always trust ron artest unless either the lakers say it's official.
hopefully Houston can acquire Ariza and Gortat, after all that effort the GM is putting to get him. unless the rumors are true that he's close to signing with the Mavs.
Haha yeah. I forgot what source I got this from but:
"(If there's such a thing as a player being a bad source regarding his own negotiations, it would likely apply to Artest.) "
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According to CBS Sports, Ron Artest is signing with the Lakers.
Yeah I just heard that.
Yao is gone, Artest is traded to Lakers...Sad to hear that since they did so well this year.
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True Blood
in Others
hoyt and jessica is my new favorite couple on this show after they ruined the great potential that was sam and tara.Hoyt and Jessica, then Terry and Arlene for me.
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True Blood
in Others
haha me too.. i have to torrent it since i don't have HBO.. :[but i'm going to watch ep3 tomorrow :]
edit:
mann!
hoyt and jessica are super cute together :]
hahahahah eric's expression when the doctor says that sookie can be fed blood is funny
I don't have HBO and I just stream it on ninjavideo.net.
They usually have the episode up a few hours after it airs and it's amazing quality.
Just remember to click on the little ninjavideo helper to be able to watch the videos.
This episode definitely made up for last week's episode. Hoyt and Jessica are adorable, and I even find the lady from Fangtasia funny when she had the gun (Gigi I think?)
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True Blood
in Others
whoah! eric is so damn sexy!!! and bill too!who is that guy on the dungeon with lafayette??
and, is sookie gonna turn to a vampire too?she was bitten right?
The guy in the dungeon was one of the guys that started crap with Lafayette in the bar one time. He was also part of the group of people that killed the vampires by burning their house down in Season 1.
Sookie's not going to turn into a vampire. She was just bitten and I believe they need to be drained in order to become a vampire.
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True Blood
in Others
So glad they didn't follow the book with regards to who was found in the car.
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True Blood
in Others
Sesame Street with Vampires.Sesame Street with Vampires having lots of sex.
Now, how do I explain that?
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True Blood
in Others
Damn it starts on Sunday! I really wish I had HBO, but then again I guess it's for the better because my parents would be like "wth are you watching?!" haha
York University
in soompi hangout
Posted
Don't be too worried, there are a lot of guys at York. Just don't make it your main focus lol As for the hot guy, it's not weird nor creepy to just ask "Hey, we live on the same floor, right? I'm ______" I had people do that to me and I did that plenty of times. You'll get to know him more when you guys go on your house outings.