Monthly Archives: August 2007

I can go to SONH! Yay!

Now I’m only going to keep the part of the grumbling where the school made me lose my spot as a follow in 4B. I take back the other grumbly bits.

So.

I just realised how long two weeks is. It’s in fact, long enough to cover most of SONH. I am now fairly pissed off!

So I go to a lot of trouble to be ready to leave only a week after MTLX, which was not easy, and involved some amount of rushing. I say goodbye to everyone.. and then continue to show up dancing. Wait, aren’t I gone? So I have to explain to everyone, and I feel kind of foolish, despite the fact that it’s all AiCorea’s fault that this delay happened. FINE. Not a big deal, but not great.

BUT NOW! Ok, I paid for SONH, on the off chance that I could go to it, because I KNEW that I’d be sad if I were still here, but the camp was going on three hours away from me. I got a job, signed a contract, and everything. So I cancelled, and got a refund minus 50$. No problem. But then, AiCorea fucked things up, and delayed things so that I’ll be here during SONH, but can’t go, because now I lost my reserved spot. Which, by the way, was actually in 4B, the highest level, for the first time. Follow spots are FULL at all levels now. There are two follows on the wait list for 4b before me, and this is EXACTLY why I wanted to save my spot. I knew this would happen, and now I’m kicking myself! I’ve also given up my lift to SONH, so even if I wanted to go as a leader, I now have to look ALL OVER AGAIN for a lift there and back.

If they just picked a date and stood by it, there’d be no problem. But no, first they tell me I can’t leave so late, and now they delay it so that I’m leaving just as late. But now I’m annoyed because really, I COULD have gone to SONH, and now I lost my spot.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! I shouldn’t have cancelled until I had a visa issuance number and/or a plane ticket.

And honestly, I was looking forward to being in 4B this year, because every year I’ve been in between two levels, and always gone down to the lower one. Which was fine, and it was my choice, and I’ve always been challenged anyway, and loved my time. But this year, I admit I was looking forward to a real whuppin’ by being near the lower end of a level for once.

Sigh. So I decided that I’m going to push for them to have me leave September 5th. Which will let me go as a lead to SONH, and then have a couple of days to do all my laundry and pack again and leave. And decrease my boredom of freaking twiddling my thumbs waiting to leave. I’ve been so bored these last couple of days.

Normally, I wouldn’t go as a lead, because the camp is expensive, you know? I’d rather concentrate on my following. But hey, money is less of an object, I’ve got a good job, and I’m going to enjoy it. So my decision is to push to leave sept. 5th.

Grr. Take that, AiCorea!

[Edit: apparently, getting into 4B is extremely unlikely at this point, but I may get into 4A, the level below it; Mark is going to give me preference over the other girl on the wait list at that level. So maybe I can still go as a follow. 4A is not bad.]

So they decided to wait the two weeks for me to get the visa here. Alexis is going to call me on Monday. I assume that means Sunday night here, as it probably meant Korean time.

Funny how fast things start happening once you call a director.

Anwyay, they called the recruiter, and are looking into costs for the visa run to see if they’ll pay it, and more info is coming soon. Timeframe is now from sunday or monday to two weeks from now (depending on whether they do the visa run or not. Mostly likely be sunday or monday if it’s visa run, and two weeks if it’s waiting and getting the visa done here).

So I finally heard what happened.

My documents got sent to AiCorea, and they received them. They were given instructions on how to continue with the visa process (from the recruiter), and asked if they needed any help, and if they understood everything. They said no problem, they understood very well.

But they didn’t, of course. They thought that they only needed a visa issuance number if I were going to do a visa run, and that I could get the visa without it in Canada. That the documents that I sent were purely for them. Nope. That’s not how it works!

So now there’s been this long delay. If they want me to get the visa here, it probably means a delay of at least two weeks. If they want me to go on a visa run to Japan, they have to pay my flight there too. It’s got to be one or the other, but they haven’t decided yet.

Actually, it comes down to the same thing as the contract stuff. The recruiters and I are dealing with Alexis and Angela, who then go to the directors, and then come back with a decision. So they’ve been trying to get answers, apparently, but it’s taking time.

So this means a few things:

1- I get to go dancing at Cat’s again tomorrow night (tonight?).

2- Maybe I was too hasty canceling my pass to SONH and getting refunded (Ok, probably not, but I wish I could go!).

3- I’m probably getting a free trip to Japan.😉

4- If they thought that the info was only for them, they may have opened my sealed official transcript, in which case, I’ll need to order another one.

5- Things out of the ordinary that ever might need any sort of authorization from AiCorea will take forever, and probably have to go through a bunch of Korean red tape.

I just talked to the assistant director, Mr. Min. He’ll call me back soon, apparently. We’ll see if that’s the case or not. I also have the director (Mr. Yun)’s cell number.

I called the recruiter 8am Korean time. She’s been in touch with the people.. asked them two days ago, they said they’d give an update yesterday, but never called her back. She’s calling them this morning until they answer her, I think, because she’s going to call me back in three or four hours to give me answers.

It looks as though there are two options:

1- Visa run to Japan.

2- Leaving at least a week later than expected.

As fun as a free trip to Japan would be (however short it is), I think I’d prefer to leave in a week. More time = better organized me! I’ll have the answer soon. I think I could be ready to leave Saturday anyway, but I’d rather feel less rushed.

I’m trying this out in case I want to move to wordpress. We’ll see how it goes.

Update on the Korea thing:

There isn’t really one. I’m still waiting. If it takes too long, maybe I’ll even get to go on a visa run to Japan! I suppose I’ll get an update soon. In the meantime, I sent an email asking them for an update, and reminding them that I’m far away and would feel more comfortable if I had some idea of what was currently happening with the visa application process.

More news when I have it.