A Post About Money
It might be rather rude to write about my finances in Korea, but I’m sure people are curious. I know I would have liked to have more information when planning.
Keep in mind that I’m still at orientation and haven’t actually received or spent any real money. I have learned a few things from talking to returning teachers, however.
The lowest level salary for provincial EPIK teachers is 2.0 million won/month, or about $2000. Doesn’t sound like much, but included with the contract is airfare both ways and housing. Depending on where you live and how frugally you spend, I’ve heard that you can spend all of that, or save half of it. Maybe even more if you’re really tight. Erin and I are housed as a couple, and one of the EPIK coordinators said that should save us a lot of money.
Also, in rural provinces, you may end up teaching at multiple schools, in which case you are paid slightly more.
US citizens get a better deal than most. All teachers are exempt from Korean taxes for the first 2 years of their employment. Most other teachers have to pay taxes in their home country (or may opt to pay Korean taxes). US citizens, provided they make less than some large figure (I think 75K/year) are also exempt from US taxes.
Total annual payment (including severance pay, settlement allowance, and rural bonuses) should be between $26,000 and $28,000. Doesn’t sound like much, but with the tax benefits, provided housing, and a (seemingly) lower cost of living than the US, this isn’t a bad financial move for me.
This ends my discussion of money. Enjoy some photos:
Jet Lag sucks
Well, it’s 3:45 in the morning, and I’m wide awake. I managed to get a fair bit of sleep, but I expect I’ll be tired tomorrow. Probably shouldn’t have started reading. Finished Ender’s Game, which was a lot of fun. I should know better than to pick up a tacky sci-fi novel in the middle of the night.
Yesterday Erin and I (and a couple other friends) met a Korean businessman in the hall at the University. He was finishing some business course here, and asked about our pink t-shirts. He was really friendly. He spent 6 months in Texas on business, and drove around half the country. Gave us his card and said we could contact him if we were ever in Busan. Erin e-mailed him, and he responded. He seems like a good guy. People have been really friendly, which makes things easier.
We picked the right province when we chose Gangwon. Not only is the vacation time amazing, but we also get to interview with the regional office of education to express preferences for our placement. Other locations get placed more or less at random. The other teachers going to Gangwon seem like a good bunch as well.
I’ve met a few returning teachers, who have been helpful. I’ve been able to get some questions answered about paperwork and money. All-in-all, things are going well.
General Updates
So I’ve done very little writing on here lately, and lots has happened. There have been plenty of important events in international relations in the past month, from the collapse of the Doha round to the Russian intervention in Georgia. My (few) readers can expect more posts on topics like these in the future.
In personal news, my girlfriend and I are getting ready to move to Korea for a year. We’ve signed a contract with EPIK, and will be teaching English in Korean public schools for the next year. Expect updates and photos about this adventure.
I’m looking forward to a sweet Korean internet connection; the last few weeks at home (and on dial-up) have been frustrating. I think we’ll be pretty grateful for the internet over there. Given that we don’t speak a word of Korean, and we’ll likely be in a small town somewhere in Gangwon-do, I expect we’ll be spending lots of time with our computers. I’ll be using it as an opportunity to make this blog a higher priority. I miss writing, and even this informal BS is enjoyable.
Check back soon for more info, and if you’re privileged enough to have my Skype info, please give me a call now and then.
Asus Eee PC 901 (Linux)
I just got this sweet little machine the yesterday. I’ll do a longer write-up later, but here are some pics.
Flowchart master
The title of this post refers to me. That’s right, I am the flowchart master.
Maybe I’ll back up a bit. I’ve mentioned that I’m developing a training program for new tech support consultants at my new job. Last week (my first week on the job), I made flowcharts. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? A number of people said that new consultants were struggling with some of the troubleshooting required by the job. It often requires following a process through several steps, and some issues can be a bit confusing. Here’s an example:
A user calls in because they have no network connection. First you have to verify that they have a working network adapter on the computer. Then (hopefully) you can check the IP address. If they get a 192.x.x.x IP, they either have a static IP set, or they’re connected to a router, or some asshat on the network hooked up his router wrong and it’s causing a rogue DHCP server. If they get a 35.15.x.x, they haven’t registered with MSU’s DHCP server yet. It can be confusing to keep track of all this, especially over the phone.
So in week one, I made a few flowcharts in M$ Visio for these types of issues. Pretty boring.
The job is starting to shape up, though. Today I made a couple sample screencasts — videos of the computer screen in action, with me narrating. I think these will be the easiest way to train new hires on some of our software. We use a handful of tools to look up user info, modem status, etc,; timesheets and work schedules are done through web apps as well. My screencasts should get the newbies up and running more quickly.
I think I’ll have a lot of latitude with this training program. It seems like I’ll be making a lot of decisions (or at least contributing), and hopefully I’ll get to actually finish this project. Sorry for the long post, but I figure my many readers deserve to know what I’m doing, right?
Mail today
The mail just got here, and check out what came:
There you have it…proof that I have an honest-to-god liberal arts BA. Wouldn’t want people to think I was exaggerating.
Trip to Saugatuck
Erin had the day off yesterday, and I got my errands done early, so we decided to go for a drive. We ended up in Saugatuck, where we climbed the majestic Mount Baldhead and ate lunch.
Mt. Baldhead was actually a set of stairs up a dune, with a trail that led to the beach. It was pretty cool. There weren’t many people around, and even though it was windy, it was really warm. It feels pretty nice to hike in January without a jacket.
I brought my new digital camera, and have reconfigured my blog to use wordpress and NextGEN Gallery (a topic for another day). Here are the results. (warning: the full size images are huge)
Edit — I’ve re-sized the images. They’re not nearly as big.
At this point, these images have been compressed a bit by me, and by the gallery plugin. There is a lot of noise that isn’t in the originals. I’m really impressed by the pictures that this camera takes.
Textbooks for sale
Erin and I have been accumulating textbooks for a few semesters now. I’ve been meaning to sell them on Amazon, but hadn’t gotten around to it (until today). I posted 42 books; the face value I set was more than 800 dollars. We’ll get maybe 75-80% of that, after Amazon’s cut and shipping, but it’s beats the bookstore prices by a lot.
I’m not terribly attached to my textbooks. Between libraries, online journals, and digital books, actual books are just another way of storing the information — and a pretty inconvenient one at that. I’m happy to get as much money out of them as possible. By purchasing used books online, and selling them back online, you can really keep costs down. I was saving a couple hundred bucks each semester compared to bookstore prices.
Anyways, it makes checking my email fun, because each new message is money in my account.
– Edit –
So far customers have paid a total of $263.67 (including the shipping fee). After Amazon’s charges, I’ve banked $210.18. Not too shabby.
New Digital Camera
So I received some money from relatives for graduation, and figured it was time for a digital camera. I bought a 35mm SLR a few years back; in retrospect it was a mistake. It’s a blast to use, and takes great pictures, but film just doesn’t make sense anymore. Mostly when I take pictures I want to use them on the computer, and film costs a fortune to shoot. For decent processing, I bet it averages $5-10 per roll, and I don’t shoot fancy film.
I decided on a Sony Cybershot DSC-H3. I also considered the Panasonic Lumix TZ3 and the Canon Powershot SX100-IS. My price cap was $250, and I was looking for something fairly small, with a decent optical zoom, image stabilization, and some manual control options. There were a few other models that were larger, and a few that had some nice features (I really like the Olympus weatherproof models), but these three interested me the most.
I’m glad I tried them before buying, because it was an easy choice with the cameras in hand. The Canon had more manual control, and nice controls/interface, but was too slow. Autofocus took too long, and the shutter lag on unfocused shots was terrible. The Panasonic would be my second choice. It was small and sleek, performance was very snappy, and the controls were comfortable. I decided against it because it lacked any manual control options, and because of the impressive performance of the Sony.
It’s fast… The camera powers on and is ready in a couple seconds — fast enough to just grab the camera and shoot. Autofocus was noticeably faster than the other models, and shutter lag is negligible.
I don’t feel like writing a crazy-detailed review; there are plenty of them online already. So far I like it a lot. It seems to take nice sharp pictures, and I love how fast it is. It’s nice to have so much zoom available in such a small camera, and the stabilization helps a lot at slow shutter speeds.
It does have a couple drawbacks. I’d like a wider angle lens; I think it’s a 38mm-380mm equivalent. The 28mm lens on the Panasonic was nice. I also wish it had a standard USB cord. The cord has a proprietary plug and contains both the USB and audio/video connections. I’m sure it would cost an arm and a leg to replace.
But other than these, it’s great. I’m looking forward to figuring it out.
Update
So it’s pretty clear that I didn’t keep up this blog very well, I’ve been wrapping up the last semester in my undergrad. Last Saturday I had my graduation ceremony, and I’ll be finished with my finals on Thursday. I’ll be the proud recipient of a BA in international relations from James Madison College at MSU.
As a result of graduating, I’m getting kicked out of my student apartment, and losing my student job. I hear that you’re supposed to get a job after college, so I’ve lined something up (I hope).
Currently, the bulk of my non-studying time is being spent cleaning and packing up our old apartment. The new place is a lot nicer, I’ll get some pictures up ASAP.
