Documents

Having completed the TEFL certification and feeling all the more prepared to teach my native tongue to foreign students, it was time to organize my documents. It was by now the end of July and the summer was in full swing, sunny and warm. I phoned my University and requested multiple sealed transcripts, checked on the status of my diploma being delivered in the mail and rummaged through my bags, not yet fully unpacked, for my elusive passport. It had expired earlier in the year, but it is much easier to apply for a new one with the old one. I managed to space it back in Hawaii... where I left my brain saltwater logged and surfed out. Feeling pumped up about asking my dad for extra money for a new passport as apposed to a renewal at half the cost, I decided to call my buddy and see if he could locate the old one in my unorganized life now stored underneath his house. No luck (insert grief from father here).

Hey dad guess what? You get to foot the bill for the new birth certificate that I ordered online so I can send for a new passport. You are the best. Once I got the birth certificate I would be able to send it off with photos and completed forms for a new passport. In town I needed to get my CBC from the police, take it to the bank to be notarized and then send to the capitol to be apostilled by the Governor. Organizing, waiting for and obtaining documents, apostilles, Visa's, photos and notaries, is a stressful and time consuming process to say the least. It requires more running around than one might think. News flash: It isn't a cake walk trying to leave the country.

My certain plan was to escape winter. The reality was far from what I thought as totally do-able. I figured that once all your documents are in order you apply, get a quick interview, hired and two weeks later a Visa. Two weeks after that you are on a plane headed to the Far East. I thought I could, without fail, start a job by mid-September or October 1st. It was only August 1st and 6-8 weeks seemed like plenty of time. A plethora of job offers were just a right-click away on any job-site. I wasn't sweating winter in the slightest and my calculations were only off, give or take a few weeks. A November 1st starting date would be just fine and maybe a little time in the snow a beautiful thing before I go?