Back to Square One

So, since the loss of my last offer I have been submitting my resume like mad. Perhaps I have submitted it to too many places, but I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. In short, I have one contact looking for jobs in China, a few in South Korea and one in Taiwan. Tonight, within the span of one hour I have had two interviews; one with a recruiter in South Korea and an actual teaching position at a school in Taiwan.

My Chinese contact is the fastest. I feel like she doesn't sleep. However, she keeps coming back to me with some not so appealing offers. They are either located somewhere so far up north in China the province borders North Korea or even Russia. Or the contract gives no specifics; like pay/salary or housing and health benefits. Initially I was really aiming for China, but with all the bureaucratic hoops to get through before I can even imagine landing there, I'm not really sure it's worth it. Perhaps I am being too picky but I feel I have to. I don't really want to leave Canada and move to Asia to live somewhere where the average winter temperature is -30, and I cannot afford to take a job that doesn't pay very well.Unfortunately I am like most recently graduated students; I have debt. And thus, I need to be able to make a enough money to afford life over there and pay some bills (debt) over here.

I think my first choice is now Taiwan. I can still get the Chinese experience there and even learn Mandarin but won't have to deal with all the complications that China had. Although, I wouldn't mind South Korea either, but I do admit I know less about that country than the other two AND it's the only one I have actually been to out of the three; and twice for that matter. Yes, I am a sad human being who apparently doesn't research the countries prior to visiting. I best make sure to change that.

We shall see where all these applications takes me.

Trying to Take Off

Last night I learned that my work visa from China is not coming. DENIED. The reasons why? I have no idea and neither does anyone else apparently. I was told two contradictory statements; one, where it sounded like they were going to check over everything a second time to make sure, and the other, where they just told me that there was a problem with the "text" on the online application. I never even completed an online application, everything was in hard copies and I had the wonderful experience of needing to fax things to them, or when acceptable scanned and emailed the relevant documents. Perhaps I have been scammed. Unfortunately, all the work put forth in the last month is now useless.

What's more? They have known that it was denied since the 16th of January and did not bother to contact me about it. Luckily I had decided to check in on how it was going; had I not, who knows how long it would have taken them to notify me. It's too bad I did not find out sooner as I could have saved myself a few hundred bucks on vaccinations. Although, I am now immune to many things, for things in which there is no endemic here. I will look for new opportunities elsewhere and hopefully most of these vaccines will be recommended in the new countries.

I am hoping to find a new job within the week. I realize how absurd that sounds, but I am kind of tight on time. Assuming that a new visa application will take anywhere up to a month, I need to get on this as soon as possible as the new semesters abroad begins very soon; mid-February to beginning of March for most of Asia.