I had an interview with someone from the head office, and then they sent me a welcome packet and a few forms to fill out. The welcome packet was actually quite irrelevant to me, except for the information on the online pre-training course, which was specified in the email anyway. 

My friend scared me on how tough the week-long training would be, but I feel like it's more due to test taking and being marked wrong if you go against CDI's rules of how to teach. I've heard that older, more experienced teachers are likely to fail the training because their teaching methods do not usually align with how CDI wants them to teach.

Taking the pre-training course made me feel as though I were in elementary school again, and tutors were trying to get me to identify every single part of a paragraph. Navigating the pre-training course site was a bit annoying on a Mac. It felt as though the site was designed to be used on a Windows computer and through Internet Explorer. I had trouble clicking through the videos and moving back and forth on the site when using Safari and Chrome.

For the online pre-training, it did say that for most of the quizzes, you can take them an unlimited number of times. The CDI trainers will just be aware of how many times you took them. For most of the quizzes, I passed on the first try, but the last one took me two extra tries. Most of the quizzes have grades released right after you submit your answers and tell you which questions you got wrong. For two of the quizzes, someone has to manually give you a grade, which I'm not even sure if the site will alert you of the grade, or if you just have to keep checking on your own to see if you passed or not.

Am I suddenly seven years old again? [Photo Source]

By emailing one of my head instructors (he finally gave me his KakaoTalk information at the end of the most recent email), I don't have to go to a hotel as most of the CDI-recruits would have to. Apparently the place where I will be living is close enough to the training site that I should be able to commute back and forth.

I wasn't allowed to see photos of the apartment for the longest time because the head instructors said that someone was already living there, but they finally gave me the email of the person. All I wanted was to know the layout of the apartment and maybe how big it is, but I'll just email the person and see what's up with that.

I finished packing one suitcase already! To be fair, it's mostly full of clothes for all four seasons. We used only one space bag so far, but the Dollar Tree has been very slow on updates for my purchase. When my mother and I went to pick up the bags from the store they were supposed to be at, the employee couldn't find them and told me to call them in two days. I did but... no one picked up. RIP in pieces. By then, I was thinking, hey, I can just buy clothing in Korea! My family laughed and didn't believe that I would fit anything. Thanks for that vote of confidence, fam.

I shoved a bunch of EOS egg lip-balms in the packed suitcase and three huge GRE books... as well as a learn Korean book. One of my friends passed her Official GRE Guidebook to me and I don't know exactly how much time I will have to study all of these things. I'm not even entirely sure if I want to go back to grad school, though getting a PhD in Asian American Studies/American Studies is an academic goal (and I want to learn!!!). I just can't see how well that PhD will work out in the workforce, y'know? And these PhD programs want three recommendations from professors... Will my professors even remember me? I'm leaving the country for an entire year. I need to seriously run to them and beg for help when I come back.

CDI wants me to bring my B.A. degree over to South Korea and I'm a little iffy on that. Like, why. I don't want to bend or lose my B.A. diploma, but I'm not sure if I can fit it into my book bag carry on without bending it. Why must you do this to me?


I need to remember to download all of Luke Cage onto my iPad Netflix so I can watch during the plane ride. I still haven't watched the second season of BTS Bon Voyage in Hawai'i, but I'm much more interested in finishing Luke Cage right now. Part of it may be due to the fact that I'm reading Jeremiah Moss' Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul. I'm already missing this city when I haven't even left yet.

It's on Amazon!