One Big Waiting Room

I absolutely suck at waiting. Usually when I go anywhere I might have to wait, I bring my backpack stuffed with books, a journal, my two portable gaming systems in order that I won't have to just sit and endure the waiting.

I've now been waiting for a weekor two to get back to Korea. What first happened is Korean immigration took twice as long to process my paperwork as everyone elses', even though my school was one of the first schools to send my paperwork in. Once Korean immigration gets done farting around and actually does something they send you a visa issuance #. Now there's two ways you can go about getting your visa: 1) take your passport directly to the Korean consulate 2) send your passport to the consulate. Option #1 is the fastest if you live in San Fransisco or LA. I'm in Flagstaff so no dice with one. Late Sunday night my issuance # came in and I rushed to the pit of hell (or Kinkos as some people call it) to send off my passport and additional paperwork. Now, once again, I'm in immigration limbo, waiting for LA to stamp a work visa in my passport and send it back to me. Until I know exactly when it's coming, I can't book a flight.

Once I do book a flight I have to drive to St. George, a four hour drive away, to drop of my car at my parent's winter house. I then have to take a shuttle two hours west to Vegas to hop on a plane to fly 12 hours west from there to arrive in Seoul and Seoul is 16 hours ahead of Pacific Time. Oh, and classes start on Monday.

Now I wake up at night wondering where I am? Am I in Seoul? Am I in California? Wyoming? Arizona? Utah? Zimbabwe? My bags have been packed for two weeks getting ready to go somewhere that is nowhere closer than it was two weeks ago. I feel like I'm in the reserves, knowing that I'll be called up at some time, but when is a mystery and all I want is for something to happen. I just want to start on my second tour of duty in Korea.

I know other people handle this in a more stoic and peaceful fashion than myself but I'm about to follow Dave and Sarah to work for want of something productive to do, and Sarah helps deliver babies at the hospital. The fact is that I've burned through my books, wrote in my journal, played too many video games and now the backpack is just about empty. This is the lamentable and pitiful scream of the unemployed.