Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Hoop, after hoop, after hoop...



As I mentioned before, Thailand is an extremely fraudulent country so we need to get our documents verified, stamped, sealed, signed, notarized, etc. Our "TO DO" list keeps getting longer, and longer, and longer. 5.5 months almost doesn't seem that far away anymore as we have so many hoops to jump through to simply be able to work in Thailand.

TO DO list (which is slowly being checked off):

-Transcripts from 3 universities scanned and e-mailed to the school (check)

-Diplomas from our 3 universities scanned and e-mailed to the school (half check, still waiting on Karly's graduate degree diploma)

-Marriage license and a notarized letter verifying that it is a legitimate document (check)

-Notarized name verification letter verifying that Karlene Schmidt and Karlene Aust are truly the same person. (As if my uncommon Korean middle names wouldn't be enough to verify this?! HA!) (check)

-Teaching certificates scanned and e-mailed to the school (check)

-Letters from previous and current employers verifying employment (but on school letterhead). I think they need this to make certain that we are being paid correctly according to the school's pay scale. (Check for the most part, still waiting on one more letter).

-Letters from our 3 universities verifying our attendance and degree. Mind you, on school letterhead, signed in blue ink, and modeling the seal/stamp of the university.

-2 copies of: diplomas, transcripts, and teaching licenses, each page individually signed in blue ink and mailed to the school.

-2 copies of each page in our passport that has been stamped, as well as the front page. Each of these pages need to be signed in blue ink and mailed to the school

-Criminal background check

-New passport for Mike (his expires in 2010 and it is much easier to renew it in the states than at the US Embassy in Thailand)

-Mike needs to renew his teaching license, which expires in June. He has to take one more class before he can submit his request to the department of education in Virginia. Unfortunately, the school wants his new license by April, which means that there isn't much time for him to start and finish a class, and submit his paperwork to Virginia. If he is unable to renew by April, he needs to get a temporary ACSI certificate. Fortunately, this shouldn't be too difficult and will buy him some time to get his regular license renewed. Who knew that it would sneak up on us so fast? I guess we didn't really think that our dream would become a reality so fast and that we would have to hurry to get all of this done to meet their requirements.

-Meet with an attorney to write a will with a healthcare directive and declare a power of attorney in our absence.

-Figure out how to deal with the problem of our driver's licenses expiring when we are overseas... we really don't want to have to re-take the entire road/written test again.

I am thankful that since I just recently graduated, my license is good until 2012, and since we only got married a few years ago, my passport is good until 2017. I have had a few extra hoops to jump through because of my name change and attending 2 different universities, but Mike has harder hoops to get through. I am confident that he will be able to get these things done on time, but it is still a little stressful in that he is so busy coaching and teaching! Pray that he would find the time to get all the necessary things accomplished on time!

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