The waiting game

Well, we have submitted our paperwork to ICS, so what happens for here? ICS will send our paperwork to the Ministry of Education, who will then give approval for us to actually work in Thailand as teachers. After that, we will receive an approval letter from the MOE, along with a non-immigrant visa application. We'll get the privilege of paying $170, filling out the application, and sending our passports (or taking them) to Chicago (the nearest Royal Thai Consulate in the US) to get the (90-day) visa stamp in our passports. Essentially, it's just a waiting game. Upon receiving the visa stamp, our paperwork is officially done and we are legally ready to work in Thailand for about 3 months, until we have to apply for a long term visa.

Now the real debate comes... should we mail our passports to the consulate in Chicago (eek?!) and wait to have the visas processed (not really knowing how long it will take), or should we drive down to Chicago, walk in to the consulate and watch them process the visas? I remember going to Chicago to get my student visa when I was going to live in Spain and we were in and out in probably 20 minutes. It was very efficient once we got there, but we also had a 7-hour car ride down there. Plus, I guess there really wasn't any guarantee that they wouldn't be busy and would be able to process my visa in just a matter of 20 minutes!

The only trouble is that we don't really have any vacation time from here on out. Memorial Day is really the only break we have from now until the end of the school year, unless we took a personal day. I guess for now we'll just wait for our approval letter and visa application from the MOE, and mull over whether to go to Chicago or not.