Updates From Home, June 2024 Edition

 A big week of news this week at Taigh na Thoirdhealbheach Beucail.

1)  As some of you may recall from earlier in the year, our oldest, Nighean Gheal, moved back home from living in the Big Big City.  Her lease was up, she could work remotely, and there was nothing really holding her there.

One reason she moved home was to save money.  The second came to fruition this week.

From her sophomore year of college on, she has made money by doing online tutoring in conversational English, mostly for students and business folks in North Asia.  She enjoyed it, she was good at it, and it gave her extra spending money.

As she started her job a little over two years ago at (Insert Large Name) Consulting Firm, she found that she did not really care for the business world.  As she explained it to me in a conversation, when she left "work" she felt exhausted and drained but when she finished tutoring she felt excited and energized.  A sign, one might say.

The outcome of this was she applied for and has been accepted to be an English teacher in South Korea.

She has had a passionate interest in Korea since we located to New Home 15 years ago, perhaps originally driven by the fact that the school she was at had exchange students from South Korea.  Over the years she studied Korean, fell in love with culture (most especially the music, or "K-Pop" to the uninitiated).  She has been at least twice and minored in Korean Studies.

We do not know her departure date or where specifically she will be placed; we do know it will be in the province of Chungcheonbuk:

Source

This program (as I understand it) is some kind of extension program through the South Korean Government.  The program lasts for a year, but if you are good you can be extended.

I am obviously very proud of my daughter - not just that she was accepted (it was a pretty rigorous application process including a background check, a Letter of Apostille, multiple interviews, and a draft lesson plan), but that she had the personal awareness and foresight to realize was she was doing was not making her happy and making a change before she got trapped in a career that she hated (as happens to many people).

Needless to say, likely there are pictures of South Korea in our not too distant future.

2)  Nighean Dhonn, our youngest, has been accepted into a University at New Home.

Last year, as you may recall, she was accepted into the Archaeology program at the University of Evansville.  She liked the school and program well enough, but unfortunately a series of retirements from the department meant that her interest (Classical [Greek and Roman] studies) would no longer be offered as more than a general course.  She applied for a transfer; we were notified that it as accepted this week.

There are two major impacts.  The first is financial, although I am not certain of the difference - she had a very decent package at her previous school and her new school (being a state school)  is not nearly so generous.  The second impact - related to the first - means that she can live at the house in New Home which in theory will mean that we are not paying for university housing (it is a commutable distance).

Another, lesser impact, is that we will not have get her and her stuff back in the Fall.

3)  Not to overlook the middle child, Nighean Bhan, she has started the second year (Summer session) of her speech pathology program.  She remains on course to finish in May of 2025, after which she will do a one year internship.

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The amount of change that has happened this year - correction, the first half of this year - continues to stun me.