and the official word is...

I got a call this morning from my contact at Dongguk—the pretty lady I'd referred to before.

Long story short: I'm in. Yes!

Alas, I'm not proud of how I got in: the lady told me, somewhat unnecessarily, the whole story of the behind-the-scenes politics that led to my hiring. She started off by saying that her office had already called the top three candidates from the interviews to accept them onto Dongguk's faculty. I wasn't one of them. As it turned out, though, one of those people in the top three declined Dongguk's invitation, so the hiring team defaulted to Person Number Four: yours truly. See why I'm not proud? I only barely made it in. I didn't actually make the final cut, but I got in thanks to a sort of technicality.

Pragmatists will of course say that I should simply be happy I got in, and that it doesn't matter how I got in. True enough. And I'll do my best to do the university proud.

So now I need to worry about the move back to Seoul. Third Ajumma has agreed to put me up for a month or two, free of charge, in my old fifth-floor apartment in the building that she co-owns with her husband, my mother's cousin. Since I've got a new job, I don't have to worry about cash-flow issues, which is also nice. My brother Sean is coming to Korea on August 11, so I'd like to be moved into Ajumma's building before then. That way, I'll be free to show Sean around the town, even if I won't have the means to take him all over the country.

Wow. So I made it. By the skin of my teeth. Yesterday, I felt as if I'd been stood up by my date. Today, I feel as if I've dodged a bullet.


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