of the three unis I've applied to...

Applying for a university job means due dates and timelines. Get your initial paperwork in by the due date, then wait according to an unspoken timeline for an answer. The due date is what it is, but the unspoken timeline for a response (i.e., "You're invited to the second round of job application!") is about three weeks to a month or so. So here's how things look right now (and remember that I'm not done applying for uni jobs; I apply as they appear):

1. UNIST (Ulsan), first-round app due date: May 29. There's still hope because it's been only about eight days since I'd turned in my first-round application. This is the best-paying job of the bunch, so I'm kind of hoping to go down that way. Contract begins on August 20. 
2. Soonchunhyang (Asan), first-round app due date: June 8. So we're not even at the deadline yet. I have a few weeks before I need to start worrying. SCH is a low-paying university, so if I get rejected from here, the shame will be hard to live down. Position starts September 1.
3. Hanyang YK Intercollege (Seoul), first-round app due date: June 15. So this one, too, is nowhere near its deadline. I can start worrying at around June + a few days—not a few weeks—because the position has an early-July beginning.

If I were going to rate my chances, I'd say that I won't make the second round of either UNIST or Hanyang. SCH is most likely to accept me out of the three. Online, it's billed as a good university for "people just starting out" with university teaching (ouch), hence the low pay. For me, SCH's pay is close to a third of what I'd been getting at the Golden Goose, so it'd be a major reduction, albeit better than not being paid at all. Then again, I'm done paying off my major debts, and all I have are revolving debts from my credit card and various little subscriptions, so even with low pay, I can get right back to accumulating savings.

UNIST says it's looking for Master's and Ph.D.-level applicants, but the application form made it obvious that they're very interested in doctorate-level people who can contribute research and academic papers, so I doubt I'm at the top of UNIST's applicant-search totem pole. Hanyang also claims to be looking for Master's or Ph.D.-level applicants, but I suspect it has a similar stress to UNIST. Unlike UNIST, though, Hanyang is also not advertising how much the salary for its advertised research-fellow (+ possibly teaching) position is, which makes me suspect that, if I got hired by Hanyang, it would be for peanuts. On the bright side, Hanyang is just a subway ride away, so there'd be no need to move. The problem, though, for a heart patient like me, is that the campus is notoriously hilly.

With employers now wise to the ways of social media, I'm going to have to be extra careful about what I say here from now on, so don't expect me to write anything about job-related matters except for very general things like "I got the job" and "I'm moving out next week" and "Life on campus is interesting" plus a few random pics of the campus and, if they permit it, of my students. Really innocuous pics. That's going to be about it. Even putting "frank" posts in my usual "frank" space on the blog is probably not advisable. I remember when I'd told my Texas cousin about my blog, and she'd immediately found one of my "frank" posts because, even though the post had been dated, uh, differently from my normal posts, it had been recently published, which meant that, by the metrics of whatever search method she'd been using, the "frank" post popped up before any of my regular posts did. What I really need to do is password-protect all of those posts, then hand the password out only to my inner circle of people who already know where the "frank" posts are located. (NB: If you've visited that section of my blog recently, you've noticed that I've taken down one or two crucial posts.)

Whatever job I do end up getting (and I hope it's a uni job), it's only going to be in the service of making money to pursue personal projects, e.g, the writing-related stuff I've been doing for a year and a half, or travel, or the planning of an especially long walk somewhere. The future still looks open to me, even as my funds start to run dry.