Repatriate Me!

My name is Sean Smith. I am a Canadian expat who has been living in Seoul, South Korea since May 1997. I’m planning on returning to Canada summer 2011, which means when I return I will have been living in Korea for 14+ years.

Returning home is going to be both more difficult and more exciting than when I first left Canada in ’97. When I left, I planned on coming to Korea for 1 year, than another year in Japan and Taiwan before coming back and settling down to a 9-5 job. So in the grand scheme of things 3 years abroad was not too long and would be really easy to fit right back in. Now, I’m much older (and a little more set in my ways) and married with two children. This means I can’t only think about what is acceptable for me. Also after so much time abroad, I have effectively no job history in Canada.

My current career field is Teaching ESL, but the ESL field in Canada pretty much stinks as far as I have been able to determine. I’m prepared to work in ESL in Canada temporarily if I have to, but would rather do web development. To that end I started a web development firm CreateSean Web Design in June 2008. I’ve had some success, but am not as much as I would like.

In anycase, I need to find housing, employment, schools, and a ton of other things before I arrive. The best part is I have chosen to live in a city where I don’t know anyone, so will be starting over with no support network in place.

If you are interested you can read about why I chose Ottawa.

Watch the blog to see how it all develops. Will update this about me page later with more info…