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Posted

Just a few things that come to mind or that I have done in the last few weeks as I round up paper work and get information about teaching or working abroad or at home for that matter.

1. Get all your documents.

In the USA, much to my surprise all my universities now give transcripts free of charge. The Air Force was the worst as they recently changed where they archive "reservist" records versus others. The copies they had of my DD 214 were horrible as they came from old microfiche from the 80's. I had them all at one point, but they got lost when stuff got moved out of the house during hurricane damage a few years ago. I could not easily get GRE or SAT scores. Sounds trivial, but some tutoring jobs for SAT and GRE coaching wanted those scores. I won't bother with them for now. The collegeboards website and agent I spoke with said they are archived charges $21 bucks to request the SAT scores. GREs and MSAT are a different site ETS something and I won't bother with either as I don't need them at the moment.

Document list:

transcripts, high school and university diplomas, military discharge dd 214, Police clearance letter, FBI background cover letter and finger print card (do now even if you do or don't submit them yet $18 bucks. Might be an error on there that you might get fixed now before being surprised overseas), resume, visa application, passport photos, passport with lots of valid time left, copy of bank statement, copy of ID card or driver's license, birth certificate, social security card.

I made paper copies, and electronic copies. Made PDF files of each document. Comes in handy when emailing things for review and very portable as I email them to myself and keep a copy on my Thumb drive. Print out as needed. These electronic things come in handy later when applying to local, state or federal jobs, never mind just teaching in Thailand. I used Kinko's as I do not have a scanner. While I don't have Adobe Distiller, to creat PDF files, I found out that adobe reader comes with an adobe "printer". You basically can "print" any document or file to that virtual device and adobe makes a PDF file for you. It took five minutes at Kinko's to get one big file with all the documents on it, then I went home and "printed" each transcript, diploma etc, to it's own PDF file. Cheap and easy. I actually did this for my ID and passport years ago, put them in a WORD document and emailed them to two of my email accounts. In case I get robbed or lose everything, a quick stop to any computer and I can log in and get some copies to help get home or get things sorted out.

As for the Visa Apps themselves, I do recommend the honorary Thai consulates. I actually was able to talk to a person. They did not seem to be swamped or have an inordinate amount of beauracracy hounding them. I suspect they are happy to have the extra business. Listen to what they tell you to bring. Hopefully it will jive with what the institution in Thailand says they will provide. I actually am very confidant I will be able to make the two hour drive to the consulate, and in one day get the Non Immigrant B visa. I am a test engineer and quite a skeptic on things and processes so for me to think it will work is unusual.

That's it for now. Just thought I would type some things.

Chok Dee

Posted
made paper copies, and electronic copies. Made PDF files of each document. Comes in handy when emailing things for review and very portable as I email them to myself and keep a copy on my Thumb drive. Print out as needed. These electronic things come in handy later when applying to local, state or federal jobs, never mind just teaching in Thailand. I used Kinko's as I do not have a scanner. While I don't have Adobe Distiller, to creat PDF files, I found out that adobe reader comes with an adobe "printer". You basically can "print" any document or file to that virtual device and adobe makes a PDF file for you. It took five minutes at Kinko's to get one big file with all the documents on it, then I went home and "printed" each transcript, diploma etc, to it's own PDF file.

That's pretty smart advice, I've never done that before. What's Kinko's? a shop? I don't actually have a scanner, so I'll put this on my to-do list.

Thank for the advice, must save a shit-load of hassle if anything goes tits-up. Just wondering though, do you ever worry about confidentiality when you attach PDF copies of your degrees and send them to various places? I mean, if people really do buy fake degrees in Bangkok, you are kind or doing the leg-work for them!

Cheers

Posted

Or you could just download CutePDF. Very small file. Its a virtual printer that makes your docs into PDF format to file in your documents folder or to your flash drive. Very handy.

I keep my PDF's on my Nokia N95. Anyone wants one......I just email it to them or print it off. Dead handy

Posted

The confidentiality issue is probably real, but a situation you would have to deal with.

The fake degrees that go around are rather standard. A friend (whose degree is real), was on Khao San Rd about a year ago and found a copy of one of our teacher's degree--with his name on it. The guy bought it--the shops original and told them not to use it. He brought it back and gave to the teacher. Apparently, they just change the name.

The point is, if you have a genuine one, it will check out when verified.

Posted
made paper copies, and electronic copies. Made PDF files of each document. Comes in handy when emailing things for review and very portable as I email them to myself and keep a copy on my Thumb drive. Print out as needed. These electronic things come in handy later when applying to local, state or federal jobs, never mind just teaching in Thailand. I used Kinko's as I do not have a scanner. While I don't have Adobe Distiller, to creat PDF files, I found out that adobe reader comes with an adobe "printer". You basically can "print" any document or file to that virtual device and adobe makes a PDF file for you. It took five minutes at Kinko's to get one big file with all the documents on it, then I went home and "printed" each transcript, diploma etc, to it's own PDF file.

That's pretty smart advice, I've never done that before. What's Kinko's? a shop? I don't actually have a scanner, so I'll put this on my to-do list.

Thank for the advice, must save a shit-load of hassle if anything goes tits-up. Just wondering though, do you ever worry about confidentiality when you attach PDF copies of your degrees and send them to various places? I mean, if people really do buy fake degrees in Bangkok, you are kind or doing the leg-work for them!

Cheers

Kinko's is a USA nationwide company. They recently were bought by Fed Ex the shipping company. Just about every US city has a few of these stores. They have large scale and small scale color and black and white copy machines, a fax machine, Shipping supplies, shipping and mailing services, document preparation supplies etc. They also have Internet Wifi available and PCs on site you can rent by the minute. Comes in handy in a pinch when traveling.

I can't take credit for the idea of emailing the documents. I read that some place on the interent a few years ago just before I made my first trip to Thailand. It just made so much sense. Your personal email accounts are reasonably secure, and you can usually put a password on the individual documents themselves depending on the application they are based on. I used to save all the images as Jpg files, but just made them PDF also. Both are pretty universal formats.

As you said, if things go really bad, all luggage lost, all documents stolen etc.. you now have a feasible way to probably get the information you or someone else needs. And for non-emergency situations, you have all the documents almost at your finger tips. In addition, so many places want or will accept emails with electronic copies. This is heaven to have the information in an electronice form. No need to mail paper copies around the world.

Posted (edited)

I've been living in Bangkok for three years; I thought 'gk10002000's idea of scanning docs was pretty nifty and although I wasn't planning of doing it so soon, I just suddenly noticed a shop called 'Double A' in my local mall.

Not only do they offer the cheapest A4 lamination I've seen at 20baht each, but they did full color, high-res scans of all my education certificates, birth ceritificate, passport etc for 20baht per-page straight onto my thumb drive in JPeg format. Mission accomplished! Beats buying a scanner, and now I've followed gk10002000's advice of saving the JPegs in my email account I just need to get my head around this JPeg to PDF thing.......

If I were to offer my own advice I'd suggest laminating documents, unless anyone knows any reason why this would be inappropriate or unsuitable?

Edited by aussiebebe

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