The class with the doctors is great. You get driven out through the mountains to a small hot springs resort town three times a week. They feed you lunch and are eager to discuss the lessons, which are mostly free talking. So, it basically amounts to getting paid $300 a month to have lunch with, and talk to, friends.

Time passes quickly. Five, six, seven months you've been in Korea now and things are going surprisingly well. The extra money you are getting from the doctor class allows you some financial freedom from you student loans, teaching is getting easier and easier and the students are all, more or less, responsive to you and progressing nicely. Not only are your language-teaching skills improving, but you find that, through sheer immersion, you are rapidly learning Korean. You can easily read and pronounce all the characters and are developing a decent vocabulary. The grammar is coming along more slowly, but you are well on your way to becoming able to converse on at least a basic level.

As well, your social life has been great for a couple of months now. You were discovered by some other foreigners living in town and spend much of your free time with them.

On top of that, you've become close friends with a couple of your adult students and even formed a band with them. You have played a few shows around town with plans to try your luck in Busan and Daegu soon.

Your work environment is very casual and you get along very well with your fellow teachers and the director.

Thus, it comes as a complete surprise to you when, near the end of your seventh month, the director tells you she is leaving the school for a different one in Ulsan. She tells you this in secret, as she wants you to come with her. She tells you that the pay is higher, the apartment nicer, and the vacation time more extensive. As well, they would even throw in a free trip to Japan for you, ostensibly to get a new work visa, but they would pay for a few extra nights and buy your food as a bonus for defecting to them. You:

jump at the opportunity and immediately prepare to leave.

tell her you need to think about it.

tell her how tempting it is, but that you are pretty happy with how things are here and would rather stay than uproot yourself at this point.