The next month or so went by in a blur.

Paula didn’t have much time to do anything outside of work: she didn’t realize how intense her English job was going to be when she took it, but she liked it. The teacher she was partnered with was very helpful and the students were wonderful. She had her apprehensions about teaching a young class before taking the offer because she was Korean, she didn’t speak a word of the language, and she had blonde hair, which she had heard wasn’t socially accepted. The students surprised her, however: even though their accents weren’t that great, they had great sentence structure (it was true that they learned basic English at a young age); instead of being put off, they were curious about why she didn’t speak Korean; and they wondered why she wanted “noran” 1 hair. She started to get very attached to each and every one of her students, and it had only been about 30 days!

By that time, she had also gotten settled into her daily routine, knew where the grocery stores were, what restaurants were good, had set up a bank account, and had gotten a phone. Unfortunately, though, she wasn’t able to explore Korea because of her schedule…and because she hadn’t made any friends her age. She could have contacted her new friends at JYP during that time too, but, again, she was busy with work.

Now that things were getting to be somewhat calm and normal for her, she decided to call one of them.

“Yobosaeyo?” Hello?

“Hey Taecyeon? It’s Paula.”

“Oh, wow, hey Paula,” he replied, sounding happy. “We were thinki