Tough one to answer.  I kept hearing go to Korea and make lots of money.  I got here finally and shortly after the golden age came to an end.  The Great Recession flooded the market and teaching here has never been the same.  I am grateful, I went to provincial EPIK and rose through the payscale.  Otherwise Korea wouldn't have been it the last few years.  So coming, I can't say I'd do anything different.  I did think my first year or two being out in the country sucked when I could have been up in Seoul.  (Asking questions on Daves was met with silence and crickets.  Might as well have called that site Seoul ESL Cafe.  Hardly any foreigners back then out in the provinces or the countryside, unlike now.)  But those areas up north got bamboozled hard after the recession hit.  First senior teachers who had been there a few years got the boot from GEPIK and SMOE and replaced with 22 year old blond pretty females who spoke American English.  Then, it got competitive for worsening conditions.  Then, it got easy to get work, but wages stagnated up there.  (Thankfully, EPIK was a bit more professional, though 2010 and 2011 saw quite a few years long teachers dropped and non renewed.) 

The ultimate Nietzschean question: How well disposed do you have to be toward your life to wish it to repeat itself endlessly eternally? Does the thought make you knee down and weep in joy or shudder in dread?

I would do it again, but I would have made some different decisions while here.

I would do it again, but I would have made some different decisions while here.

Right.

I have some regrets,.. as regards various people. But that is what time is for. So you learn.

So, back in the early 80s, my girlfriend was on a health kick, which pretty much meant I was on a health kick too.

There was a new healthy product on the market called "Quaker Oat bars."  Basically granola in bar form.

I was crunching on one of these, and said, "You know, this wouldn't be too bad if it was covered in chocolate."

She laughed and laughed.

So, someone else "invented" the Kudos Bar. 

I loved oats with chocolate.

In college I thought I had an original idea: instead of peanut butter and strawberry jam, my favorite nut and raisin combo: cashew butter and cranberry jam! ... I googled it years later when the Internet took off, and discovered a few others had already thought of it.