davidsmeaton.com

it’s been a busy week … and a little stressful at the same time.

i’ve been trying to organise my last few months in korea. my contract for my school finishes at the end of december. i wanted to stay on for two more months so that i can leave korea in march, when the weather’s a little warmer.

however it seemed like i wasn’t going to be able to stay. that put me in a bit of a panic. it means i’d lose my apartment in 8 weeks and i’d need to start acting fast to make all the necessary arrangements. so last weekend i started selling off the stuff i can’t keep. i sold my umpc, cd player, guitar, webcam, blender, tripods, electronic junk, as well as a few other bits and pieces. i’m selling a bit more today and tomorrow as well. i also started packing and throwing out unwanted clothes.

but last night i got a reprieve. my boss said that i can stay for two extra months. it was quite a relief. i’m going to continue selling off my unwanted household goods, but i’m secure in the fact that i don’t have to move and find other work for two months in january and february. it also means the rubberchicken will have somewhere to stay when he arrives.

this morning i have been lazing about the house waiting for people to pick up items they’re buying. i’ve used the time to re-design my website’s colour scheme. while i like my site’s design, i think the colours were a bit hodge podge. so i’ve narrowed the entire site down to 3 basic colours (blue, gray, black), as well as white for the background. i also changed the default fonts and the link mouseovers … the site looks heaps better!

while i’m still busy, i have a bit of breathing space. i think i’ll go out this afternoon and get my film developed. i can enjoy the rest of my weekend, watch the liverpool game tonight, and sleep in tomorrow.

 

sleeping in … damn it’s great. i woke up at 8.15 this morning, had a long hot shower and headed to school. i taught a 3 hour lesson at my academy today because another teacher was unable to work. the boss asked me and i agreed. of course, i got paid for the lesson.

after school i headed to itaewon to meet up with the other columnists from the newspaper. the korea herald threw a free lunch at a very nice italian bistro. it was a small “thank you” for our contributions. i ate a lot, met some of the columnists, and made a few good contacts. i met the dude who runs the metropolitan blog in korea. he’s a photographer too and has joined my photography club. i also met another nice bloke who writes book reviews. he’s a part of the gay community and knows some guys who might be interested in modeling nude.

everyone headed to the wolfhound bar, after the bistro, to have beer and i departed in the direction of namdaemun. i went to my regular camera store and bought a fisheye lens. for the past few weeks i’ve been debating whether to get nikon’s 10.5mm fishey, or go with the tokina 10-17mm f3.5-4.5 fisheye zoom.

after i tested the tokina (during the photo exhibition) i realised what a great lens it was. it’s cheaper than the nikon and the zoom is a useful feature. the only disadvantage of the tokina is the aperture. since i plan on shooting in mostly bright conditions, i don’t see the aperture as a major issue. the image above is a test shot i took in the camera store.

i also bought a $15 cable release, should i decide to do any long exposure work.

overall, i had a pretty good day.