davidsmeaton.com

wow … 2008 was a hell of a year. for me, it was probably the busiest and craziest year of my life.

the year started with a bang. first came the big d, followed by quitting my university job and starting work at an adult education school. i really missed my university position. it was such a fun, cruisy job. moving to the adult school was hell on earth. i spent the entire year waking up at 5.40 am, having to be at school by 6.20 am. i began classes every day at 6.30 am.  the school had its ups and downs. the schedule was terrible, but my students were always fantastic. the management was moronic, but the actual classes were fairly easy … overall, however, i’ll be very glad to leave that school … worst. job. ever.

i’ve saved a lot of money this year … a bi-products of working like a dog. that’s definitely been the biggest highlight of the year, since it has opened up a lot of doors in terms of future options. it’s hard to believe that i worked four jobs this year. i had money coming in from everywhere. just when i thought i couldn’t get busier, i’d pick up a job editing a thousand page textbook, or some other assignment which would keep me up late at night, make me tired and grumpy, but keep the bank account ticking along nicely. i have to be honest and i can definitely say that i know now how it feels to be korean - working long hours, getting very little sleep, having no social life, and focusing on the money … it’s a terrible way to live, and i definitely couldn’t do it forever.

this has also been a good year for photography. i picked up a few odd jobs, made a little bit of money, bought some lenses and gear, started a photography club, published columns in korea’s english newspaper, made a bunch of friends and taken heaps of photos. i’ve learned a lot and had a lot of fun with photography this year. i think i’ve improved and i can take away a lot more skills. but i’ve still got a lot to learn, especially with editing, but there’s plenty of time to work on that.

i bought my first leica this year. my film camera was so much fun … and just what i needed to mix things up a bit. i got to play with film, as well as do some printing and developing. the leica is going with craig back to australia. hopefully he’ll get some use out of it for the next few years.

my website has done well. i’ve started getting traffic and making a few friends. the site has been through a few redesigns as i try and find my style. the design that i’ve got now is hopefully the design that i will keep for a while. it’s fantastically minimal. i bought a few domains and played around with internet stuff.

i don’t usually talk about my relationships on my blog, but i did have a good relationship this year. i know i have not always been a perfect guy, but i’ve learned a lot from my mistakes.

i started reading books again, which was nice. i tried to learn the ukulele, but gave up. i tried to learn korean and spanish, but gave up. i tried to spend more time learning php and css, but gave up too. i attribute my failures to a lack of sleep and lack of time, rather than a lack of willpower!

liverpool had a good year. despite the lack of trophies, they fought hard and played well. the signings of torres and keane have been huge for the club. liverpool finish the year on top of the table, for the first time in 12 years. here’s hoping that they can hold on until may and take home the league title.

rubberchicken winging his way to korea in december was the cherry on the cake. i hadn’t seen my little buddy in three years, so it was good to hang out with him. happy new years mate!

the year will finish tonight and now i have to look forward to 2009.

my resolutions are to travel, take more photos, learn spanish, work as little as possible. i’m not a big ‘resolutions’ person, and 2009 is a difficult year to make promises, but i’m hoping that it’ll be a good year with much more fun and much more freedom.

to all my friends and family, happy new year. i wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.

i went out for dinner with some friends last night. we headed to a restaurant and ate heaps of australian beef. of course, the beef went down very well … and there was lots of soju to go with it. i got a little pissy, but i had a good time.

when i woke up this morning i felt a little fuzzy. but the hangover wasn’t bad and i recovered quickly. school was easy today, since it’s the last day of the month and all my students have returned to their university studies. so i finished early and headed out to do some errands.

on my list of things to do was get a few shots. i was due for my second hep B shot, which i got done, and i headed to a children’s hosital for a hep A injection. in 5 months i get my last hep B shot and in 6 months i get my second (and last) hep A shot … i also need a yellow fever injection (which is probably going to make me sick) but it is difficult to get in korea. so i’ll probably get it abroad.

in other news, the korean won is diving like crazy. last week it was 1080 won to the US dollar, now it’s 1130 won. while it doesn’t affect my savings (which are already in US$) it means that i’ll be losing money on my income for the next six months … damn it!

there’s talk of a second economic crisis (only 10 years after the IMF last intervened and bailed out korea’s ridiculously over-inflated economy). the IMF has warned korea numerous times to control their economy. foreign companies are pulling out their investments and it’s widely predicted that shit and fan will meet.

i just hope the country can hold itself together for 6 months … or the won recovers. i really don’t want this to explode before i get out.

life in korea is a bit of a drag … the weather is about as fickle as the natives. it constantly switches between rainy, hot, cold, smoggy, and combinations of the four. yesterday, just to be different, we had hail. admittedly, it was the first hail i’ve seen in korea and the first ever hail most of my students have seen. it hailed very loudly for about 20 minutes before returning to the regular downpour.

the day’s are long and tiring. however, i’m managing it all and also finding some time to relax. this weekend is a three day break, thanks to memorial day, so i plan on making the most of it. friday i have a dental appointment (checkup and clean), saturday i’m going to cheunmuro and getting my film developed. while i’m there i have a few things on the shopping list. the biggest item is a filter system for my camera. i’ve got my eye on a few smaller things, but mostly just accessories which won’t take up too much room and will be handy during my trip.

i did something crazy on sunday. i fired an email to an organization which has an arrangment to send teachers to north korea. they wrote back straight away with the contact details of the lady directly in charge of the program. they told me that the jobs in north korea don’t come up often, but i’m welcome to try. i sent an email to the woman who runs things and i’m waiting to hear back from her … i have no idea what i’ll do if they tell me i can actually get a job in DPRK. lol

the jobs are all plodding along. i’m dividing my time between my school and two offices. i also have a private ‘one on one’ lesson (authorised by my school). the school job is really annoying. my boss is a bean counter and tries to screw the teachers out of every possible cent. i’ve no doubt that i’ll have a run in with him before too long. however, i have passed the 5 month mark. so in another 4 weeks i’ll have completed half of my contract. that will leave me 6 more months and probably an extra 2 months to take me through to march 1st when i’ll leave korea.

speaking of which, i’m having fun planning my travels but i have two major quandries. the first problem is trying to work the 2010 world cup into my plans. the world cup starts in june and i don’t realistically think i’ll have made it to cuba by then. the most likely option is that i’ll just cut the travel wherever i am, fly to africa for the world cup, tour the rest of the continent, then fly back to where i left off. it’s not ideal, and hopefully i can work it so that i’m in the region at the right time … but if worst comes to worst i can at list wrangle things together enough to make it work.

i also tried making a travel calendar … but that went horribly awry. it’s almost impossible to calculate how long it’s going to take me. travel times between countries, the number of cities, how long in each place, are all really hard to guestimate. so i have given up on trying to make a calendar. instead, i’ll plan a comprehensive travel route and not worry about sticking to a time schedule.

and i’m pissed off that bhutan is going to be so damned expensive to visit … i’ve got the famous ‘tigers nest monastary’ on my list of things to see, but unless i can work out how to get around without spending $300 a day, then i’ll be forced to skip the entire country.

… well, it wasn’t the bestest birthday ever, but i had a good day.

the irony of teaching in an adult hogwan is that i get a lot of leeway regarding my lessons. today, i took two of my classes to paris baguette to celebrate my birthday. the first class bought a cake for me and we had coffee with it. the second class just had coffee, but we had a lot of fun and talked for a long time.

at my office i also had another small party, this time with pizza and coke. then when i retuned to my school, my boss gave me a gift voucher for the local buffet restaurant (enough for 2 people to eat free) and my late class went out with me to enjoy beer and snacks.

so, it was a good day overall. i didn’t work too hard, the weather was fantastic, i had a good time with my students and i had a surprisingly nice day.

man, i’m so busy these days … i start work at 6.30am, and most nights i don’t finish until 9pm. in fact, i’m so busy, i don’t have time to finish this post. i gotta go. will finish it later …

edit: ok, it’s 11pm and i’m tired, but i’m gonna finish this post.

the last week has been busy as hell. i moved into my apartment, cleaned it, threw out a bunch of shit, and i’m almost settled in. i’ve been getting up at 5.30 every morning and i’m not getting home until after 10pm most nights. i’ve been trying to go to coex and buy a few things for my apartment, but i haven’t even had time to do that. i have no food in the place because i haven’t had the chance to go to a decent sized shopping centre. i need shampoo, some food, air fresheners (the place smells bad from the last teacher), more cleaning products, a laundry basket and a bath mat. i also need a blender and a small dustbuster … oh, and double sided tape to put some posters on the wall and hide the shitty wallpaper.

today, instead of actually doing work at my office, i changed my blog design, because i really want a darker blog. i love the new theme and style … so i think i’ll keep it. i also started a sister site to the seoul photo club on flickr. the plan is to move the group completely, partly because it’s a better site, partly because it allows much bigger images to be uploaded. i’m still in complete shock as to how much the group has grown, and then getting the weekly publishing gig has also added to my workload (although i’m not complaining about that one … i’m really pleased to be doing it).

this week my university announced student grades and i got a bunch of phone calls and emails from students who are unhappy with their results. of course, those are the students who speak no english and are pissed off that they failed. the irony is that they don’t even speak enough english to explain themselves or beg for higher grades … which in my mind justifies their failure. however that doesn’t stop them from calling and emailing and begging for improved grades. as usual, i also got a few students who are dissatisfied with their B+ or A- … they think they somehow deserve better. so i had to contact my supervisor and arrange to have some students’ grades changed.

yesterday i finally got my internet connected, but not after i reformatted my hard drive. the ubuntu dual boot crashed and linux wouldn’t run. my windows xp was getting sloppy too. then after i reformatted it, i brought home a virus - courtesy of the internet cafe i’d been using. it transferred via my usb thumb drive and kept reinstalling itself on all my partitions. that was the final straw and i reformatted the entire drive … partitions and all. i’m glad i bought the 160gig portable hard drive. it saved my bacon.

i also sent off the kohjinsha for servicing. i’m getting english software installed on it. that went out friday and should hopefully come back this week. my toaster arrived today, my kettle arrives tomorrow, and i’m still bugging my boss for a curtain to cover my only window and get a little privacy. my window faces a wall, so nobody can see directly in, but i’d still like a curtain to filter out some light and give me a sense of not being seen … especially since the opposite building does have windows and they can see into my apartment from an angle.

i just can’t believe how run off my feet i have been lately … i thought that moving out on my own would result in more free time … but i’ve barely had time to scratch my arse. and i’m barely getting 5 hours of sleep per night.

this weekend i’ll see sujoung. we’ll have dinner and talk about a few things that need going over. saturday afternoon i’ll have to do some shopping and when i get back home i will need to do laundry. sunday i’ve got work to do online. i need to tear down the christmas themes on three websites (long overdue) and update my blog software (also long overdue).  there is also a few niggly little web things i need to tinker with, as well as backup my databases.

i’ve still got two teaching days this week, but i feel so drained. i really hope to get settled soon. i need the sleep!