Caveat: New Year’s Dissolutions

I don't make New Year's resolutions. Or rather, I don't share them – I'm superstitious that in sharing them, I would either jinx their eventual success or else set myself up for disappointment in the event that they don't work out.

I was listening to NPR and someone said that in Portugal they avoid this problem by making New Year's wishes instead of resolutions. Wishes are less work than resolutions, too. And that way, I can share them.

So my wishes:

  • stay in Korea (i.e. Karma doesn't lay me off or go out of business, etc.)
  • continue to improve my Korean (my dream is to reach a level where I can take the TOPIK - it's been a "New Year's wish" 4 years in a row now)
  • lose  at least 5 kilos (the "Yeonggwang 5" - ancilliary to: exercise more, eat less)
  • make at least one breakthrough in teaching style or method
  • restart at least one abandoned novel (i.e. of ones I'm supposedly writing)
  • recover my lapsed zen(-ish) practice
  • more actively pursue my sketching and drawing (I've done some of this recently)
  • post to my blog twice a day (I've been getting better at this)
  • practice my mandolin (hahahaha this is the least likely – I practiced exactly 3 times last year)

[broken link! FIXME] Beautiful-happy-new-year-2012-in-different-styles-46
To all my friends who put up with my periodic anti-socialism (and abstract socialisms, for that matter), who reach out to me to say hi and see what I'm doing beyond the slightly directionless blog, THANKS. Love.

Caveat: Well, That Was About One Year Long

2011, that is. Ending.

2011 went by really fast for me. That was after 2010, which was one of the longest, most stretched-out years of my life. The difference? There was a lot of instability and uncertainty in my life, in 2010. Whereas 2011 went pretty smoothly… mostly according to plan. 

2010 started with me NOT getting a job in Korea. I lived in a hostel and took language classes for two months, before finding a job. Then the job turned out to have… well, let’s call them complications. Most notably, the Hongnong Elementary School had a tendency to make me move from apartment to apartment, and not ever tell me what was coming next, work-wise. Much worse than hagwon experiences I’ve had. OK. So that was 2010.

2011, in contrast, was easy. Predicatable. I finished the Hongnong contract, came back to Ilsan to work for Karma, and suddenly… it’s 8 months later. Life, it seems, goes on.

Interestingly, this happens to be the 1900th post to this here blog thingy. How ’bout them apples?

Walking home from work, late afternoon, the sun hung low in the sky and was like a pat of butter in mashed potatoes. I tried to capture this with my camera. Below picture was taken about a block north of my apartment building, along Gangseonno [강선로].  

picture

Um.

Happy New Year. 새해복 많이 받으세요~~. ¡Feliz año nuevo!

What I’m listening to right now.

Phaeleh, “In the Twilight.”

 
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