::A Geek in Korea::

If there was some kind of law against “Year in Review” wrap up posts in the blogging community, I’d support it. The week between Christmas and New Years is a dead-man’s land of content. My usual flood of podcasts has thinned to a trickle as everyone spends time celebrating the holiday cheer, visiting relatives, and being introspective making lists about things that happened last year.

I’ll be more progressive and instead of looking backward and making a list, I’ll look forward…and make a different sort of list. Things I’m wildly optimistic about, or badly want to have happen in the future:

• In 2008, I want my wife to get a job at a better school. Right now she works as a English speaking “for hire” sort of contractor. She has no vacation time, and she has to deal with too much “non-teaching” related stuff. She’s hoping to get something at a better school where she can get Korean Revenue Service documentation. This documentation leads us to the next point…
• A bigger apartment. Our current apartment is completely adequate for our needs, but having one more room or so would not hurt at all. This would free us up to have more space for hobbies. My wife’s paper art will need the space. Our current apartment’s location is hard to beat, as it’s near parks and still on the subway line. Having something in the neighborhood while still roughly the same size would be ideal. We can’t keep ahead of the apartment price bubble in the city (Apartment prices rise like 20% a year, it’s NUTS) but with better job security, we’d be able to get a loan and get something better on a more permanent basis.
• A better job for myself? I’m alright where I work, but I’ve sort of hit a ceiling on my salary. There just aren’t people that stick around the industry as long as I have to put me on a good enough pay scale with other employers. I’ll have to be creative if I want to keep up the pace of growth.
• A new hobby, off-line, and possibly outside would be best for my health. Walking the dog and playing the Wii only burns so much fat.
• My friends visiting this summer (fingers crossed). I’ve been looking forward to showing my friends around Korea for years. It’s only now they started crawling out from their school related financial loans that I never had (Thanks Mom and Dad!) that they can start traveling the world. I’m extremely excited that two of my friends would make the long plane ride over to visit me if they can. I just hope I can make sure that their precious vacation days are well spent.

These are the things I am most looking forward to in the next year on a strictly personal, selfish basis. I wish no one ill will, or anything but luck for the new year.

Tags: 2008, new year, list