Friday, January 9, 2009

Happy new year! (eight days late)

So, it's 2009. How did that happen?

The year has gotten off to a rather inauspicious start, but I'm hoping I can turn it around quickly. Wait, apparently inauspicious implies boding, negative connotations. In fact, I really just meant to say that 2009 is off to an unremarkable start.

Another year, and another ill-fated resolution about blogging more regularly. But before I get into new year's resolutions, five important things you might not know:

1. I've decided to stay in Korea until August 30.
2. I won't be a Fulbright grantee anymore... I'm signing a contract with my individual (same) schools. It has to be a six month contract, starting in March, which explains why I'm staying until the end of August.
3. This means I get about 400-500 dollars more per month, and an apartment.
4. I am, however, coming home for about a 3 week visit to Florida. I arrive on January 15 and leave on February 10.
5. I'm not applying for TFA this year, obviously. And somewhat perplexingly, I also won't be teaching public school when I get back, because I'll be returning to America too late to get a job. Which means I have to... do something else for at least a year. Which is a bit of a scary prospect in this economic situation, but a little exciting too.

There's a lot of uncertainty in my future this year. I'm not sure what exactly I'll be doing when I get back from Korea. All my previous goals are sort of on hold now, at least for one year, while I pursue something else. I'm still not sure exactly what kind of goals I want to set for 2009, but I have a few resolutions, anyway.

1. Generally, I want to get healthier. My goal is to exercise at least 45 minutes a day, six days a week. I'm always exercising specifically with the end of losing weight in mind, but for awhile I'd like to focus on just exercising for the sake of exercising. Because it's good for my health, and can be a stress reliever. I can only imagine that exercising seriously, coupled with eating right, will lead to more weight loss, but that's not my primary goal anymore. I'm hoping to run 11k in the Naju "Marathon" this year.

2. I want to blog at least once a week. I probably can't count on two hands the number of times I've said that before, and it was one of my resolutions last year, with mixed success. But I can only hope this time will be different. I've merged my diet blog with this blog, so now all the entries I've written over the past year and a half, since I came to Korea, are all here, and it's so neat to look through them. If I really want to consider myself a writer, at least one blog entry a week should be easy enough. But we'll see. You know what they say about good intentions.

3. Although I didn't finish keeping track (I think I stopped at around #43), I'm also certain that I achieved my goal of reading 50 books last year. It is, I think, the only resolution that I kept all the way through, and I'm really proud of it. So I'm hoping to read it with 50 more books in 2009.

4. Living in an apartment and preparing dinner for myself will introduce new expenses into my budget. This year I need to budget better, ahead of time, and keep track of my expenses. Especially because I won't have a job lined up when I return home, I definitely need to build up a sizable savings during my last semester in Korea. This is entirely possible... I make plenty of money. I've just never actually been able to do it before (in the previous three semesters). But hey, fourth time is the charm, I hope.

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