2010 Goals

At midnight tonight we enter 2010. I’m excited, more so than I am ordinarily on New Years Eve. 2010 promises to be an interesting year - it’s a fresh start and it holds many opportunities, some of which once passed may not present themselves again.

I have a sense that I am going to have to make some important decisions next year. Apart from generally saving money I wonder whether I should aim for a specific target, and if so how much? Should I opt for a third contract in Korea? I have already suggested to several friends that we travel from Beijing to Moscow in October, and I remain committed to this. If I am to spend a third year in Korea it would mean returning with the February 2011 intake, or trying to arrange a similar deal to the one I had in summer this year and not returning to SA during the weeks that I have off between contracts. Jess leans toward returning home permanently after this contract and I appreciate that I must also take into account her thoughts before making any of these decisions.

Should I choose not to sign on for a third year in Korea I will need to begin a masters degree in 2011. Despite having put in a lot of thought and having done some research I am far from making any decisions regarding masters. In the interim between leaving Korea and returning to SA I am thinking of applying to be an ‘Ecumenical Accompanier’ in Palestine and Israel. I would like to bear witness to what is going on in the region.

Now it’s not often that I share information about my goals, but on this occasion I would like to make them public. I know that some friends and family follow my blog, and I am happy share my goals. I have held most these goals for some time, some longer than a year, which I feel is both positive and negative. On the one hand I have a clear vision of what I would like to achieve, on the other the fact that these goals remain on the list of things that I would like to achieve indicates that I am making less progress in meeting goals than I would like.

Here they are, in no particular order, my 2010 goals:

1. Take as many opportunities to explore South Korea as possible - Korea is not as beautiful as South Africa and there are very few places that remain relatively unspoiled. There are nevertheless beautiful places to see and I am well aware that I am highly unlikely to return to Korea as a tourist. Jess and I recently discovered that it is relatively economical to hire vans, so I am looking forward to some fun adventures come spring time.

2. Cut costs by spending money carefully - I’m not a huge fan of setting exact goals of how much to save, and then being glum when I do not reach the goals for any number of reasons, some of which may have been beyond my control. Instead I aim to live relatively frugally and be aware that saving even small amounts here can amount to large amounts at home. Principally I aim to cut down on the foreign drinks - Baileys, Cockburn’s port and foreign beers - that I enjoy so much. I also aim to use fewer taxis.

3. Improve my photography and familiarise myself with Photoshop

4. Continue to search for opportunities to write for newspapers, especially South African newspapers, and refine my writing - I submitted three pieces in 2009. Two were published. Unfortunately my first article only made it as far as a Grahamstown rag - I was very disappointed in the news agency that I sent it to; it clearly made no effort to place the piece in the appropriate paper. My second published piece received a number of comments online, and was picked up by several blogs. A few people wrote to me to thank me for my well balanced article. 2010 has started well in terms of my writing goals. The Korea Times published an article by me last week. It didn’t generate as much discussion as my first article but it was picked up Expacked; a blog that aims to gather and disseminate news that is of interest to foreign teachers in South Korea. [See: "Equal Pay for Equal Work"]

At present I have several articles in mind and hope to have another one published in a South Korean paper before the end of the month. Following this I hope to do some travel writing for an SA paper or magazine. As a step toward this goal I intend submitting an article to a travel website. My final goal in terms of my writing is to have the M&G publish a piece of my writing. Having failed to get the first piece that I submitted to the M&G published, I’m not going to approach the M&G until I have had a good number of articles published in a variety of newspapers and / or magazines.

5. Put less time into preparing classes - Some of the teachers that I know need to spend less time drinking, others need to spend more time preparing classes. I on the other hand need to spend less time preparing classes, and perhaps a little more time partying it up -- well maybe. I often get what I feel what is a good idea for class and launch into preparing the lesson without any consideration for how long it will take to prepare. I enjoy preparing lessons, but I have spent many hours outside of school time preparing for lessons when I could have been doing other things.

And you know -- so long as the kids are entertained, they couldn’t give a toss how much preparation I put in.

6. Get fit - This is my eternal goal. I am going to spend more time swimming in 2010 and I have arranged to try out Taekwando for a week in January. I only swam once in 2009, and this was on the 31^st of December.

7. Restart my search for masters opportunities, and activities that might increase my chance of being accepted into a masters program.

8. Do my bit for looking after our household in terms of cooking (I’ve already got the cleaning bit nailed)