Nappy Nude Deers

Alright, the first post of 2008. That means that this blog has been operating in 3 separate years already. Boy, time sure does fly.

I guess the most appropriate way to begin this post is to talk about my New Years’ resolutions but since I don’t have any this year, this would become a really short and rather unfulfilling entry. So instead of that, I’ll begin with my normal update at work and follow that up with my plans for the coming year.

Work has been pretty interesting as of late. We completely switched around the organizational chart and moved our desks. This sort of thing happens at the end of every calendar year here at my company and from what I hear, a lot of other companies as well. Since I was quite the newbie last time this happened, I really didn’t pick up on the ramifications of what these changes mean. Essentially, wherever you end up is where you will stay (in most cases) until the end of the year. This means you better hope you end up with a cool group of people or it could get pretty miserable sometimes. I lucked out and ended up with half of the people from my old group and the other half is composed of people I already knew and liked.

We also have a new Assistant Managing Director who will now take over the entire side of my wing of the company and also have the dubious honor of being one of two (me being the other, obviously) non-Koreans in the entire building. While he is about 15 years or so older than me, we do have quite a bit in common. He is from Michigan, so that makes him a mid-westerner as well. He has also lived in Japan but for a much longer time than I did (10 years), has a Japanese wife and speaks Japanese better than I do. I’m really looking forward to see what is going to happen in the company in the coming year and I so far it looks like change will be good. Here’s to hoping.

As for my plans for the coming year, I have a few interesting plans.

First, I was planning on going to Japan for about 5 days in February but since there are no tickets available (it’s a Korean holiday so everyone and their mother has the same days off), those plans got shot. I will now instead hook up a Mexican siesta party at my house that weekend complete with homemade tacos and hopefully a sombrero or two. Hopefully I can work something out around that time to get Doug out here and show him around Korea as well.

I don’t see too much going on after that (other than a wicked 27th B-day party I plan on cooking up) until about May or June when I plan on setting up some sort of beach travel and hopefully sometime around then is when I will visit Japan to see my Grandmother and family. I will also probably hook up with Ryan at some point as well since he will be living in Japan at that point as well.

In July or August I’m assuming there will be another beach bash in Japan with all the old friends so I will definitely be out there for that. I also plan on finally getting out and spending some vacation time in a country that isn’t Japan or Korea for the first time ever and I hope to hit Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand this year.

All in all, I know 2008 is going to be a great year for me and I hope it’s the same for everyone else too.