2012 recap & 2013 resolutions

2012 Recap:

Again, another busy year! I was working a really horrible retail job that made me hate my life. @__@

But then I quit the job and travelled in Europe for two months! I definitely hit my goal of trying to go to as many new countries/places this year as I could!

I met a lot of really cool people, saw amazing sights, and reconnected  with some of my favorite people.

The biggest life change for me was becoming an English teacher in South Korea. I had never been to Korea before, nor taught English before so it definitely turned my life upside down.

I have been living in Korea for 4 months now and  I  finally feel like my life is starting to settle down. I like going off and having adventures, but it’s nice to feel more comfortable with where I live and the job I am doing.

Last year for my 2011 recap and 2012 resolutions I said that I wanted to blog every week. That definitely did not happen! I think this is in large part due to the traveling I did this year and the fact that I fell behind on posting my #366 Creativity Journal Project.

I already mentioned this in a recent blog post, but  #366 Creativity Journal did not turn out exactly as I had planned.  I am no where close to being finished posting this project and certain events happening in my job the next few weeks will make it difficult to play catch up.

I am disappointed in myself for not trying harder this year to get my act together. But I will count this as a learning experience as I finish up #366creativityjournal and I move into my next yearlong project.

This brings me to my 2013 resolutions:  

1) Storyaday project: I decided that this year I want to hone my writing skills. I’ve decided to write a story (fictional AND/OR nonfictional) everyday for a year. Ideally I want to write both a fiction piece and non-fiction/autobiographical piece. To keep track of my progress I will be using these handy notebooks I found.

These are 100 days storybooks. In Korea one of the big moments of being in a relationship with someone is when you have been dating your partner for 100 days. I am not sure why; this will require further investigation. Regardless, this book one way you can keep track of your dating life, or really any life event that requires you to count specific days.

The reason why I like this kind of book is because  it will be easy to track  365 days worth of writing. If I were to use a blank notebook it would be easy to miss some days or to say, “I am too tired to write tonight, I will do it tomorrow.”

Sometimes I don’t want to sit down to write because I know when I do I will end up writing a lot and it will take FOREVER. But since each page doesn’t have that much space to write, it will be easier for me to keep myself motivated with this writing project on the the days I don’t feel like writing.

One of my biggest regrets when I was living in Australia in 2010 was I didn’t keep up with a journal as much as I would have liked. I was too busy living in the moment which was great at the time, but now there are some moments that I wish I had written down so that I would remember it better.  Pictures can help jog my memory, but it doesn’t always help with capturing emotions or the conversations I had with people.

 

2) Blog, Blog, Blog. I have a blog. I should use it. Otherwise this is just a waste of my money and superior writing skillz 😉

3) Koreausa Project. I have been terrible at posting photos. Megan Mc is getting swamped with work too. But it’s a great project and I would love to keep working on it.

4) Travel, Travel, Travel! Travel to as many countries and places as possible this year.

5) Learn more Korean. It’s so useful for everyday life and also to communicate with my students.

 

 

Taking photos. That’s what I do.

Yesterday a couple of my friends remarked that I seem to take a lot of photos.

Yes, yes I do.

I have explained to them several times about my #366creativityjournal project (which is now more of a photography project rather than just the journal project itself). But maybe because I have never really showed them some of the final results of my project, they seem confused by it.

My friend Cathy thinks my project is waaaay too ambitious: “Sarah, it seems too hard for you to take a photo everyday. Maybe you should scale it back and take a photo every week. I mean, you moved to a new country this year, started a full time job. How are you supposed to make art everyday when you complain you never have any free time?”

That is completely missing the point of the project. The point is that everyday in life we should try to be creative, we should try to find the beauty in simple things. I could go on and on the number of times I’ve told people about how I get some amazing photos by taking A LOT of crappy ones.

Plus, my life in Korea is simultaneously very different from my life in the US and yet very much the same. The things/objects/people I encounter here are very different, but the things I tend to do here are things I would do at home.

Still, I find it interesting to see the contrast between the world I know and the world I am experiencing here, and I bet a lot of people feel the same.

A lot of people I know don’t have the money or the time to travel. I feel very fortunate that I have been able to travel as much as I have. I also am happy I have the kind of “pioneering/adventuresome” spirit that lets me throw caution/routine to the winds and lets me set off to explore the world.

So while I have been utter crap at posting my daily photography/creativity efforts in a timely fashion, I still am thinking about the project everyday. I still want to be a creative genius each and everyday, and I want to showcase my life here in Korea.

My friends in Korea might not understand my project that well (I tried to explain #DS106 to them and they looked at me like I was CRAZY), and maybe a lot of my other friends don’t care about being creative/ innovative, but still I think that’s no reason to give up the project and call it a fail.

Like I said in my blog last week, this project is almost over. I still have A LOT of work to do to get this project in order. But I can do it! 😀

Day 294: Panorama of Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul

First time taking a Panorama with my phone. Not the best, but I love how the random man just showed up in my photo as he was walking by. It makes me laugh.

This photo is in response to Megan’s Koreausa challenge of City Skyline.

[photonav url=’/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/panorma-in-seoul1.jpg’]

 

I took this back in October, but took forever to post it because I thought it would be hard to find a Panorama display plugin. Turns out finding one took all of two seconds! @__@ Why did I wait so long? Le sigh.

#366creativityjournal PANIC MODE

I already tweeted Megan Mc about this, but felt this deserves its own blog post.

I just realized that today is December 10th. I also realized I am 21 days from supposedly completing my 366 creativity journal project.

I definitely will have over 100 plus photos / art projects to post, not to mention a good 20 plus projects I have to catch up on/ make.

How did this time slip away from me? I have no idea what la-la-land I have been living in, but time to get serious!!!

Jeez. This next couple of weeks will be intense if I want to get this done on time!!! Time to get in Panic CRUNCH MODE! (Because if I don’t then this will never get done!!)

Ideally, I would like to be done with this project by New Year’s so I can start my next year long project.

I have an idea in mind for that, but I need to hone it a bit before I talk anymore about it.

GAHHHHHHHH. SO. MUCH. WORK. TO. DO.

I need some of my #ds106 homies to move to Korea so that they can motivate me!

The month of GO, GO, GO

The past month or so was a constant GO, GO, GO month.

By this I mean that every weekend, I was off doing something or going somewhere, and during the week I was swamped by teaching English, meeting people to do various things, and taking a Korean class.

But finally it is nearing the end of the semester and the end of my Korean class, which means I will a lot more free time on my hands.

I have been neglecting my blog/ flickr of late and I miss it. I miss doing art and writing blog posts only two people read (haha).

Somehow I have been sucked into a vicious cycle of posting a lot of #366creativityjournal projects all at once, and it’s terrible.

Nobody wants to look at 100 pictures at one time. Nobody wants to read 100 blogs post discussing life in Korea at one time.

Also, I think it is quite possibly Megan Mc has already disowned me because I haven’t posted anything for our Koreausa blog in ages. >.>

This weekend I vow to get my act together!

No. Excuses.

Day 224: Creepybear is waiting…

This is the story of Creepy Bear.

Once upon a time my friends Megan and Karen traveled to Kissimmee, Florida to play rugby.

Along the way they encountered a mystical claw machine. After several attempts Megan was successful in winning a light blue bear, dubbed “Creepy Bear” because of its blue body and mismatching furry & pink belly.

Megan was not quite sure she wanted to keep the so called Creepy Bear so he was passed around to the ruggers on the trip, who also thought the bear was scary!

And so the Creepy Bear game was created: Hide the creepy bear from someone (in their bag or in their apartment) in hopes that the person receiving the creepy bear does not find him and thus has to keep him until they get a chance to pass him on.

This game has gone on for two years now.

In this case, Karen hid Creepy Bear in Megan’s bag at the hotel. In the morning Megan opened her bag to discover Creepy Bear was waiting for her. Ahhh!

Thanks to Megan who made this awesomely creepy gif using the photos I took! 

Day 226: The Fortune Teller OR Back to “Creativity Land”

I already tweeted about this “Fortune Teller” photo, but I thought it deserved a mini-blog.

As I go through and post photos (very late) for my daily assignments, I was struck by the thought that some of my photos 100% suck. They aren’t that creative or inspired. They seem to be very tedious.

I have to have a photo. Here is a photo. Meh. 

It also is time consuming because I know  the selection of photos I choose from that day  are crappy. I want to make them not crappy so I end up spending a lot of time trying to make the photo look cool. Sometimes it works. Yay! Other times I end up with the photo above…. Meh.

 

But there is hope! Continue reading

Day 205 & Day 208: The Summer of Movie Trailers

This July I got really into making movie trailers. In about two weeks, I made 4 movie trailers with the help of Imovie. I also made some videos of some stop motion photos I had taken on my Eurotrip2012.

But alas, some of my actors my trailers do not feel comfortable having their face broadcasted to the far corners of the internet.

So instead of me posting them online, you  will have to trust me when I said they were fabulous! 😉

 

Anyways, this is all good practice for finishing the music video which I promised to make last year!

I really need someone like Megan Mc to yell at me to pull it together! Too much procrastination! >.<