A Summary of Daniel: 1989-2009

A Summary of Daniel: 1989-2009

First I finished my BA in English Literature in 1994 from Acadia University which is 10 minutes down the road from my hometown in New Minas, Nova Scotia Canada which is a small village in the Annapolis Valley. My parents each come from two neighbouring provinces, mom is from Northern New Brunswick which is French Acadian and wood-cutting and lumberjack country and Dad comes from Prince Edward Island which is Irish potato farm country. My parents and younger brother still live in New Minas and I visit about once every 1.5 years.



My first jobs were babysitting and lawn mowing and in 1989 I stayed with my sister for the summer in Ottawa which is Canada's capital city and had my first full-time summer job as a dishwasher/kitchen helper at a Yacht Club. I did it again with the same chefs the next summer at a continental restaurant.



While studying in Nova Scotia I worked as a lobster grader and shipper/packer and cook in a small village near my home town on the Bay of Fundy a very beautiful place. I met many tourists and met my first Koreans there. In 1993 I left my parents home and moved to Kingston Ontario where my sister had moved with the intention of working west to Vancouver and then to teach English in Japan as one of my classmates had done. I hitchhiked and backpacked mostly with truck-drivers across Canada and took two slow weeks in 1994. It is a beautiful country. Then I worked and lived in Vancouver first as a night shipper and receiver truck driver of live seafood airfreight deliveries and then as a care giver in a Catholic home for the mentally handicapped called L'Arche or The Arc.



Then in 1996 I received an offer to teach in a hagwon in Samchonpo where I taught for two years. It is very beautiful there and I still have many friends there. In 1998 I moved to work at Inje University in Kimhae and stayed there for two years. Then I studied CELTA (ESL Cambridge Certificate) in Seoul at Yonsei so I could move to The United Arab Emirates. I had read it was a good place to live and work in Arabia. In 2000 I began working at Abu Dhabi Naval College (on Saadiyat) in the capital city of the UAE. My students were naval officer cadets being trained to navigate small warships. The job was easy and difficult. It is very hot in summer. I travelled to many countries nearby such as Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, Turkey on many months of holidays.



Then I began studying Master's of International Business in Dubai with The University of Wollongong. I had a small Honda compact car and would drive back and forth to night classes many days of the week for my first semester. Then I quit my job, took six months holidays in Canada and finished MIB in 2004 by increasing courses during the final two semesters in Australia. I finished one semester early.



In Australia I had a telephone interview to teach at Kwandong University in Gangneung, Gangwondo. However I also took interviews in Singapore but the job conditions were not great. So I lived in Yang Yang for one year and it is very beautiful so I read many books on general topics. I like Singapore and wouldn't mind living there also and nearly took a three year contract job offer from the Ministry of Education to become an English Literature Morals and Ethics teacher. However the salary was too low. I did not accept. Also I was looking for a job to teach international business.



So by surprise I received interview and job offer here at Daejin University in 2006. The same year I began more studies first in Certificate of Executive Leadership from Cornell University then also completing Executive Certificate in Negotiation and Conflict Management from The University of Notre Dame in 2008. At the same time I was playing bass guitar nearly every weekend in a rock band in Hongdae and Itaewon.



I felt sad but I had to quit my band. Last summer I did two comparative market research projects while on holiday in Sri Lanka (which I love) and Thailand (which I like) and completed another Certificate in Export Management in 2008 from an American international trade specialist named John R. Jagoe which took a year. Then I completed another Certificate in International Trade from Concordia University in Canada last month which also took just over a year.

This past holiday I was reading a lot about logistics and food supply chain because I was asked to join a proposal group for APEC to do a research study on ways to lower Korea's food customer prices. The project would have paid for all of my studies since 2003. So I read about a 1000 pages of research papers and about four hundred pages of international trade law course to finish my last course of Concordia certificate four weeks ahead of schedule.



The proposal however failed. So instead of feeling sad I decided to improve my research skills and decided to apply to Queensland University of Technology's Graduate Certificate in Research Commercialisation last month. They accepted me to the program two weeks after the deadline. It will take about two years however three to five hours of study a week is easy. So I am now studying knowledge transfer.

For the last five years I have been studying about 15-20 hours a week. Non-stop. But I LOVE learning.