JUWEONNAGO…

Crush on Oz

// May 28th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Australia, Video

How do you cope with missing out on “THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD?!?!”

It’s different if you missed out from the beginning, or in the middle of the journey, but missing out on it after being on the cusp?  Being so close that you actually smelt it, felt it, touched it and tasted it?

It’s like finally getting the girl of your dreams to notice you and develop some feelings for you, and now it’s just you and her, in a quiet spot, you lean in for that kiss that will turn that flirtatious game of hide and sick into a solid relationship… well, at least one that will last 6 months.  You are so close that you can feel her breath on your face, you lean 90% and wait as she makes her way through her 10%, you feel the slightest of the brush of her lips on yours, then all of a sudden she gets pulled away as “the other guy” she had feelings for, dips her like Casanova and plants a big fat kiss right in front of you.  Then they run off together into the sunset… HOW DO YOU COPE WITH THAT?!?!

imagine the girl getting pulled away right at this moment

Well… it wasn’t that dramatic but it was kind of like that, except I didn’t want to punch out the guy who took the girl away from me.  Instead I wanted to go congratulate him on a job well done because I knew exactly what he had to go through to get the girl and I appreciated and respected the journey that he had been on to get there.

But most importantly, I think having 14 other FRIENDS who had similar emotions running through their heads, and who we could lean on and talk things out with, played a critical role in preventing several potential emotional meltdowns in the aftermath of the announcement.  The process itself provided an opportunity for the applicants to create their safety net with the fellow candidates and I think everyone that needed to do that did that.

My final updates in this entire Best Job process has gone way slower than I anticipated, and the hoopla could all be over, at least the interest in my opinion on the subject, before I finish putting up my updates, but for those who care, I promise I’ll do it.  My schedule really hasn’t allowed me any free time and in a bit of a deja vu, Kim Jong-il gave me a big “Welcome Back” present in the form of a nuclear test and at least 5 short range missile launches.  All this on top of the “apparent suicide” of former South Korean President Roh Moohyun.  Let me tell you one thing, it’s not fun to be a news guy in Korea right now and throw in a big helping of “Australia Withdrawal Syndrome”… yeah, I’m not in good shape.

Making all of these entries and videos is like dangling crack cocaine in front of an addict.  I’m serious when I say this, if the right job or opportunity opened up for me in Oz (and I’m not picky, I’m talking paid internship or entry level jobs in the media or travel industry), I’ll probably choose the Aussie Experience over the money that I’m making in Korea.  I’m willing to start from the ground up and I will work for food, shelter and Australia…

Man, I just have a HUMUNGOUS CRUSH on Oz.

Announcement Day on Hamo

// May 21st, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Australia

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009…

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Since that day, I have tried to think of a day in the previous 26 years that I have lived, that was actually bigger than May 6th, 2009.  I know a lot of people bring up their wedding day or the day their child was born as one of their biggest days but I’m not married and I don’t have a kid.  There was one other day in my life that was slightly bigger than “Announcement Day” but I really don’t remember it.  It was May 1st, 1983 – my birthday… the day you come into existence has to be bigger than a day that could possibly bring you a job that every living soul on the planet wants which could possibly shoot you into at least a C/B-list celebrity territory after the stint (if you play your cards right) and an A-list celebrity locally for at least 6-months guaranteed right?

For such a big day, I was extremely calm and confident of where I stood in the overall outlook of the Best Job application process.  I stayed up the previous night putting together my presentation “portfolio” consisting of:

1. MOUs from Korea’s top 2 travel package wholesalers – Lotte Tour and Mode Tour
2. the letter of support from the College of Natural Sciences of The University of Texas at Austin
3. the signed MOU of my scholarship development plan from the “potential faculty advisor” of the program in the Government Department of The University of Texas (which actually arrived the day I got to Hamo)
4. the signed MOU of my scholarship development plan for Judson High School in San Antonio, Texas which came in the email through PDF format on the morning of the 6th.
5. my financial analysis of my media exposure from the day the final 16 were announced to April 29th – which equalled $1,324,062.85 AUD.  $1.3 MILLION AUD worth of PR in less than a month with none of the major Korean TV stations jumping on the story…
6. my business and other venture ideas of expanding the role of tourism for the Whitsundays, Hamilton Island and Queensland in general.

Simply put, the portfolio consisted of the effect my campaign has had for TQ and my ideas of how to turn that exposure into real DOLLARS for TQ and expanding the exposure beyond the tourism industry into fields like education, corporate sponsorships from global companies both in Korea & abroad, philantrophy and etc.  I think I was the only candidate to actually use the business center at the Reef View Hotel to actually print out business documents.  So armed with my portfolio in hand, I felt that I was as prepared as I could be to make my 20 minute pitch.  Like TQ had been stressing all this time, it WAS a job interview first and foremost.

After my 20 minute interview, I felt even better.  I thought my interview went extremely well and it kind of went opposite of what the other candidates that had already gone told me.  Ben Southall for example, told me that he didn’t have much of an opportunity to talk about the things that he prepared or wanted to talk about, but for me, the selection panel just let me give my presentation and they seemed receptive to my ideas or at least seemed to look very positively on the effort that I showed with my portfolio & the ideas in it.

All of the candidates were given about an hour of down time between the morning activities and the final call for “the Announcement.”  Some actually chose to go kayaking and swimming while others stuck around the “Outrigger” (our base of operation) chit chatting and preparing themselves for the big moment.  Come to think of it, I didn’t even wet my toes in the pools at Hamo other than for the swimming test on the first day and I never felt the waves on the beach during my 4 days there… that’s how busy our schedule was.  During that one hour down time, I chose to snap a couple of photos, rush back to my hotel room and put up a quick photo blog.

A little past 3pm, due to a satellite feed problem from Reuters, Premier Anna Bligh came up to the podium and made the announcement.  Funny thing, Magali and I actually knew who the winner would be about 40 seconds before the Premier read the name out loud.  When the Premier flipped over to the last page of her speech, she still had to read about half a paragraph more, but on the bottom of the page, in GREAT BIG BOLD LETTERS, read “From the United Kingdom, Ben Southall.”  Magali and I both saw it at the same time and we both looked at each other and had an “OMG” moment.  I’m sure we weren’t the only candidates to have seen the name.  James actually told me that he “saw” it but didn’t want to “read” it and turned away from it.  If you watch the video feed of the announcement on the media outlet websites, you can kind of tell who saw it and who didn’t, but the one person who didn’t see it for sure was Ben.

If he knew beforehand and then showed this reaction, he needs to be in Hollywood, not on Hamo.

Maybe it was the 40 second of extra processing  time I had to digest the final results, but when Ben’s name was called, contrary to what I thought I would feel, I felt extremely and genuinely happy for Ben and for some strange reason, I couldn’t find an ounce of disappointment for myself, even after trying to search for some sort of a sad reaction within me.  I think it’s because despite the outcome, I honestly feel that I came out a “winner” from this entire process.  There’s just so much that I’ve gained from this to be bitter or sour about anything.  I’ll elaborate on this feeling in more detail in my “final analysis” entry which is coming up.

After the announcement, everyone went back to the hotel, except Ben, and got ready for the “final dinner & party.”  That video is coming up soon… I promise.

It was actually REALLY good to see everyone kind of just let loose that night and have some genuine fun without the fear of being assessed or showing our best TV smile for the cameras, but truthfully there weren’t any real significant differences in the way people behaved.  I think most of us were truly genuine whether there was a camera in front of us or not and that was AWESOME to see.

Daydreaming Away…

// May 16th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Australia

Over the next couple of days, you’ll see the much belated videos & pictures of my adventures in Australia for the Best Job in the World campaign as well as my extended itinerary around the Brisbane area including an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING day on Moreton Island – probably the most fun I’ve had on this entire trip.  My plan for my Best Job blog entries will finish up with a straight-forward “final analysis” of the entire process, with some insights on how the entire campaign looked like from the inside, but before I “POSSIBLY” ruffle any feathers with that entry, I wanted to show off on how much fun I’ve had and also give you guys a peek into some aspects that you won’t get anywhere else.

Some of the contents that are upcoming:

• Best Job candidates final day activities video on the day of the ANNOUNCEMENT
• Best Job after party where the candidates finally let loose
• Immediate reactions from the candidates right after the announcement of the winner (not even TQ or the media has this available)
• My adventures on Moreton Island and Brisbane
• Final “no holds barred” analysis of the ENTIRE Best Job in the World process

For today, here’s a long overdue video blog on Day #3 on the Whitsundays, which was our day on Daydream Island.  I’m also posting the blog from our 2nd “blog task” entry.  I don’t think they posted this entry up or even rated it.  They said our first blogs from the first task were “too long and detailed” and it took the selection panel way too long to go through them so this time, they were adamant that we keep this entry “to a page or around 300 words and 4 pictures.” A lot of the candidates were grumbling about this limit, including myself and I think almost everyone ended up somewhere around 400 words for the blog entry. 300 words I thought was a pretty ridiculous limit, especially with all the activities we fit into one day during the interview process.  The way I went about it was to just write everything first then at the end, I just went at it as if I had a scalpel for blog entries and just cut everything out leaving the bare minimum to kinda meet the word count requirements.

Another interesting tidbit about this day was that we actually had a chance to haggle the media members for interviews as they took a turn at the spa on Daydream Island which you will see on the video.  For those interested in the BBC DOCUMENTARY that is being produced about The Best Job in the World, the information on when & where the documentary will be airing is also in the video, coming directly from the “horse’s mouth” so to speak.  Enjoy!

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For more information on Daydream Island Resort & Spa go check out www.daydreamisland.com.  They got a wonderful staff and great facilities.

“Daydream Jealousy”

As Daydream inched closer, we realized the weather would not be cooperating as we were greeted with umbrellas at the door.

First up on the list of Daydream activities was the visit to the Rejuvenation Spa where your body gets pampered like an A-list celebrity.  After only 2 hours of sleep the previous night, I was probably more excited than even any of the girls to get a little high-end pampering.

honest assessment: I got jipped with this iridology thing...

As luck would have it, I drew “Iridology.”  Now what is “Iridology?”  Well, it’s a system where they look at a high resolution close up of your iris and determine whether or not you have areas in your system that is stressed, showing under activity or over activity.  Another interesting fact relayed to me by my Iridologist Gayle was that Asian eyes’ iris sometimes don’t reveal anything.

My iridology results:  I have a stressed out respiratory system which can be fixed with increased magnesium intake and a strained small stomach which they recommended treatment with Slippery Elm Bark.  Oh and here’s the kicker… because of the stress on the adrenal gland, I have decreased libido.  Hmmmm… no comment would be the safe route here.

As I walked out of my spa treatment, the other candidates started popping out of their treatment rooms glowing and smelling like potpourri candles.  Peeking in some of the treatments I was so jealous, which speaks volumes about the top of the line facilities and professional staff at the spa.  Just hearing about treatments like “Daydream Delight”, “Hot Stone Therapy” and “Flowing Melody” made me want to come back for the pampering.

the sea star's "anus" is on top, not the bottom - so the side you see now.

From smelling like potpourri to fish guts in minutes, it was time for us to try out one of the most widely advertised job description of the caretaker, feeding the fish at the Live Reef at Daydream.  We all had a chance to feed the sting ray, touch the sea stars “anus” and even saw the feeding of their resident Lemon Shark.  The sting ray… tastes like chicken…jk!  They feel like hard boiled eggs and they can eat through their nose!

the feast prepared with 100% Queensland ingredients

We returned to Hamo on the “Voyager” provided to us by Whitsunday Island Adventure Cruises and our day wrapped up with a quick presentation and skit activity prepared for us by the GBR Marine Park Authority which was the activity that was supposed to be carried out on the beautiful Whitehaven Beach.

Oh Whitehaven… so you elude me again…