The sudden plunge in temperatures and the increasingly short days presage the end to yet another year. Within weeks, students will have taken their finals, campus will have that deserted feel about it, and elevators will be assaulting us with a dreadful mixture of false cheer and mind-numbing melodies. Yes, Christmas is coming, and the time to take stock of yet another 365 days of existence is fast approaching. To paraphrase a beloved Christmas ditty, it's time to look at the "12 Months of 2008."

"In the first month of 2008, my true love sent to me … oil for $100 a barrel." Yes, a delightful start to the new year as we woke up to the realities of our dependence on black gold. People everywhere began looking at their SUVs suspiciously, the word "renewable" suddenly became fashionable, and people no longer had to look up "hybrid" in their dictionaries.

February gave us the inauguration of Lee Myung-bak, swept to victory in elections at the end of 2007 on a promise to overhaul the sagging economy. Two weeks earlier, Seungnyemun, one of Korea's most beloved treasures, was tragically destroyed by fire. The two events are not believed to have been connected.

March added to our technological vocabulary the word "exabyte," which refers to a number that can only be described as really, really big. We learned that digital data now totals 281 exabytes, or basically more than can be stored. Somewhat lost in the excitement were the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, gold rising above $1000 an ounce, and the North Koreans firing missiles into the sea.

In April, surgeons at the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London performed the first bionic eye implants on two blind patients. South Koreans got a bird's-eye view of the earth as Yi So-yeon rocketed into space, while Chinese eyes seemed somewhat fogged when they announced the "Olympic torch has received a warm welcome worldwide." However, the most eye-catching event was South Korea's decision to reopen its market to American beef.

Beginning on May 3, thousands of South Koreans descended on Seoul Plaza to voice their dissatisfaction at the resumption of US beef imports, setting off a summer-long series of protests. While the protests became headline news nationally, international attention was distracted by the 133,000 people killed by Typhoon Nargis in Myanmar and the 70,000 deaths in the Chengdu earthquake in China.

June brought us the "retirement" of Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman stepping aside to devote himself to the philanthropic spending of his money. Having spent all of hers, Hilary Clinton gave up on the Democratic presidential nomination. Not to be outdone, the Irish rejected the Treaty of Lisbon, thus calling into question the whole EU reform agenda. Bucking the general trend was Tiger Woods, who managed to play 90 holes of golf and win the US Open despite being barely able to walk.

July was a bad month for Korea with the shooting of a South Korean tourist in Geumgangsan and renewed tensions over Dokdo. Zimbabwe plumbed new depths with the issuing of a 100-billion dollar banknote as inflation hit 2.2 million percent, once again demonstrating President Robert Mugabe's enlightened leadership. On the positive side, The Dark Knight set new records for an opening weekend, and Chinese restaurants in Beijing were authorized to serve donkey, though not dog, during the Olympics.

August was, of course, the Olympics. Usain bolt, Michael Phelps, Park Tae-hwan, Jang Mi-ran, baseball, and archery had us glued to our TVs. Records were broken, protests banned, and pensioners arrested. At the same time, Russia showed Georgia who was boss and dared anyone to do anything about it, while Obama chose a running mate to do his Biden.

In September, Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for bankruptcy, the largest in US history. The ensuing meltdown on Wall Street was trumped only by the cries of CEOs mourning the loss of their year-end bonuses. The chaos quickly spread to the rest of the world, with governments tripping over themselves in their haste to guarantee their own national interests.

By October, the head of the IMF was surprising us all with the news that we were most likely headed into a global recession. Stock markets continued to plummet, as did the won, raising the ugly specter of Korean cable TV being unable to pay for the new season of CSI. The media were dominated by Obama and McCain, a fixation broken only temporarily by O.J. Simpson's luck running out.

And then, November gave us … Barak Obama! With all due respect to thousands of Korean high school seniors and their mothers, this was arguably the defining event of the year. Perhaps in a year that has seen its share of the bad, we are entitled to take Obama's message of change at face value. Let us hope that 2008 ends on something of a high note and that this genuinely does herald a new beginning in 2009.