He's tackled David Beckham, found an apartment in a fashionable area on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, got married, lost and gained professional contracts, and played in a cup final.
Andrew Boyens has had some sort of 2008.
The Kavanagh College old boy and former Otago United defender is home for a few months and reflecting on the year in which he learned first-hand the cut-throat nature of professional sport.
Boyens was happily entrenched in Canada at the start of the year, playing for his first professional side, Toronto FC.
He was preparing for his wedding and hoping his football path would continue following that of Ryan Nelsen's, who, like Boyens, polished his trade in the American college system and Major League Football before becoming a star in the Premier League.
Then it all went pear-shaped.
"I think we were going into our third game of the new season and the Toronto boss pulled me aside and said I was being let go," Boyens (25) recalled.
"I was taking up one of their foreign spots, which didn't help me.
"But it was hugely disappointing. At that stage, I had nothing guaranteed and there was a huge amount of uncertainty. I didn't know what to do."
Boyen's agent quickly arranged a trial with the New York Red Bulls and everything fell into place.
Within two weeks, Boyens was playing for the reserves against his former club - "that was bittersweet" - and before the MLS season was half over, he was a regular starter for New York.
So, he'd gone from on the fringes and then unwanted in Toronto, to a starter in professional sport's biggest market, playing at Giants Stadium, the 80,000-capacity home of the Super Bowl champion Giants.
It got better.
New York only squeaked into the MLS playoffs but then kept winning, and suddenly Boyens was playing in a major final in front of 30,000 people at the Home Depot Centre in Los Angeles.
"We all described the season as a rollercoaster. We had some great wins and we had some heavy losses. We were quite inconsistent throughout the year. But we shook up a few things just before the playoffs and everything just clicked."
There was to be no fairytale ending - New York was beaten 3-1 by the Columbus Crew in the final - but Boyens cannot complain too much.
He'll still be in a certain limbo next year, knowing New York can drop or trade him before July 1.
But playing professional football sure beats working for a living.
In a New York squad dominated by homegrown and Hispanic talent, the star is Juan Pablo Angel, the Colombia and former Aston Villa striker.
Boyens described him as the best, and hardest-working, player in the MLS.
The contact with Beckham came when the Red Bulls played the LA Galaxy in front of 50,000 people at Giants Stadium.
"It was pretty exciting. I mean, I watched Beckham a lot when I was a teenager and to be on the same field as someone like that was amazing."
Off the field, Boyens married fellow ex-Kavanagh pupil Claire Kinraid in Hanmer Springs on November 30.
The couple have found an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, a 10m ride on the train to Times Square.
The cost of living is high and their finances weren't great for a time as Boyens was on a contract significantly smaller than Beckham's, and Claire could not get a visa to work in the United States.
Boyens came home for World Cup qualifiers in the middle of the season and now has five caps for the All Whites.
He wants more and they will come, as he is now a regular feature of the national squad.
He's young enough to be only focused on his own career but Boyens wants to give something back.
He's running coaching camps for junior footballers in Dunedin (January 14-16 and January 21-23), as well as in Alexandra, Queenstown and Oamaru.(Parents who are interested can contact Soccersouth or look for the advertisements.)It was a tale of two misses for Boyens this year.
As well as defeat in the MLS final, his old club, Dunedin Technical, fell short in the Chatham Cup final.
"I kept tabs on it and was disappointed when I heard they'd lost. But I'm proud of them for making the final, which is a huge achievement for a Dunedin club."
