Before the New Year:
~ Continue practicing the violin at least six days a week, but shoot for seven
~ Drop the last 15 lbs
~ Have wrist completely healed (carpal tunnel)
~ Develop a fitness routine for maintaining my goal weight
~ Study Spanish more
~ Learn a bit more Korean
~ Add meditation and mindfulness into my life
Before I Go Back to the States:
~ Continue being awesome (violin, fitness, meditation, just general awesomeness)
~ No more white spots on nails
~ Have a conversational and practical hold of Spanish
~ Have credit cards and most of the private student loan repaid
~ Go to Thailand and bathe elephants!
~ Go to the Philippines and eat fresh mangoes!
~ Go to Vladivostok
~ Go to Japan
~ If there's time and money left, go to Nepal and Viet Nam
~ Stop being so angry
~ Loosen up my hip flexors
~ Strengthen my abs
~ Be able to drink beer without Candida flaring up
~ Have a job lined up for when I get back to L.A.
~ Be able to play Bach's Double Violin Concerto and Czardas at tempo and well.
Before I Turn 25 (2012):
~ Pay carbon offsets for trips to Australia, Korea, whatever other travel I do.
~ Take my sister to France
~ Bike the West Coast from Vancouver to San Diego
~ Be fluently bi-lingual in Spanish and English, and conversationally fluent in French
~ Find a place to settle for a while
~ Dance in a performance at least once.
Before I Turn 30 (2017):
~ Be fluently tri-lingual in French, Spanish and English, and conversationally fluent in Russian
~ Live in a Spanish speaking country
~ Live in a French speaking country
~ Be proficient on the violin
I figured it would be more practical to focus on Spanish than French, since there are more Spanish speaking people than French speaking in my area (well, where I was and will be after Korea) of the world. I love Spanish, French and Russian but never really got to the fluency I wanted. I know better what to look for in a teacher and a program, here's to hoping that I can get things going again!
I've got more discipline with the violin now than I did before, I just need to keep it up. I record myself playing and listen to it after practicing so I can pick out the passages that need work. I'll post my progress on my other blog (and I guess here if you're interested) after I have the first movement of Bach's Double Violin Concerto cleaned up at 40 bpm, then again at 60 and so on until I have it at tempo. Same for any other music I work on.
I'm going to take some "current body" photos to try and motivate myself to work to get past this plateau I'm so comfortable on.
As far as the anger, mindfulness and chilling out of my mind, that's more difficult. I'll have to figure that one out as well as a way to motivate myself to continue the practice--though hopefully it won't feel like work once I implement it.
~Sarah
Those are quite some goals! I'm sure you can do them and will find other awesome things to do as well! And other blog??? Where do I find that treasure?
ReplyDeleteThe other blog is www.operationveggie.blogspot.com and sadly has a pretty ranting feel to it, but I wanted to use it for the more personal stuff and things that don't have to do with travel specifically.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite an agenda... but lots of good stuff. Guess I particularly resonate with your travel an music goals. I would like to see more of the world and also be able to perform some sort of music (a part of me that I rarely get to share).
ReplyDeleteI wrestle with the anger of suddenly being "middle aged" with some of those typical middle-aged infirmities and wondering if I've done enough to make this a life worth living. The angst I feel has driven me to write about my life and thoughts trying to share any wisdom I might have found in the first half of my life.
I think they're all very do-able goals, as long as I actually do the work required to get there. I'm already familiar with the languages I want to know, I just need to get more practice and that would come with moving to a country that speaks those languages. Dance and violin are things I already know about, I just need practice and guidance so I can refine and hone my skills. Fitness is, again, just a daily thing.
ReplyDeleteThe travel at the end of my contract is either going to happen or not, but then I can always come back and I won't beat myself up if I miss a country or city. I know I'll have to come back to Asia anyway because I didn't get to do everything in this trip. And, I feel it's when you travel to a city more than once that you become more than a tourist, but a "citizen of the world" because you have the ability to become familiar with areas of a place that you like and form habits in those areas.
I don't think this list is that difficult, it just takes discipline. Something I now have.