New Year's Resolutions

I already posted my “Year in Review” but it’s already January the 8th and I’d yet to mention anything about my New Year's Resolutions. So I decided that the time had finally come. Let’s see what I want to accomplish in 2012. Oh, before I start, I'd also like to mention that this list doesn't include absolutely EVERYTHING that I want to achieve. However, none of the items on this list depend on anything other than myself. For example, I obviously want to travel, but that would depend on my financial situation, etc. 

1.     Continue losing weight. I once read that the best goals are those that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.) So, keeping that in mind, I’d like to restate my goal as: I want to lose 30 more pounds (specific, measurable, and attainable) in order to improve my health and physical appearance (relevant) in 2012 (timely.) I had tremendous success last year and I have no doubt that this is something that I can (and will) do. 30 pounds in one year comes out to about half a pound a week, and considering that the healthy rate of weight loss is 1.5 - 2 pounds per week, it becomes even clearer to me that it is something that I can achieve. 

2.     Be able to run a 5K in less than 30 minutes. I’ve already mentioned in previous posts that I would like to run a marathon at some point this year. However, I know that I still have a long way to go. As it is, it takes me about 42 minutes to run the 5K. Obviously, the main reason why it takes me this long is because I don’t run the whole time. Usually, I run for 5 minutes, walk for 2, and so on and so forth. That said, I would really would like to build my endurance up to a point where I can run for at least 30 minutes without stopping. Once this has been achieved, I know that I will be ready to seriously start training for a marathon.

3.     Exercise at least 4 times a week. This shouldn’t be something that’s difficult to accomplish. I have a membership at a gym, a treadmill at home, and countless workout DVD’s to choose from. However, I feel that by stating it as one of my resolutions for 2012, I’m more accountable for actually getting around to doing it. I follow several fitness blogs and they all recommend that we (their followers) blog about our workout plans in advanced, (again, to help with accountability), so I’m actually toying with that idea. Maybe I'll start posting my workout schedule for the proceeding week on Sunday nights.

4.     Acquire basic knowledge of Russian and Mandarin, while at the same time making sure that my Italian and Japanese don’t get rusty. I’ve always loved Russian and I decided that this year was the year to finally start learning it. My friend Danny told me that I could learn the Cyrillic alphabet in a few hours and so, I decided to just go ahead and do it. Since then, I’ve given myself a goal of learning at least 20 Russian words per day, and I have to say that I’m really enjoying it. I’m using a variety of sources, primarily: Rosetta Stone, Michel Thomas, and Assimil. I once read that 80% of learning a new language is memorizing its vocabulary, and it is for this reason that right now I’m focusing mostly on perfecting my use of the Cyrillic alphabet as well on the acquisition of new words. Now for Mandarin, since China is such an important country (economically, geopolitically, culturally, etc.) I want to start by getting a sense of the language and by learning key phrases in case I ever find myself there. Once I’ve mastered these, I’ll decide whether I really want to dive into it head first or not.

Italian and Japanese are both languages that I’ve been studying (both actively and passively) for the last few years. Because of its similarity to Spanish, my grasp over Italian is better than the one I have over Japanese. However, I would definitely say that because I’ve studied Japanese formally (in a classroom setting, etc.) for such a long time, my foundation in it is much more stable. I am currently reading a novel in Italian, and I understand about 92% of it. Also, I am always reading news in Italian as well as listening to radio shows, etc. For Japanese, I need to make a better effort to learn more Kanji and consolidate the knowledge that I already have.

5.     Call (or Skype) at least one friend per week. I’m usually very good at keeping in touch with people via email or Facebook. However, I completely suck when it comes to calling and/or Skyping. I have friends spread out all over the world (mostly the US and Japan) and I honestly feel that I haven’t been very good at keeping them as an active part of my life. Besides, sending an email is never the same as hearing someone’s voice or being able to see them through a webcam, so that is why I made it a resolution to just call people more often. I have an Internet-based phone here, as well as Skype, so I really don’t have a good excuse not to call people more often. (If I get too annoying or boring though, please tell me and I’ll back off! Hehe)

6.    Make my blog “smarter.” My blog is like an Encyclopedia of me. If there’s anything about me that you’d like to know, just run a search on here and I’m sure you’ll find something. That said, I feel like I haven’t been doing a great job at allowing my thoughts and opinions to come through. So, I decided that this year I would try to blog more about “serious” topics, such as politics, religion, philosophy, etc. I’m always reading articles on a wide array of subjects so, coming up with things to blog about shouldn’t be an issue. I’d also like to do more music, book, food reviews, etc. The sky’s the limit, right? I have a feeling that I’ll be a lot busier this year than I was last year, which may not allow me to blog as much, but we’ll see. The truth is, blogging has become a very enjoyable hobby of mine, so unless something completely life-altering happens to me, I’m not likely to stop anytime soon.