2017 was a very full year. It seemed like I had something going on every weekend, which is not my normal way of living, but it worked out. We have my work-from-home job to thank for this. Had I not had the weekdays as my private downtime, I would have surely collapsed by now. I expect 2018 will be similar. I am living my fullest, and in some ways most surprising life. Why stop now? With that, here are some goals on my mind as I start the new year.
Spanish
I started a “10-year” plan in 2015, which makes 2018 the third year, or as I usually put it, this is now the eight-year plan. The point of the plan is to become fluent in Spanish and start doing a job that I feel passionate about that involves the language. The biggest goal I have this year taking the DELE C1 exam. Passing this exam certifies that I have professional proficiency in the language. That means this year I’m going to try to take in lots of vocabulary, read a lot, and work on expressing myself more precisely and with a wider range of vocabulary. These are some of my plans:
- Continue weekly lessons with my Spanish tutor. In the spring, I started working with a tutor via Live Lingua, and she has helped me a lot in getting better at expressing myself.
- Increase vocabulary by about 100 words per week. I take a lot of words from what I read but I am also planning to use Spanish Vocabulary an Etymological Approach.
- Read eight books in Spanish, or 100 pages per week, whichever it shakes out to.
- Watch a movie or a couple of episodes of a TV show in Spanish each week.
- Call a roller derby game in Spanish. I surprised myself by doing a bilingual call for two games at WFTDA Playoffs in Seattle. I would do it again, given the chance.
Icelandic
Oh, Icelandic, you wild and crazy language. Earlier in the year, I felt like I was making some good progress, but things dropped off this summer when my tutor had to take a hiatus and I was left to my own devices. I stopped working on Icelandic for a while and decided to focus my attention on Spanish, but I’m not out of the Icelandic game yet. My goal for this year is to be consistent, even if I only do a little bit every day. I know I’m not going to get too deep since this is going to be a big year for studying Spanish, but I don’t want to lose everything I have learned. I’m planning to keep reviewing vocabulary on Memrise and Clozemaster and I hope I can start taking lessons again before too long.
Athletics
This year I became an athlete. I competed in my first Strongman competition in Santa Cruz, and I won in the novice women’s category (by defeating one other woman). I played roller derby on our B team, which felt great. I’m hoping for more of all that in 2018. I have plans to compete in another strength competition in April. I’m already prepping for derby tryouts (which are in just three weeks. yikes.) by skating outside and re-adjusting to life on wheels. I expect that it will be harder to make the B team this year because both of Sacramento’s derby leagues are merging, resulting in more skaters. That said, I’m feeling confident. I gained a lot of skill and strength last year.
Also derby related if not specifically athletic, I am planning to continue announcing this year and I’m going to start coaching our C team. Last year I was lucky enough to announce at a tournament, at RollerCon and at WFTDA playoffs. I’m hoping to do all that again this year because it was so fun. I also want to spread the good word of announcing and I’m going to work with my league to try to have some kind of announcing workshop.
Everything Else in This Life
Part of me wants to set specific goals for everything, but past a certain point, it’s better to just think about how I want to live, instead of the numbers I want to live by. One quality I developed this year was my ability to relax. I’m getting better at identifying when to stop doing things and at figuring out how to let myself rest. I want to read books that make me feel things and learn new stuff (this year I learned how to knit!). In short, I’m planning to keep on doing my thing.
