2010 Goals

I was making a list of goals for 2010, and aside from the obvious ones that I make every year (procrastinate less, floss daily, get in a little better shape, write a page of fiction a day), I've got three new big ones. Four, I guess, if you count improving Spanish. But this year, I want to get better at guitar. "Good" may be out of reach, but perhaps "mediocre" or "decent" could be achieved. I've made a couple of stabs at it in the past, figuring it would be a somewhat natural step up from the bass, but never made it to the point where I'd acquired callouses that would allow me to practice regularly. I'd play a bunch, then my fingers would blister, and after the requisite couple of days off, I would forget about the guitar. This time, I've had two advantages - a quality roommate with a quality guitar (a tip of my cheapo hipster hat to Ian!) and loads of free time. Not much money, friends, or general entertainment options to distract me here! Once I got to the point where I could play regularly, I found that I rather enjoyed it. Make no mistake, I am still pretty bad, but improvement is coming slowly.

So my goals for 2010 include practicing an average of half an hour a day - 3.5 hours per week. Then I saw something online that reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's rule of thumb for the amount of time needed to become an "expert" at something (from Outliers, I think. I haven't read it). At this rate, I'll only need 55 years to become a master (i.e., the Beatles at the start of their breakout period)! I've ramped up my goal to an hour a day, so that I can shred like a master at the tender young at of 52.

But hey, Christopher Lee is recording a "symphonic metal" concept album about the life of Charlemagne and he's 87.

The second new(ish) goal this year is to get my motorcycle license. It's been on my list of Things to Do by the Time I'm 25 for a while, so it's date is coming due. The only other real holdover was Write A Book, which I did, sort of, this year when I finished a 70-page poetry collection for a submission to a competition for never-published Latino poets. You can read some excerpts in my poetry/fiction blog! (Also, big thanks to Dorcinda, for posting it for me). I've included the goal of buying a motorcycle, but given the fact that I'll like arrive back stateside with $500 and no job, that may not be realistic. But I've been researching motorcycles (and how to ride/maintain them) online, and I'm encouraged to find several well-reviewed brand-new models for under $5,000, and three around $3,000. Still, since my car went kaput while I was in Spain, I'll need some form of transportation.

The third new goal is also something of a budget problem, but I want to attend a fairly prestigious writing workshop with the goal of getting a good teacher recommendation. I'm on the fence about applying to grad school for an MFA in Fiction, but I'd like to have the option open. I know that, money-wise, it's not a good investment, but I feel stuck in my lack of career given the economic collapse in general and the newspaper crash in particular. My plan, if you can even call it that at this point, is to research the prestigious programs that are free or include tuition-canceling teaching positions and apply only to those. Of course, those are really hard to get into, and even with a good recommendation, I might strike out on all of them. And even if I get it, it probably won't magically get me a book deal, but it will open up doors for teaching, give me some contacts, and some new friends to make up for the steady stream of the ones who move away. Plus I'll be forced to write more regularly.

But who knows, maybe the NYPD thing will work out and I'll be patrolling the streets of New York in a year.