2016 Goals

Now birthday season is long out of the way, it is time to set myself some goals for the year ahead.  Or the next 11 months anyway.

I’m never sure this is the most exciting post ever, but I like posting it so there.

Lifestyle

Lose Weight – My original plan was to get down to 87kg last year, then 83kg this year.  Given that I failed, I’m amending this to 85kg this year (I’m currently 91kg as of writing).

36 Day Detox – I’m upping it by 5 days this year (in effect an extra weekend, eeek!) and including processed meat such as bacon and sausages.  It started on 27th January.

Get On My Bike, More – I’m aiming to be able to cycle 12km in a single stint by the end of the year.  I can currently manage 6km.  I will be going for a ride most weekends that I’m not partying, and some evenings when it is light.

Vegetarian Day – I have cut down the amount of meat I eat – not for any other reason than trying to manage my calorie intake.  However I still always eat meat every day so I am going to go one day without eating any meat to see what happens – this does not include those days post-nightclub where I am too fucked to eat.

Pie Day – You can work this one out for yourself.

Living

2 New Countries – If I go to 2 new countries a year for the rest of my life, I will have been to a fair proportion of the planet.  I’d particularly like to go to Romania and Switzerland this year, but I’m not too fussy over the exact countries.  Dipping my toe into Scandinavia appeals, as does Athens.

1 Party Holiday – The obvious choice will always be Ibiza and assuming I can find appropriate dancing partners then this is likely to happen.  Alternatively maybe a festival abroad such as Sunwaves, or if I don’t do Ibiza, then book Mexico next January for BPM.

1 UK Adventure.  There are still some areas of the UK that are unexplored for me.  Cambridge and Brighton being two examples of places that I really should have been to.  Others such as Newcastle, Liverpool and Bristol I have been to, but to a very limited extent.  I live in a fantastic country and I want to explore more of it.

Cricket – I want to go to a new cricket ground, and also to watch a 20/20 game live.

Castles, museums and country houses – I want to visit at least one countryside-based grand house, and one London-based museum, or similar cultural experience.

See Ricardo Villalobos.  It is my only must-do clubbing adventure.

Go clubbing 6 times.  Not fussed where nor who to see.

Fabric birthday.  Best party of the year.

Learning

Free Code Camp – There is a really good website which is helping me practice my coding skills.  I want to be at least close to completing the Front End certification by the end of the year – say 2/3rds done.  Given that the certificate takes an estimated 800 hours, this is quite some objective!

JavaScript – I particularly want to focus on learning JavaScript this year, and try to get more of a handle on it.  It really is very difficult to learn.

SASS, PHP, Angular, React & CSS Animations are other languages/areas of web development that I would like to at least like to start learning.

Portfolio – I must have a portfolio of a few websites very shortly.

Become 100% fluent in Spanish.  According to the app that I use, anyway.  Duolingo reckons that I am 41% fluent right now.  I can read it pretty well but speaking and listening are so much more difficult.

Cooking – I want to get another cookbook from another country, and also expand my knowledge of salads.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Learn About Music – At some future point when I am not spending huge amounts of time studying web development, I would like to learn how to make music.  My goal for this year, is just to do some little thing about it.

Literary

Blog Refresh – I aim to refresh all of my blogs, giving them a slightly different feel at the very least., with the exception of the recently-launched blogs.

Top Tunes Blog – This I aim to professionalise.  Unfortunately what I want to do costs a bit of money so I keep putting it off.

Weather Forecasting – I’m currently close to 2,400 readers on my weather forecasting page.  I want to reach 3,500 by the end of the year and also I intend on starting a new weather project via a new website I am soon going to be building.

Ubereadoolische – This is being relaunched soon with a more modern look – it is also written in Drupal, which is a content management system that I wanted to learn.

Roast Dinners Around Reading – This finishes this year and I want to go out in style.

New blogs – I have ideas for new blogs, and I want at least one of them to replace Roast Dinners Around Reading.

Discard blogs – Some old blogs have to be disposed of.  Time is short.

Lavishments

Technics – I will be buying a pair this year, along with CDJ stands and some decent headphones that I will not let anyone borrow (ie steal) ever again.

Supermarket Slut – I want to test out all the major supermarkets to see if there is anywhere else that I prefer to Sainsburys.

Life

Get out of Bracknell – Pretty self-explanatory.

Get a job – There is some uncertainty as to how long I will have this current job, so at some point I will need to start looking for another.  Ideally as a junior web developer, but the money would be low to start, very low, so maybe as a senior credit controller if I can find something interesting.

Laugh more – Quite simply I want to enjoy life more and I want to be happier.  Therefore I must laugh more.  Even if it is just a daily belly-laugh to weird out my colleagues.