Every year, I try to set up some resolutions for myself to follow for the new year. They're usually pretty large goals that can take the entire year to accomplish. However, one of my biggest issues is setting too many of these goals, thus stretching myself thin. Furthermore, as I progress throughout the year, I find myself losing track of where I stand on those resolutions, and thus fail for the year.
So, this year, I'm going to set myself up with goals that are focused, simple, and are easy to progress into the next few years. I don't see myself guaranteeing absolute accomplishment of these goals, but I want to be able to help motivate myself into furthering myself with them throughout the span of multiple years.
With that in mind, here are my goals for 2018!
Travel more
I'm fascinated by the wonders of this world, and there are so many places I have yet to truly explore. I've only ventured out of the United States a handful of times. I've traveled to England, Denmark, and South Korea (although, I don't count that last one since I was two or three years old when I was over there). This year, I want to travel to the other side of the world: specifically Japan and Korea. I have been immersed in Asian culture for most of my life, and it's time for me to see the origins with my own eyes. I'm planning on traveling to Japan with some friends during Hanami, which will be an incredible sight to see.
Sakura trees are a sight to behold.
Later in the year, I want to travel to Korea to visit my mother's side of the family. My aunts and one of my cousins came to America for the first time last year, and it was fascinating talking to them about the cultural differences between the two countries. It's an alluring country that I've only seen digitally (and with the incredibly minute memories I had as a small kid), and I want to immerse myself in it. Plus, who knows, maybe I'll see my favorite Korean idol, 아이유 (IU)?
I'll find her and say hi to her one day. 👋
This leads into my next goal for 2018:
Revisit Korean
When I was in college, I took two courses on Korean. At the time, I had a relatively simple vocabulary bank with an understanding of present, past, and future tense. Ever since my Korean family came into town, I've been motivated to continue my studies on the Korean language. One of my overall goals in life is to be fluent in English, Korean, and Japanese. So, I'm going to continue where I left off from college, build up my vocabulary, and talk more with my mother in Korean. I'm also going to invest more time into watching Korean dramas because, let's be honest, they're a great way to understand the rhythmic nature of speaking, regardless of how realistic or not a drama may be. By the time I (hopefully) travel to Korea, I want to be able to hold basic conversations with my family without having to consult my mom or Google Translate all the time.
Cook more food, lose more weight
Last year, I got my wisdom teeth removed and was forced to be on a liquid diet for a week. During that time, I had lost over five pounds simply by removing myself from carb-heavy foods. Granted, this is a fairly unhealthy way to lose weight, but it gave me motivation to try and maintain this now-sort-of-better-accepted weight. I want to continue this decline in weight to a point where I feel happy, healthy, and confident with my physique. The current goal is set to 15 pounds, which is easily doable if I could lose five of them in a mere week!
I also succumbed to eating out way too much last year. This year, I'm going to cook more in an effort to save money, eat healthier, and increase my knowledge on how to cook foods together. My inspiration also comes from an anime called Shokugeki no Soma (Food Wars), which is (as you might expect) a show about cooking battles. The manga has several recipes in the back which I'd love to try out!
And lastly,
Study for grad school
This has been something that's lingered in the back of mind for a while, and I think now is the time that I start really focusing my attention to this. I've been wanting to further my knowledge on computer science for a while, specifically on security. As the world continues to wrap itself around the idea of digital-first, cybersecurity has become an increasingly prominent issue, especially last year. To Equifax having over 100 million user's personal data leaked, to Yahoo's whopping three billion accounts hacked (with _still_ no retrospective on how that happened), the world has shifted to cyberattacks as a mechanism of terror. In order to prevent this, understanding the best practices, learning how malicious hackers uncover these loopholes, and preventing history from repeating itself is imperative. It's a topic I've always been interested in, and while I might not ever indulge myself into become a network security engineer, I would love to further my knowledge on the topic.
That's it for 2018. These are simple, trackable goals that I can see myself starting now and continuing throughout the course of my life. Here's to growing as a human and making this life even more meaningful, one day after another.
As per tradition from my old blog, I'll leave you with music that'll make your Saturday upbeat, jazzy, and plain fun. This song is called "Heaven (Norihiko Hibino Remix), and it comes from the game Persona 4 Dancing All Night. Get funky.
Cheers,
Corey
