Looking at 2011

Since this is the last Friday of 2011, I thought today would be fitting for me to look at my recap of the year. 

All in all, I think it went well. Even though I didn't get to all my New Year's guidelines, I thought I could take stop by copy pasting that portion of my very first TCoML post. My comments are in red. 



I want to finish my first rewrite of Doorways by the end of April or the middle of May. 
Done. On 25 April.

I want to do this while working. 
I did that. 

Good to know I at least managed my first two guidelines. I usually don't get that far. 

I want to be back to fluency in French. 
Cough cough. Not yet. Really should start working on that. 

Cough cough HACK cough. 

I want to revise and study Mandarin. 
Same here. Picking up French will be much easier. 

Hack hack cough cough. 

I want to speak Italian at at least a moderate level by next January. 
Probably should start this first, as I don't speak any Italian. At all. 

Uhm... yeah... seems 2011 was a linguistically challenged one. 

I want to have written at least half of Guardian by December, but this is of lower Priority, since...
Good goal, this. I just need to find the character again. And her voice. And her story. I haven't touched Guardian since January.

Never did get to this, but I did finish another book and do half of a third, so I'm not too fussed. Thankfully, only the rewrite to the former was lost permanently. 

I want to start querying Doorways by next year. 

I'm planning to start edits in May, which might make writing Guardian a bit more difficult. 

Optimism. Sheer optimism. 

I want to get back to stabbing people for fun. (For those of you that don't know. I'm not completely psycho. I fence.)
Really still want to do this. But this time slot was taken up by singing. Singing might become something serious, like... a ticket to the stage. 

And so it was. 

I want to be back on my healthy lifestyle by the beginning of February. 
Failed miserably at this. Only getting to it now. 

I did get the hang of it around October. 

I want to stay on that lifestyle indefinitely. Or at least until December. ;-P
Let's get to the lifestyle first. 

It lasted until Christmas. Hey! I'm new to the lifestyle thing. 

I want to finish my degree and get completely out of the previous phase of my life, since this year will pretty much be spent in limbo. 
Amen.

And Hallelujah!

I want to make a stronger commitment to God. 
Amen.

I do think my commitment is stronger, even if it was a lot harder work than before. Maybe God made my life a little more complicated so that I could cling to Him more. 

I might or might not want to read the complete works of Shakespeare... 
I might want to start reading again. Period. 

And I did, but still no Shakespeare. 

It's interesting to look at my goals like this, because it does pretty well to show what I achieved in 2011. Maybe it was a small portion of what I wanted to do, but what I did achieve was important to where my life is headed. The time of those things that I didn't succeed in was spent on other very important events. Such as my singing, so I won't complain. 

I'm going to do next year's goals on MFB, so if you're interested, please go check it out and let me know what you think. 

Now, let me just say: Thank you one and all for coming to TCoML and supporting me on this my first year of the rest of my life. I truly appreciated your love, advice, sympathy and support through the best and worst times of the year. I pray that God will bless every single one of you and that you will find as much meaning in 2012 as I did in this year. 

Stay safe and I'll see you in the New Year!