My schedule for the next four years will be more intense than the past three. Weekends will be a thing of the past. I will publish articles, present at conferences, and head special interest groups. I will purchase a new computer and release textbooks and ebooks in addition to writing for my professional blog, neurolingual. I will have business cards made, move back to Tokyo, and succeed in being more social. I will spend my free hours developing my finances, mind, and body.

I will do this by making small changes to my lifestyle. Gradually, I will become the person I aspire to be – instead of the person I am. Those lower level processes, the firmware in my system, may not change, but my current condition, the operating system and associated software, are due for an upgrade.

An area where I would like to insure that I do not fall behind is in continuing my studies of linguistics, neuroscience, and languages. Following my failure to learn much of any of the four languages I intended to learn last year, I think I will take the opportunity innate to being in Japan – and focus my Japanese studies. A couple of other things that I feel should be here are to start blogging regularly and to run regularly. Further, I have added the obligatory ‘pile of shame’ clause.

With these points in mind, I present my updated list of Q1 resolutions.

First Quarter Resolutions (1 January ~ 31 March)

• Send a thoughtful message to at least three Facebook friends daily.
• Work towards the completion of academic articles and a textbook mornly.
• Write at least one blog on any of my blogs post each weekdaily.
• Study Japanese for at least one hour daily; focus on medical vocabulary.
• Follow a training schedule; finish the Tokyo Marathon in under four hours.
• Do not buy any books or video games until those I own have been cleared.
• Save money in order to move at the end of March.
• Smile more.

Some of my resolutions will begin sooner than the end of the year. I usually start them on my birthday, but there are some for which I cannot wait another monthsome. Yes, I just created the word monthsome. I learned that Shakespeare created over 1700 common words in his works. As a linguist, I feel that I have every right to create a few of my own. They will be included in the dictionary section of this website.

• Cook a pizza and invite people to eat with me weekly. Learn to make a new cocktail daily.
• Send a thoughtful message to at least one Facebook friend daily.
• Save money and return to Shibuya at the end of March.
• Smile more.
• Work towards the completion of academic articles and a textbook mornly.
• Live, musically, fifty years in the past. All music should have been released before the date in 1962. Purchase a record player and use vinyl whenever possible.

Facebook has an interesting way of reminding me of my past at, perhaps, just the right moments. Earlier this week, whilst battling these troubling thoughts, Facebook decided it was time to remind me of 2009 via pictures in my galleries from the time. I had recently moved to Shibuya and was enjoying meeting new people, attending friends DJ events, and having an overall good time. Deep friendships were few then as well, but there were more than today. People actually called me at times. Those were some of the best times I have had in Japan.

While paying for graduate school and moving to Takao to save money, I find that I have become somewhat antisocial. I attend events on occasion, but I do not seek them out. I rarely create my own events, and when I do they are limited to the mountain climbing variety. Moving to Takao has made my difficult schedule an excruciating one. I leave work and social events early to get to the grocery store before it closes at 11pm. Takao is a nice town, but it is not where I want to be anymore.

I have written numerous times about my goals for the future, but seem to have left out the social aspect entirely. I assumed that a social life would simply fall into place. I was wrong. While I will remain financially crippled until the end of the year, I am considering making most or all of my New Year’s Resolutions pertain to social aspects of life. This is going to cost quite a bit of money and that could end up delaying or modifying my trip, but I cannot continue denying myself a social life so that I can travel for an extended period of time as soon as possible. My trip will certainly remain a goal, but one which is equal to my other goals, instead of being seen as the final goal toward which all energies must be channeled.

Will I move out of Tokyo? That really depends on the job market for next year. My hope, though, is to move back to Shibuya – and to start living again. Sleep, work, sleep will not work for me any longer.

1. I want to be recognized as the producer something of worth.
2. I want to remain healthy and become physically elite.
3. I want to be unencumbered with unwanted obligations.
4. I want to be disciplined in all of my pursuits.

It is really the discipline that can hold the rest of my goals together. It is due to this that I need to motivate myself to stick to the schedules that I create. I have decided to change my daily schedule in a number of ways. The most significant changes are going to sleep by 23:30, waking up by 3:00, and exchanging dinner for breakfast. I will be consistent; weekends will be times to play hard rather than sleep in. Making these changes will allow me to better stick to my goal of remaining healthy as well. It should also make me more productive as I do my best work in the morning. Due to the April 2014 start to my sabbatical, it is also important that I have a more defined schedule for the completion of my goals between now and then.

My goals will be updated in the life plan later today, but I will mention some of them here. Most urgent is my need to find alternate full-time employment. Most of the positions for which I would like to apply require application by sometime this month. I intend to assemble the necessary materials and send out applications by the end of next week. Next, I hope to finish my book on technology and language education by the end of the year. I have allotted between two and three hours each morning for working toward this goal. Next year, I will work on writing and getting no less than three textbooks published. As a result, learning to code will be pushed back to 2013. I will also seek to have at least four academic publications each year until my sabbatical. I hope to have two by the end of this year.

Now for a bit of miscellany. Planning for my trip will also be a substantial investment. It will be ongoing for the next two years. It would be ideal to find someone willing to come with me on the trip. I would like to be more social. No more RSS; it sucks too much time. PhD does not begin for at least five years. Look to the life plan for a much more detailed outline of my goals for the next two years. It will be updated tonight, 2 September 2011.

My marathon training has been off to a rocky start. I pulled a hamstring, was impeded by rain, and today simply overslept. Yesterday, I added the 10th anniversary concert of a-nation for Life. There were a lot of big artists playing, like Ayumi Hamasaki, Koda Kumi, and X Japan. It was a great time! You can check out a photo slideshow at Natalie.mu. You may understand why I was quite tired after the show, causing my inability to climb Mount Takao today. I have rescheduled it for next week. I also just scheduled my September trip up Mount Fuji. Should be a good time as well. These should get me on track to finish my climbing goals for the year as well – as long as I keep it up.

Tomorrow, fall term begins. My quasi-vacation (or working only full time) has come to an end. I am looking forward to meeting my new students, preparing for my trip, and squeezing in time for a number of other projects. I had planned to get up at 5 a.m. every morning. I highly doubt that will happen. Tomorrow, I get up at 3:30 a.m. Sweet dreams.

My training schedule is part Advanced Marathoning, part The Four Hour Body, and part Henry. After the first two weeks, the majority of the schedule is from AM. The cross training has been simplified by me because I do not have much equipment. The first two weeks, some general strategies, and some specific techniques are inspired by 4HB. One thing mentioned is to get a portable metronome and try to run at 90 bpm per leg. I found Reztronics, a website with metronome mp3 files, that I plan to use instead.

Tomorrow begins a pretty grueling fourteen week training schedule. Wish me luck!

I know that the Macbook Air was just updated. There are reports that it is just as powerful as the MBP from last year, which is roughly 2^4 times (16 times) as powerful as this computer. I think I will wait until the next MBA refresh and pick one of them up – unless the iPad 3 or iPad 4 are looking like devices that could be used without another computer. In that case, I may just use this one for working until it dies and just take the latest iPad with me.

This is a decision for next year or, perhaps, the year after that. Nevertheless, this computer feels so out of date. Using it is causing me some cognitive dissonance.

Two and a half more years will be spent in Japan. This is a year sooner than I had previously planned, but I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with the country and need to get away for a time. I do not fault the country or anyone here, but I simply have no more delusions about the innate greatness of all things Japanese. Staying in one place does not appear to be in my genetic profile either; it grates on me rather quickly and once it starts it does not stop.

In any case, my tentative date of departure is the summer of 2014. I will take the bullet train to Kagoshima that April, and begin my bicycle trip to Portugal. Those interested are able to see my plans at A Knight Errant. That blog will be updated more regularly now that I have more time. As I will be visiting over sixty countries during the trip, I plan to profile at least two of them each month. Any suggestions, and select companions, would be quite welcome.

I expect the trip to last roughly two years, leaving me with a rough completion date of mid-2016. In all honesty, I plan to have a sustaining income by this point due to book sales or other projects. While saving money for the trip over the next two and a half years, it is these projects that I will work on. My goal is to be able to arrive in Portugal, rent an apartment near the coast, and plan another bicycle trip throughout Africa. And then the Americas.

The PhD that I would like to pursue in neuroscience, particularly in nanotechnology applications in neurocybernetics, could come as soon as 2016. Perhaps I will feel the draw to academia sooner than I expect. Perhaps it will never come. What matters is the technology to do the research I wish to perform does not yet exist and I have the autonomy to learn and enrich myself without a degree granting institution telling me what I have already read.

I will leave you with an update on my 2011 resolutions on a scale from zero to five.

• Mountain climbing – zero. Takao next week. Fuji next month. Need more.
• Languages – one. Learned a bit of Danish, but need to get back to Italian.
• Breakfast – one. Skipped almost daily now.
• Exercise – two. Just started after a long break.
• Reading books – two. Getting back into it over summer vacation.
• Drink only tea, water, and coffee – three. Too many energy drinks recently.
• Writing books – three. One submitted to the publisher. Two more in the works.
• No politics – three. It is everywhere. I am just trying to not care.
• Dishes – four. I try to wash them when they get dirty.
• Salt – four. Apparently, salt is not as bad as it seems. Still keeping it low.
• No eating out, take out, or delivery alone – four. A few minor slips.
• Budget – five. I stick to it because I must.
• iTunes limit – five. I have just about all of the apps I need at the moment.
• Academic articles – five. I have read enough for the year.

• Mountain climbing – horrible, none thus far. Not even Takao.
• Reading books – poor. This will not improve until school ends in August.
• Languages – poor. I switched to Italian and still have not picked much up. Like with reading, this will have to wait until school ends.
• Breakfast – poor. I eat breakfast about twice per week. This is primarily due to financial reasons, so should improve near the end of the year.
• Writing books – average. I have been asked to co-author one textbook and am working on another of my own design. More when school ends.
• No politics – average. I still have Bill Maher, but have cut out Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Things get brought up at work as well.
• Dishes – average. I packed away a lot of things that I do not need. Having one plate makes it easier to wash one when you need one.
• Salt – good. Cooking my own food has allowed me to keep this at below the recommended amount for most people.
• Drink only tea, water, and coffee – good. Aside from the occasional alcoholic beverage, I stick to it.
• Exercise – good. Just started running again and doing about 20 km per week at the moment. I plan to run the Kawaguchiko Marathon again this year, in preparation for my one marathon per week goal for next year.
• Academic articles – excellent. I am quite a bit ahead of my goal. I am also reading some that are not school-related.
• No eating out, take out, or delivery alone – excellent. I cook just about every meal. I occasionally eat out at Jonathan’s for breakfast.
• Budget – excellent. I have a budget, albeit one that I do not particularly love, and stick to it. (Track finances – discontinued.)
• iTunes limit – excellent. This is due more to financial constraints than personal constraint. Still, I do not buy many apps these days.

This is definitely a significant improvement from earlier this year. Things in my life have been better in general over the past couple months. I have been sleeping less and getting a lot more done. I am on schedule to graduate in October and have less than two months of classes left. I have given multiple professional development presentations and intend on giving more later in the year. Being asked to co-author a textbook was another high point.

Things are going quite well. I know that the next couple months will be stressful, but I am doing what I can now to mitigate factors that would contribute to that stress. I still have not answered the question of why I do all of this – why I have all of these goals. I just know that I would get bored if I did not have them. There is also the issue of love and family that all of these plans ignore, but are often in my mind. Perhaps some enlightenment awaits in August or October – or December.