My 2020 goals and plans for the blog

Welcome to my blog! This is a new venture for me, but something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I intend to use this site as a platform for self-expression and public exploration of ideas and projects. To paraphrase Seth Godin, I want to use this site to share my art with the world.

3 Goals for 2020:

  1. Finish the Chicago Marathon with a pace under 12 minutes / mile.
  2. Publish a blog post every Sunday.
  3. Complete Голоса textbook and become conversational in Russian.

Chicago Marathon

Completing a marathon has been on my bucket list for a few years, and on a whim I applied for the lottery for the Chicago Marathon and got accepted. As I’m not currently a long-distance runner, I’ll be following a 40-week training plan, going from couch-to-training plan. I’ll share the plan in a future post, as well as attempt to integrate data from my smartwatch to keep myself accountable. I’ll also use this data to try and predict my finish time.

Weekly Blog Updates

Publishing a blog post every week is simple goal to keep me accountable and active. I’ll be reviewing books I’m reading, recipes I’m experimenting with, programming / data science projects, and whatever else I find interesting. I want to get in the habit of writing and publishing regularly. Steve Jobs summed it up perfectly: “Real Artists Ship.”

Russian Fluency

Becoming conversational in Russian has perpetually been on my “Should Do” list, but hasn’t cracked the “Must Do” list. However, after completing grad school, landing a full-time job, and getting the family settled, I’m in a position to prioritize this goal. I think I’m currently at a beginner-intermediate level, and I would like to progress to full fluency.

That’s it for now! My next post will be the start of my 2020 book list which I’ll update regularly.