Mieux en Mieux

Dear Future Self,

It has been quite some time since I last wrote, but I have not felt a burning desire to write. Not a lot has changed since November, but the keyword for the past five months would simply be, “progress.” To give a little overview, I will go through the changes that have occurred in the areas that I wrote about in my last post.

French.
The French lessons are going very well. A week ago, I managed to awkwardly, but effectively, work my way through a twenty minute conversation about my first time dancing. It could have probably been a five minute conversation if the vocabulary vault in the nether regions of my mind were more accessible, but believe me when I say that it was twenty minutes of 100% focus. I have been burning out a bit on some of the tenses, so I am reviewing them all very heavily this week and I hope to thoroughly impress my teacher, come next Wednesday. On a side note, I will be going to Europe in May and will probably be passing through France along the way from Italy to Ireland, so now is the time for the last straightaway sprint in preparation for that trip.

Refugees
In the past few months, I have felt very at-home with The Welcome to America Project. I cannot think of an organization that I would rather be involved with and being engaged with them has been both a blast and a very humbling experience. I have not felt as truly useful in a very long time. I only wish that I did not live so far from the east side, which is where most of the organization and its members are located. It may very well influence my decision on where to move to once I move out (which I will talk about more later in this post). In the meantime, I am currently in training as a delivery lead and am contemplating getting involved with a couple of committees, so hopefully I can expand my usefulness to the organization.,

Dancing
In my last post, I mentioned that I was going into dancing almost full force, but I actually delayed that goal a bit. The time and distance to drive to Tempe every weekend was just too much for both my schedule and my wallet. However, in January, I began taking a Latin dance class at Paradise Valley Community College. I am not saying that I have the hips of Shakira, but I will say that it is pretty incredible what a few hours of works and a great teacher can do. Rumba is my favorite style of dance by far, but salsa and cha-cha are not far behind. I will have to figure out what my plan is for the summer, as I still think I am at the stage where I could lose most of my progress if I drop out of the scene for too long.

Soccer
This has actually been the most fun goal. Just a couple weeks ago, I started playing with a group of guys (mostly) in the east valley and getting back into the sport has been the best decision I have made in a long time. I will admit, my first week was terrible. I did not warm up and I was literally heaving, but I survived. My mind knew how to control the touches, but my feet were just not doing what my brain was telling them to do. The group of guys, who are from all over the world (mostly Iraqi and Libyan, it seems, but also a few English, Colombian, etc.), were understanding, however, and invited me back for the next week. While a lot of my skill is still gone, I have been playing decently. It is so exhilarating to be back out on the pitch.

New Goals

Fitness
Prior to starting soccer, I decided that getting into shape would be my most important goal, so I signed up at the closest gym the first week of December. After a couple days of limping around after workouts, I decided to look into getting a trainer. It was an expensive decision, but in my mind, the cost of an injury from incorrectly working out would be far greater than the cost of the trainer and the accountability and mere presence of a trainer is very beneficial. I am nowhere near Schwarzenegger status, but I am gaining muscle mass very quickly and even my uncle noticed the size of my arms the other day. If you knew my uncle, you would know that is a big deal. More importantly, all of the ailments that I had pre-December are completely gone. I feel a million times better. The looks are just a bonus, although I would be lying if I said that I don’t stand in front of the mirror, wondering what I will look like in another three months or another six months.

Piano
After three weeks of having not played the piano, I sat down at the bench two weeks ago and discovered to my horror that my right pinky would not function correctly. I literally could not play any song correctly and I could not will it into doing anything properly. After putting so much time and effort into this skill over the past ten years, this terrified me. How could I lose so much in just three weeks? In an effort to recover what I had lost, I spent two hours each day from that day forward and have since gotten back to normal, but I know I cannot let that happen again. To motivate myself, I have set a goal of learning six new Yann Tiersen songs in the next month or two to expand my repertoire to a total of twelve Tiersen pieces.

Business
In January, I started working from home for Peak Planet and it has been excellent. I can work twenty-four hours a day if I want and I can deal with clients a lot more effectively. This month has been a bit slow, which isn’t unusual for March, but January and February were excellent months. As this month has been slower, I have been able to spend a lot of time on my mosquito netting business. The new site is fully operational as of this morning, I am currently working in a dropshipping capacity for a store in Australia, and I am preparing to wire four grand to a manufacturer in China for a huge supply of mosquito netting. This will be the biggest investment yet, so I will have to make sure it pays off. I am excited to see the direction that the business is going in though.

Possible Future Goals

Painting
I have recently been feeling an urge to get back into painting, but I will have to see whether it is something I want to seriously get back into. Maybe it will be my summer past time, depending on what I do with Latin dancing.

THE BIG GOAL
Although I have been making quite a bit of progress in all of these areas, I still feel like I am stagnating a bit in one area of my life, and that is responsibility. I do not feel like an adult yet, even though I just reached the “milestone” of 21 years. I also feel little motivation to make anymore money than what I am making right now as I am able to do just about everything I want to do with straining my wallet. I think this means that it is time for me to start planning on moving out. This will be my goal for 2013. I think this is the only way that I can force myself to become a responsible adult and put myself in that sink-or-swim position. Of course, I do want to be responsible in buying a house, so in the meantime, I will be building up as much of a nest egg as possible, and hopefully this will give me enough motivation to really go full force and challenge myself financially.