Evaluating my goals for 2015

At the beginning of 2015, I share my list of goals for the year with you, and now it’s time to see how much I’ve failed again at all my ambitious goals…

To my defense, I’m still on a heavy teaching schedule of 3 courses per semester, while I expected to get course load reduction because of my research efforts. Instead, I had to prepare yet another new course in the Fall semester, and that particular course robbed me of my life. Last Fall was the hardest semester in my life as a professor so far, together with Spring 2014, when I just started teaching and had to set up 3 new courses. Moreover, I’ve had some family stress and health issues and other setbacks, so it wasn’t all sparkles and papers.

So, let’s see how I did with my goals:

1. Try a month of writing from 6am to 8am

Didn’t happen in 2014 nor in 2015… I prefer to work out first thing in the morning and then write.

2. Submit 6 journal papers for review

I’ve submitted 5 papers for review (or better: 4, of which 1 got rejected and I resubmitted elsewhere). I’m hoping to finish another one by the end of the year, I worked on the reviews of 2 papers that then got accepted and I have 3 papers in progress at different stages of the writing process. I also had 5 papers published this year. Not too bad, but I was hoping for more – because I am behind on writing. I currently have material for 10 more manuscripts that I need to push out (not all of them equally fleshed out yet), but my heavy teaching schedule prohibits me to spend more time on this.

3. Meditate daily

I used coach.me (the former Lift) to track my progress, and I meditated about one day out of 3. I’m hoping to make this a more consistent habit next year.

4. Work through the Dotzauer books for cello

I’ve been playing a lot of music this year, so in that regard it has been a very good year. We’re in 3 CD recording projects, and I’m involved with 5 different musical projects. However, practicing for concerts and recordings made me fall back a bit on my technical practice. I’m halfway the 2nd book of Dotzauer, so books 3 and 4 and the rest of book 2 will be for 2016.

5. Write 80 poems and bundle the 20 best

I managed about 60 poems, so I hope to make my selection in April next year.

6. Draw 7 mandalas

I think I managed two or three. Meh.

7. Go without refined sugar for 40 days

It didn’t happen and I don’t think it will happen.

8. Revisit the Silva meditation technique

I got to chapter 2, and then I didn’t make any progress anymore.

9. Get a tattoo
Nope, needles are still too scary.

10. Visit the Galapagos Islands

I’ve been in Ecuador for 2,5 years now and I haven’t made it to the jungle nor to the Galapagos…

11. Buy a house

Current goal is to buy a plot of land, but it looks like Ecuador is headed for a major crisis in 2016 so we’ll have to sit and wait.

12. Write a grant proposal

Yes! I got a Chancellor’s grant!

13. Write a book

Didn’t happen….

14. Read 40 books

I read a few lengthier, harder books, but also a decent amount of pulp. I didn’t even make a page of progress on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

15. Improve my Spanish

Yes! I’ve been working on the intermediate Spanish coursebooks that I have, but I haven’t finished them yet.