“Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.” – Randy Pausch

Well, it’s almost the half-year mark in terms of my goals. What are the goals for this year? I’ve broken them down into mental and physical goals.

Mental
1. Take three chemistry classes.

To get my chemistry degree, I need seven classes total. I only have enough time to do three in one year due to being a full-time employee. So far I’m in the second Chemistry class, and am going to do the third in the fall, since I cannot do the tight schedule required for a summer session.

2. Be more normal.

What I mean by normal is being able to have some kind of common grounds with people in general. Lots of the people I know like to talk about sports, movies and/or music. So far I’ve tried having a Netflix account, and I watched around six movies which I can now barely recall what I watched, but I found myself struggling to force myself to do it, and it just didn’t work out in the end, so I canceled the subscription.

Now, I’m trying music by purchasing a Zune Pass, which lets me access pretty much almost any song/album, and that’s going a bit better. I’ve found that I like Erasure, P!nk, Lily Allen, Miley Cyrus (it seems like anything that comes out of Radio Disney, I’ll like), and The Veronicas, just to name a few. I think this will be more successful because I can do other tasks while listening to music, whereas with movies, I have to pay complete attention or I just won’t get it at all.

Physical
1. Get my teeth aligned.

As with many asians, I have crowded teeth, and have wanted to do something about it for the longest time. Now that I can actually afford it, I’ve spent money on getting Invisalign. So far, my orthodontist has installed a Rapid Palette Expander, which should expand my upper jaw, but it seems to be having issues. I’m not surprised since once you’re past 18, the suture between the two halves of your jaw fuse together, making expansion difficult without surgery. I’m thinking I’ll have to get some teeth extracted since the RPE doesn’t seem to be doing what it should be. Also, having the RPE in has left me with a slight lisp which is annoying at times when I speak to new people because it makes me sound a bit ‘off’.

Overall, this is on track, like Chemistry.

2. Use summer to engage in more physical activity.

Although I’m thin as a stick, I’m not toned, and would like to be, or at least not have a belly. I haven’t decided how this will play out, but I’m leaving the summer open for these things.

Other
1. Buy a home.

My goal is to save $50k by November, but it seems that it’s going to be $40k based on my expense rate. I’m halfway towards that goal, and spoke to a real estate agent yesterday who instructed me to be serious about looking for a place to by in August (90 days from intended purchase). After lots of evaluation, it seems that I would be living in San Jose in southern bay area, since housing is the cheapest there. I’d like to be more closer to Palo Alto, but I think that’s as good as it’s going to get.

2. Pull out a v1.0 of BlueJot by end of Summer.

Going to try my best, but it’s a low priority.

Rationale

The beginning of the year left me with trying to figure out what to do next now that I’ve established myself in my field, having a successful job, and missing school. I thought about how I’ve felt not ready for many things despite these successes, and what I can do about them.

Things I don’t feel ready for:
1. Relationships
2. Having a place I can call “Home”; a place where I can be creative and do my mad science
3. Being a mad scientist / geneticist