Time to start thinking about my goals for next year. After my mixed success with goal-setting for this past year, I’m going to try and make these ones as specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) as possible. Lets go!

Need to happen:

• Pass the HSK Level 5. I really want to have an official document that demonstrates my proficiency. I found this great website called Skritter to help me practice my Chinese and it’s going well so far. I’d like to sit for the Level 5 by December. Before that though, I hope to test the waters and sit for the Level 4 exam by June.
• Get at least a 720 or higher on the GMAT. I’m not sure when I’ll head back to grad school, but I eventually want to earn a joint MBA/MA. Hope I can get this out of the way by June.
• Run a half-marathon. This has been a goal for three years, and it still hasn’t happened. I’d like to run the Philly Half-Marathon next November. Before running the Half, I plan on doing a couple 5/10/15k races just to get comfortable running in a race. Relatedly, I hope to hit the gym at least once a week for strength training.
• Blog at least once a month. In addition to this blog, which will continue be mostly a log of my ongoing projects, I’m thinking about starting another blog focused on the challenges of urbanization. Hope I can get that off the ground!
• Go to mass at least once a month. I don’t think I’ll really have any problems getting this one done.

Want to happen:

• Learn Python and R. Related to my coding goals from last year, but with more focus. I’d like to be competent enough to make at least one submission on Kaggle by October.
• Dive deeper in HTML/CSS/JS. I launched a landing page earlier this fall, but quickly realized I really have no idea what I was doing. For now, that project is shelved. Hope to continue practicing by completing more modules like those on CodeAcademy or on Udemy.